Nobody’s coming to save you.
There’s no express train to “making it.”
No moonshot PR story or one-off late-night appearance that tips everything into motion.
Even major label artists can’t manufacture success like they used to.
Today’s career is built slowly.
In public.
By showing up consistently and feeding the relationship you have with your audience.
That’s your real asset:
A direct relationship.
Without it, you’re just noise in an infinite feed.
Think Small
People don’t follow you just because you make something good.
They follow because you make something for them—and keep showing up.
The winning strategy today is depth over reach.
- Serve your smallest viable audience.
- Build a real connection, not just distribution.
- Make your art the front door to a bigger conversation.
- Stay visible, stay human, stay generous.
This isn’t about chasing scale.
It’s about gravitational pull.
You don’t need everyone.
You just need enough people who care enough to stick around—and tell others why.
The Fallacy of “More Exposure”
A headline doesn’t build a business.
A viral moment doesn’t create trust.
A song added to streaming playlist doesn’t give you staying power.
Attention without connection is a sugar rush.
It fades fast.
Instead:
- Build a permission asset–a blog, a newsletter, a web series, a workshop, a podcast, etc.
- Post regularly.
- Tell stories that show who you are.
- Build a direct relationship that can’t be taken away.
Distribution is easy now.
But real trust? That’s the rare thing.
What I Tell Artists
You don’t compete with just other musicians.
You compete with TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, Fortnite, your audience’s inbox, and every other dopamine dispenser on the planet.
And you’re not just competing with what’s new—
You’re competing with every hit ever made, all of it one click away.
So no, this isn’t a fair fight.
But it’s still a fight worth having.
Because…
In a world with no defined path, the ones who win are the ones who keep walking anyway.
Take This With You
Don’t build your strategy on a fantasy.
- Start small.
- Stay consistent.
- Show up for the people who already showed up for you.
Your business isn’t to “get discovered.”
Your business is to build something people want to discover—and keep coming back to.
You’re not looking for mass approval.
You’re looking for intimacy, and resonance.
That’s the game now.
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