Success Triggers by Ramit Sethi – When

One thing I’ve been thinking about is working with music producers or collabing with other artists in producing songs that I can post to streaming services. If I want to learn more about working with other producers/artists, I could research it for two weeks. My first step is to do a simple Google or YouTube search. I’ve looked into it before, but I was just worried about not knowing the best practices. Since original music would be difficult for me to produce, I’d look into song covers where all the music would be reproduced by myself or by others. I’d like to have full rights to the track for commercial use ideally so that I don’t have to worry about sending royalties to the producers I work with. The only circumstance in which I would split royalties is if they are the ones sending me payments, so that it is automated and I don’t have to worry about doing it manually every month.

I also need to look into finding another artist or another way in creating artwork for my songs. Usually, I ask my friend Hana to do it, but she gets pretty busy and can take a while to produce artwork. If I want to release one song every month, I need to find a way to produce artwork fast. And, I need to find a reliable way to have a good song ready to upload.

Just now, I did a little research and found a producer with samples of his work. I like how his music sounds. He also offers a reasonable price for remaking instrumentals, and he gives full commercial use for it. I could try it out after finding a song that I want to sing to. And before purchasing the remake, I could try singing over instrumentals and seeing if my voice fits with the song. If it does, then I can purchase the remake. And then, I could see if the song makes money through streaming services. If I make $10 in the first month, I’d see it as a success. I’d be able to make my money back for what I spent over the next few months, and I’d have a song out. And eventually, I’d build more of an audience with having more of my music out.

I’m not sure how to decide when it’s time to continue or quit. It’d be nice to make money with music, but honestly, as long as I’m breaking even in the first year, it wouldn’t matter to me so much. I haven’t paid too much attention to how many subscribers I have or how much money I’ve made because I haven’t been taking it seriously. Maybe I could start with a small goal of reaching $100/month the first year after producing my first song with another producer. That would be a success to me because I would be doing it all “on my own”, in terms of spending my own money and putting in the effort. It’s not like I’m backed by a record label. And, I could also look into marketing my music to a wider audience. I could also try to compare the difference between my song covers and my original music (if I get to that).

I think Ramit’s concept of knowing when to think, when to act, and when to quit is really important. Most of us unconsciously waste so much time not pursuing or continuing to pursue something without realizing the consequences. For example, we might put off learning a language, and it might actually be helpful for our careers. Or, we might continue working in a job that doesn’t allow for much growth and opportunity simply because we’re tunnel-visioned. It’s important to know when something is working and when it isn’t.

For me, I’ve considered revamping my website for another purpose other than.a blog. The reason I kept my blog is because I haven’t yet “figured out” what purpose I could use my website for. If I did more music, I’d showcase my music here. But since I don’t have a real purpose, I ended up leaving my blog. And now, I don’t expect to really make money off my blog because I haven’t looked deep into monetizing it. But now, I just kind of have my blog as a hobby, for when I feel like writing. If it were for making money, I would have definitely scratched the idea of a blog a long time ago and would have repurposed it.