Some Thoughts for DJs Who Aspire to Greatness

Posted on 15 Jan 2017

Some Thoughts for DJs Who Aspire to Greatness

1. Blame all your problems on other people

You gave out one hundred mixtapes and not one promoter happened to you. Then it's undoubtedly their fault you are not obtaining DJ bookings, right? Stands to reason. It couldn't be anything to do with you, could it?

If that's your attitude, you're going nowhere. The reason is simple: In blaming other people you stop the conversation.

It's their fault. End of.

But if you keep an open mind, you see what needs to be done. So during this case, you will instead think: Did you package those mixes well enough? Did you follow up politely? Did you listen to feedback? Did you make a list of 10 things you could do better next time? Is this even the right way to go about getting booked?

But if you blamed your initial lack of success on others, you wouldn't have asked yourself any of these things. Instead, you'll have blamed your failure on people who you cannot change. Stalemate.

Try this instead: Realise that you just build your luck. Get up day by day asking yourself however you'll improve, wherever you'll do higher.

2. Complain about everything

I remember my first job out of school, sub-editing on a computer music magazine (sub-editing means writing the captions, headlines and so on, and correcting people's writing style so their work is good enough to be published). Over a variety of years, I went from happy in my job to completely miserable, and boy did I let folks know!

One time, one in each of my colleagues came to me: "Phil, if you are thus releasing sad during this job, do one thing regarding it. Leave! You're dragging us all down!"

It hit me like a ton of bricks. And here's the lesson: Complaining, like swearing, is tempting, because short-term, it makes you feel better. But it's insidious because it legitimizes the status quo. It permits you to square still rather than fixing the real downside.

What got me about my colleague's dressing down of me (thanks, Paul) was that I didn't want to be that person who made other people miserable - quite the opposite. I wanted to inspire people! I did not are aware of it, however, that single moment formed the method I used to be to hold on in life from there on in.

I learned that if you refuse to complain, you are forced to seem at why you're feeling the method you are doing. From there comes action. Within eighteen months of that speech communication, I was a full-time DJ...

Try this instead: once you end up querulous, stop yourself, and write down what you're moaning about and why. The next day, re-read what you wrote.You'll likely see the real reason you were upset - and grasp what should be done to prevent you from feeling that method once more.

3. Not be grateful

The fact that we will get out of bed, eat something, get clean, and head off out of our homes, knowing we'll be returning later with little chance of anything really unhealthy having happened to the United States, means we are all - each single one of us, and yes, that means you reading this right now - the lucky ones.

Sure, you would like to be a DJ quite something in your life. Sure, it's hard. Yup, I do know you cannot simply attend faculty and earn a touch of paper that gets you a non-public jet and a calendar filled with pageant gigs. But the fact that you even have a chance to try is an immeasurable privilege.

Here's the thing: By being grateful for what you've got, you're opening yourself up to the inevitability that one day you're going to lose it all. You're not here forever. None of us are.

Your precious time here could be a gift, and that realization makes you a more generous, warm, and yes, grateful person. The outcome of that's that you just get pleasure from every second of your journey. It's just that - your journey. Every up and down, every setback, ever a laughable failure, every little win: you'll see them for what they are: Things to be grateful for.

"Meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same,” said Rudyard Kipling.

I read that as Be grateful for them. That method you will get pleasure from the journey, uncharted though it is. And there area unit few careers wherever the journey is as laborious to chart like that of the DJ. There's nothing predictable about the rise to success in this profession. If you want it, you need to learn this one early.

FINALLY!!

Their area unit every kind of thing that means we tend to are not wherever we wish to be in our DJing. We may get crowds who don't want to dance, feel we need to play music we don't like, only be able to afford gear we feel is sub-standard, see other people where we want to be and wonder how long it'll take for us to get there, have to fight to get paid, and so on and so on.

But I guarantee you that if you take ownership of all the problems that befall you, try not to complain, and see something to be grateful for every day, you'll be happier, more productive, and more able to stand the pace. And whereas not everybody with these qualities becomes an excellent DJ, each nice DJ has them.

Good luck!

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