It’s Harder Than It Looks…

I (John) think most of us want to live a life of purpose and meaning. What provides one person meaning and purpose might be very different than for another person, and that is why we take vastly different paths in life.

Nevertheless, many of our day-TO-DAY ACTIONS ARE DIRECTED TOWARD activities that create meaning and provide a sense of purpose. And much of human unhappiness results from a lack of meaning and purpose.

That said, I am questioning how effective it is to try to find or create meaning and purpose when it comes to the idea of having a career.

the best way to find meaning and purpose is JUST TO be more awake.

Awake enough to listen to yourself and follow your intrinsic interests.  

Keep Your EYes On Success…

I once had a “career” (or should I say it once had me?). the primary meaning and purpose I derived from that career was the money that came along with it.

Otherwise, I would have skipped it. Honestly.

Sure, it had some benefits beyond the money, and I can point to valid reasons why I thought it would be a career that would provide meaning and purpose, but the reality of the career did not live up to what I imagined it would be.

Early on in this career, craving more meaning and purpose in my work and spurred on by an idea I took from The 7 Habits Of Effective People training, I developed a conceptual framework for how to find and pursue a career of meaning and purpose. This was around 1998.

My career framework had 4 circles that represented your skills, interests, values, and job market opportunities. I drew the circles into a Venn Diagram, and the key was to find and do the type of work where all 4 circles overlap with each other. At the time, I called the model “Eye on Success” because of the eye shape that formed where the 4 circles overlap in the venN diagram. The framework is very similar to what is now called Ikigai.

Looking back at my corporate career, I did a pretty good job of following my advice. There were plentiful and good job market opportunities. I developed the necessary skills and had some innate abilities, too. And overall, I had an interest in what I thought the work would be.

When there was a conflict, IT WAS BECAUSE THE JOBS I HELD REQUIRED ME TO DO THINGS THAT I FELT WERE A VIOLATION OF MY VALUES or that I had little interest in doing. Granted, this is probably the case in any field. In any career pursuit, there will be stuff you don’t want to do, but you must do to continue to be “employed” or get a paycheck.

Post-FIRE Career Blues

Have I followed this career framework Post-FIRE, too?

No, I don’t think so.

If I were following my earlier career advice, I would FIND a lot more traditional measures of success than I am now.

Our society’s culture promotes instrumental reasoning for evaluating success. It’s more complicated, but to simplify the concept, instrumental reasoning proposes that you do x in order to get y. You hear this all the time when people talk about getting a college education in order to get a better-paying job. It is the Idea of only doing something because of the percEIved benefit(s) that flow from that action. ThIS PERSPECTIVE IS VALID, but it is TYRANNICAL, too. Because of the value we place on instrumental reasoning, you will begin to question yourself if you set out to do something and find you are not achieving the success measures society promotes.

Achieving FIRE does not make you immune to this, either, and lately, I have found myself questioning my choices as a result.

Post-FIRE, I had it in mind that my “encore career” would primarily be as a musician, particularly a singer-songwriter, performer, and member of a band.

But pursuing music as a career is out of alignment with the career model advice I developed in the late 90’s.

Why do I make this claim?

Don’t I have an interest in writing and performing songs? Absolutely; we can check that circle.

Doesn’t pursuing a MUSIC CAREER fit my values? I think so, at least partially and in important ways. I love being creative and have intrinsic motivation to keep trying to write better songs, and I want to share them with others through recordings and live performances. However, the more I have learned about the “business” side of music, the less alignment I perceive. It’s pretty ugly.

Do I have the necessary skills (including natural abilities) to pursue a MUSIC CAREER? Honestly, I barely feel qualified at all. AT BEST, I AM A FOLK ARTIST AND LACK several skills that many other musicians possess in abundance.

There are bright spots, though. I am inventive, creative, and able to come up with unique compositions. My melodic skills have been praised, and I have been told my songs are “catchy,” which is good. My singing can be hit or miss, but I have also received very positive feedback on it. And I can typically make interesting musical sounds on just about any instrument I pick up. Therefore, yes, I guess I have the basic skills.

However, This makes me feel like an imposter, too, because having rudimentary musical skills is very different compared to someone who has devoted most of their life mastering their instruments and honing their performative and songwriting skills.

But you have to start somewhere and build skills from there. Therefore, I continue to challenge myself to grow as a composer and musician. In time, perhaps some of these limitations will be overcome.

Therefore, I believe for the first 2 circles in the model, I am mostly aligned WITH PURSUing music as a career. I will also continue to grow and develop in the 3rd circle of skills because I have the motivation to do so.

it’s the last circle, job market opportunities, where I am deviating the most.

“job market” opportunities for a musician and songwriter are minuscule, and the competition is fierce for what does exist.

Thought of as a career, music is a lot like other “tournament” career fields. Professional sports is a great example of this.

