From GenY blogger Krista Goral, originally published on the Brazen Life blog on BrazenCareerist.com.
We often get caught up in the wrong mindset when it comes to success. We assume the game is complicated, and that we have to play our cards exactly right to win.
The reality, however, couldn’t be farther from the truth: anybody can be successful.
That’s something today’s music artists have figured out. So here are five good reasons you should model yourself – or your company – after the music industry:
1. You don’t need anyone’s permission to be “real”
Artists figured out years ago that they don’t have to be signed to be recognized.
Long gone are the days when artists needed a record deal to exist on the music scene. Now they take advantage of resources like YouTube to broadcast themselves, rather than waiting for someone else’s validation to do so. And many are creating a following before anybody offers to lead them.
With blogs, Linkedin, websites and Twitter at our disposal, young professionals have the right equivalent resources available to us, too. And yet many of us are eons behind artists in our mindset.
Nobody needs to give you permission for you to exist, operate and succeed in your chosen field. Make yourself what you want to become.
2. There’s always room for more
Just because you suspect there plenty of players in your space doesn’t mean you can’t be one, too. As long as you do something slightly better or slightly different, the market will find a slot for you.
If you sense/suspect/feel/know you can succeed in a particular field and feel confident you can fulfill the task of sufficiently differentiating yourself (regardless of how strong you fear your competitors may be), go for it.
A market will always accommodate something – or someone – that deserves a place in it.
3. Start small and start yourself
Countless successful artists were “discovered” via YouTube or Myspace. If you have something to offer, you have something to offer – regardless of whether you spend $100 or $100 million to launch. Artists have few qualms about starting small, and you shouldn’t either.
Take steps toward getting where you want to be, and don’t worry about how small those steps might be at first. Blog, take on an internship, or offer to pick up a single project – with or without pay – to get your name out there in your chosen field.
4. It’s not “winner takes all” anymore
Nowadays, few people play favorites. We love a variety of market offerings and personalities, and even those who swear by Starbucks or Selena Gomez will surely stray from time to time.We love to play the field.
Just because your target audience loves your competitor doesn’t mean they aren’t (also) looking for someone like you.
Just like there’s always room for more, there’s almost always more love to go around.
5. Incidentally, your competitors might actually be your collaborators
While we’re on the note of developing an open-market mentality and dropping out scarcity suspicions (which dictate there’s only so much success to go around), stop regarding your peers – whether they’re other folks or other firms – as the enemy, and start embracing them as co-creators.
Artists have no qualms about working with others in the field, and we shouldn’t either. After all, who hasn’t been swept up in a good collaboration with two of our current favorite artists.
Collaborate with your competitors, especially those who are doing something similar and equally cool.
Krista Goral is a full-time consultant and part-time writer/speaker with a passion for self-starting, lifestyle design and the individual experience. She currently lives in Chicago and explores everyday elements of the human condition in her blog, Response Crafting.
Brandon Manson 