Despite everything, I think I made the right decision, and I started to feel better for the first time since I made that initial payment.
It all started at my day job. I had expressed that I was craving a donut, and then realized I’d forgotten my wallet. Our general manager gave me a dollar so I could go get one.
I then had voice lessons, where I’d shown improvement in some things I’d been working on. This definitely helped lift my mood.
While I was at the lesson, there was a pretty gnarly storm happening outside.
Every time a storm happens, it makes me think of Rome, and all of the feelings that lead to writing that song, a lot of the ones I was currently feeling about this whole situation.
Driving home, I kept thinking, “how poetic would it be if I were to see a rainbow right now.” I about cried when I started pulling into my apartment and caught the glimpse of one, right next to me, small but there nonetheless. That’s when I truly knew I had done the right thing.
The following day, I went back to the mall and was able to find the perfect dress.
Artists were getting back to me about the show I was planning.
Everything was falling into place.
I am a huge believer in the law of attraction, I truly believe life is all about putting out the right energy and watching the stars align. I’ve also been trying to be more in tune with my intuition. Sometimes if I'm driving somewhere I'm not familiar with, I’ll trust my gut reactions until I find my way home. I've done this on a number of occasions, usually with a dead phone (I got a car charger now don’t worry Mom) but the point is, As soon as I let go of all of my anxiety, things immediately start to improve. I think my gut was telling me this deal wouldn’t work out in my favor, and I’d been fighting it that entire week, because I truly wanted everything to work out, and I thought the people at the management team were really nice, but in the end I had to voice my concerns and get out of it, and I’m so glad I did.
At the end of the day, nobody is going to care about or prioritize your music the way you will. That doesn’t make them bad people, it’s just reality. I’ve learned a lot from this mistake.
1. Quadruple check anything you sign. I got off easy on this one. There were some services listed in my initial LOA that were omitted from the final contract. We’d been discussing a different aspect of it before and I didn’t notice the change. It wasn’t a huge deal, it was just about including PR services, but if this had been another sort of deal, I could have been signing my life’s work away.
2. Weigh the costs. My anxiety grew as the weeks went on because I realized what I could be giving up by making this investment. Three thousand dollars could allow me to record three more songs, or make a better quality music video, or invest in my mental and physical health. If you are going to give up another potential, you better be confident that the people on the other end of that deal are going to be fighting for you.
3. Something that really bothered me was how much they were trying to lower my expectations instead of reassuring me that they would rise to the challenge. It made me feel like they didn’t believe in me and that I wasn’t a priority. And that is honestly fine, because it may just be the truth. They don’t owe me that, maybe I needed to prove myself more, But if that’s the case, take your money elsewhere.
The most important part of making it in this industry is simply not giving up. Believe in yourself, because if you don't anybody else will. That being said, you also want to make sure that you are careful to only surround yourself with people who also believe in you. The people you surround yourself will influence you whether it's intentional or not. Find those that will cheer you on, not tear you down on a bad day. You want your team to be the kind of people who will encourage you rather than feed into your insecurities.