In a golf tournament, THERE IS ONLY ONE WINNER, and they are rewarded about 25% of the available prize money. If you don’t qualify for one of the top 75 spots in a tournament, you typically get about $4,000, which doesn’t even cover own travel and tournament expenses.

It has been reported that only 1 in every 120,000 golfers CAN make a “great” living by playing in tournaments. About 1 in every 52,000 golfers may qualify for PGA-level tournaments, but most of them must offer lessons or pursue other side hustles to cobble together a living salary.

It's perhaps “easier” to make above a subsistence income in the field of music. But I wonder how many people who are passionate about music CAN do this? I don’t think it is a big stretch to say that a minimum-WAGE JOB WOULD BRING IN MORE MONEY THAN MOST ARTISTS CAN MAKE FROM PURSUING THEIR PASSION FOR music as a career.

The very serious and professional-LEVEL MUSICIANS I KNOW ALL COBBLE TOGETHER MULTIPLE MONEY-making opportunities to make ends meet. About 2/3 of these folks also Have always had or ended up getting a day job, too, often in a non-music related field.

It is extremely unlikely that I will ever make even 1/10th of the money I made in my previous career.

Does this bother me?

Yes and no. I don’t need the money, but I also fall back into instrumental reasoning and become concerned that I am “wasting” my time=money potential.  

when I use the Ikigai model, I also perceive a gap.

The Ikigai model also has 4 circles. The main difference between my career model and Ikigai is that it has a circle asking you to think about work you can do that the world needs.

What does the world need that I can offer?

Does the world need another singer-songwriter folk musician? Or would the world be better served if I were to go back to leveraging the skills I developed in my professional career?

Also, what “real” value does being a musical artist create for the world? If your music is not heard by anyone, how can it be considered anything but a hobby or a very self-indulgent pursuit?

So, I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH THESE QUESTIONS during the last year.

At various times, I have considered putting musical pursuits into part-time status and instead go do a “paid” job for “fun” or “seasonally.” I have even Considered diving back into my earlier career. In either case, the money would be significantly greater than what I CAN do in music today; there is no doubt about that.

In October, I took a call from an executive search firm for a top executive position in my former career field. It’s the first one I have taken since the year I left my corporate position.

Why did I take the call?

Even with total financial freedom from needing a paycheck, I was feeling like I WAS not getting much of anywhere trying to pursue this musical career stuff, so why not just go back to a type of role that would reward the skills I spent so many years developing? It was the type of role that could easily lead to well over half a million dollars of compensation per year.

And I KNOW IN MY PREVIOUS ROLES THAT i did help people. It would not be a stretch to say I made a real difference in thousands of people’s lives through the leadership and values I brought to the workplace and in the policies and strategies I championed.

Nevertheless, I quickly decided against pursuing the opportunity further.

Doing so felt inauthentic, and I realized I was romanticizing my past experiences. I was imagining that I could do the role better and differently than I had been able to before because of my big bag of what J L Collins calls “F’ You” money. 

And I realized I was mostly falling prey to the instrumental reasoning of trading time for money. To borrow from that old song, $500K a year will buy you a lot of beer.

The Dylan Effect

Reflecting on the urge to consider the role, I recognized that part of why I was falling prey to the lure of more money was because I WAS struggling with finding meaning and purpose in this musical career pursuit.

I still struggle with this, and this weekend, I was confronted with it again … hard.

Saturday night I went to see the movie A Complete Unknown. The script was tightly focused on a few aspects of Bob Dylan’s life from 1961 to 1965. I thought The acting was superb. The music was great, too. It reminded me how much I love The Freewheeling Bob Dylan album. What a masterpiece.

I was also struck by the scenes set in the middle of the night. there was Dylan, up and working on his next song. I felt nostalgia. I, TOO, USED TO BE SO EXCITED ABOUT WRITING AND RECORDING SONGS THAT I would sometimes stay up until 2 am doing so. It’s been a while since I’ve done that.

When I got home from the show, I found myself equally inspired and somewhat depressed.  

Imposter Syndrome was looming large and once again opened up these questions.

It was a “what the hell do I think I am doing?!!” kind of feeling.

Here was this genius songwriter, Dylan, who, AT NO MORE THAN 20 YEARS OLD, was producing such profound songs it’s hard to believe. As I reflected on how great those songs are, I began feeling that none of mine measure up to his in any meaningful way.

Oh yeah, I know, comparison is the thief of joy, but come on!! What the hell do I think I am doing and why am I spending my time on this whole damn music thing???

The week before I saw the movie, I thought I had done a masterful job of finally clearing out my back catalog of songs in the works (i.e., ones that still need development). I was eliminating the ones that were decent enough but dIDn’t quite measure up to the best in the bunch. I want to be sure we focus on the best ones and give myself space to write new songs, too.

