2 tips for starting a creative career
Do you have a creative idea that you’re itching to move on?
Maybe you dream of making a living with your creative work?
Maybe you simply want to take your first steps on a creative project?
The problem is: you’re not sure how to get started.
I’ve made my living as a singer/songwriter for the last 15 years, and on occasion, I get asked how I got started.
Was it that I moved to Nashville?
Was it my training at Belmont University?
Did someone hand me a great opportunity?
As I tell my story, let me offer you two tips on how you can get started.
1. Start Small
The internal pressure to "arrive" can keep you from doing what you can right now.
Other than being a singer/songwriter, I’ve never had a full-time job.
But don't be too impressed because the only reason I haven’t needed a full-time job is that I started earning money in music early in my career when I didn’t need to make much money.
I didn't have the pressure that I have today to make a higher income and support a family of 6 (me, my wife, 3 kids, and pup 🐶).
How I Started In Music
In college, I developed a wonderful group of friends. This friend group moved to Nashville from all over the country, and each was a gifted songwriter and artist. For fun, we would sit around and play each other new songs we had written.
We all graduated college around the same time, hoping to make music somehow.
Near the end of our time in school, we recorded a little project together simply for fun. It was really just meant to be a way to commemorate our time together.
There were six of us, and we were all from different states. Once our project was recorded, we decided to visit our various hometowns to sing for our family and friends.
At the time, we weren’t trying to make money. We just wanted to have an adventure together.
We accepted donations at the end of our little shows in hopes of covering our gas across the country and we split any amount that went over what was needed to cover our expenses.
But again, we weren’t expecting much - especially since we needed to split the money between six people.
We all worked the kinds of jobs you would expect.
I worked part-time as a waiter at Outback Steakhouse. Several members of the group worked together at a Nashville coffee shop. The others were still in school full-time.
When we got home from our travels, we realized that, in our two weeks of traveling and playing music, we individually made just about as much as we made at our part-time jobs.
Being the wily human that I am, I pointed out to the group that we didn’t move to Nashville and go to school to be waiters and baristas!
We wanted to make music for a living.
We didn’t know if we could make a real living from music, but we knew that we had the chance to at least cover the income from our little jobs.
Why not take a year to travel and make music together?
In that first year, we individually made, on average, between $500-$1000 per month per person. That was alright because it was all we needed at the time.
That one-year commitment turned into three and a half years of traveling and making music full-time together. Each year we got better opportunities, and each year we earned more money.
It would be different today
If I wanted to get started today, I simply couldn’t live on $500 bucks a month.
Being able to start small was a blessing.
I have a lot of friends who long to make a living doing their creative work full-time.
But that desire to be “full-time” can actually be limiting. With where they are at in life, it’s too high of a hurdle to jump. When the hurdle feels impossible, it’s easy to lose hope and give up on our dreams regarding creative work.
Lower the hurdle
How can you lower the hurdle?
Full-time might not be an option right now. I'm not going to tell you to go quit your job to pursue a creative career.
I believe in taking smart risks. Launching into a new creating career on a hope and prayer isn't smart.
Embrace the challenge
Here’s the thing, you do need a challenge.
Challenges push us forward.
Our challenge 15 years ago was to replace what we were making at our part-time jobs. That little bit of pressure prodded us on.
At the time, it wasn’t an impossible challenge. After our first mini-tour together, we realized that this goal was 100% in the realm of possibility.
When you’re getting started, you need a reasonable challenge. You will become discouraged and disillusioned if you set the bar too high at the beginning. And you will likely be too lazy to get going if you don’t have any real pressure.
You got to let go and stop it
In the beginning, starting small is about letting go of the “full-time or bust” mentality.
It would help if you also stopped telling yourself that you will get to your creative work when opportunities present themselves.
They won’t. You’re going to need to go out there and create opportunities.
Start small.
Find and play a game that, with a little effort, you can win.
A winnable objective will not only help you get started, it will also create momentum that can propel you forward.
2. Community is an accelerant
Looking back, the other thing I was fortunate to stumble into was community and collaboration.
Though I had already been playing shows for years, partnering with five of my friends was what kickstarted my career.
Because of our partnership, I got to share my voice and my songs with five new groups of people.
I grew up in Texas and had/have a solid base of support there, but, to this day, a large part of my fan base is also in Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Florida. The only reason these people know about my music is that I used to be in a group with someone from that region of the country. It would have taken me years to reach the people in those states.
Collaborating with my friends allowed me instant access to groups I wouldn’t have reached otherwise.
The internet is a great way to collaborate.
Online collaborations aren't something I've mastered. trying to get better at taking advantage of mutually beneficial online collaborations because it’s an excellent strategy for accelerating the growth of your creative work.
If you’re not sure how to start growing an audience or fan base for your creative work, try to find a way to collaborate other people who are headed in the same direction.