I got the total down to 80 songs and thought I had succeeded in the mission.

Until I saw the Dylan movie...

The Road to RishiKesh

I’ve been struggling with assessing the quality of these song demos for years.

I started writing songs in earnest and almost daily in mid-2015. By 2019, I HAD WRITTEN SO MANY SONGS I HAD BECOME OVERWHELMED, and it hit home that I needed to select the best and cut the rest.

I also dramatically slowed down the number of new songs I was writing so that I could finish these and eventually release them.

Initially, I PLANNED to pick the 7-8 best songs from a batch of 100 songs written around the same time. That is, I wanted to pick the best 7-8 from the first 100 I had written, work on those, release them, and repeat this process for the next 100, etc. Thus, working on and releasing the songs in chronological batches. I thought that would be a good way to document how the music I was creating had evolved.

It was a good idea, but only if I had been releasing them as I went versus continuing to add new songs to the pile. By spending most of my time writing new songs, I was putting off finishing and releasing the older ones. I can throw lots of spaghetti at the wall, but cleaning it up…well, that’s another story. 

Therefore, I began grouping them all together, regardless of when written, thus making the older songs compete with the newer ones. May the best songs win was the idea.

By January 2023, I had written about 1170 songs (I am up to 1290 now).

On a stay in Ashland (ORegon) that month, I got the list of contenders down to the top 200. Of those, I thought about 130 were better songs, and the others might serve as “starting fodder” for c0-writing collaborations.  

Since then, I have been working on polishing, relearning, and even recording new demos of some of these 130. However, I also kept questioning which ones are ”really” the best. Therefore, about every other month since early 2023, I have continued to go through this exercise of assessing songs.

And I must say, it has mostly been an exercise in spinning my wheels.

Last Saturday morning, though, I thought I had succeeded in separating the wheat from the chaff. But then I saw the Dylan movie, and it made me want to keep cutting…

John Lennon has been a musical hero of mine for years, and it dawned on me this morning that this may be the way he felt starting in about 1964.

Search the internet to find out which songs of his are his favorite, and you find he disparaged most of his songs.  

The Beatles released 213 total songs. it’s estimated that Lennon primarily wrote about 73 of them. Of these 73, there are about 10 he later thought still had merit.

Between 1971 and his death in 1980, he reported still liking: I Want To Hold Your Hand, Help, Norwegian Wood, Girl, In My Life, Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows, A Day In The Life, Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus, Revolution #9, and Across The Universe.

The rest were crap to him.

Interestingly, these are almost all songs Lennon wrote after he fell under the influence of Bob Dylan. Only I Want To Hold Your Hand was written before his deep dive into Dylan. Help is the first one on the list that he wrote after he began to attempt emulating Dylan’s brooding, intellectual, and poetic writing style.

Hotels Motels Make You Want to Cry

Okay, There’s all that…But what to do about all this?

What do I hope for you to make of this diatribe?

Writing about this Is a way to find clarity for myself. And, I wOULD LIKE to share what I have learned with you in the hope that it helps you to pursue a life of meaning and purpose.

I glean the following conclusions:

1)    Music thought of as a career is probably not helpful for most of us. It is dead to me as an idea worth pursuing. At least, I want it to be.

Art pursued as a career is not the same as art pursued as a passion, and it matters, a lot. The first is partly based on a motivation to overcome scarcity; the latter is based more on pursuing joy & abundance.

2)    Instrumental reasoning is a reflection of a scarcity mindset, and that is what I had been doing by holding on to all these songs in my back catalog.

Hell, I could cut the list of 80 songs in half and still have more songs than I could play in a three-hour concert performance!

3)    And maybe I am more like Lennon that I thought I was…or maybe I need to be. Harsher.

Sure, my songs may not measure up to works by my heroes, such as Dylan, Lennon, Bowie, etc., … but that doesn’t mean I need to stop trying.

4)    And I want to put in more hours, too, not less. I want to be up again past midnight writing songs … so what is keeping me from doing this?

What is meaningful and purposeful to me is having songs I am excited about performing and recording and wanting to share them with others, money be damned.

5)    Beyond the money, what was driving me to consider the corporate role was the built-in relationships and given sense of purpose that comes from working a job.

These are benefits that come with a job. they are ready-MADE; IN A WAY, It is easier to cultivate relationships and purpose working for a living versus tending to these on your own. Erich Fromm wrote a book about this called Escape From Freedom.

6)    The examples of Dylan, Lennon, and others help me get real. I have Now culled the herd of songs down from the original 130 to 65. This is good and perhaps some of them will measure up.

7)    And more than anything, Keep striving for the dream. Pursuing a Passion in your PoST-FIRE life is one of the best things you can do, but don’t get this confused with the models of career success that got you there. They are different paths THAT may or may not converge.

Perhaps AC/DC put it best?:…”It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-qkY2yj4_A