Reflecting on the end of the year and celebrating our wins with Michelle Lynne

Michelle Lynne: Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. My name is Michelle Lynne, and I’m the host of this podcast. And maybe you know this if you’ve been watching or listening this year. Mostly, I have wonderful guests that I’ve been able to bring on and get to ask them all sorts of interesting questions about how they build their careers.

And that’s been so rewarding and grateful. But today, I wanted to do a solo episode. I was reflecting about the importance of looking back and celebrating the last year because I think life can get going really fast. I know a lot of us are in busy seasons. They literally call it, like, gigmas or whatever.

So maybe you’re running to a rehearsal or you’ve got this going on in your car while you’re driving somewhere, and I just wanted to come on and take some time to celebrate, reflect, pause, take a breath, and try to process everything that’s happened in the last year. And I wanted to do that with you, the audience of this podcast.

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s been listening. It has meant so much to me. I’ve actually been extremely surprised at the response. I didn’t know what to expect starting the podcast this year. We started in January, so it’s been almost a full year of releasing episodes every two weeks, and there’s just been such a great response.

I mean, I expected it to be small, and in that sense, it has. But people have been so genuinely thankful for what we’ve been able to share and the people that we’ve brought on, and all of your encouraging messages have meant so much to me—to keep me going and to understand the value of investing in a new creative output like this, especially when there’s already so much going on with all the multiple Instagrams and the content and all that stuff. Starting a podcast seemed, you know, you ask yourself, is this necessary? Is this important? Will it have impact? And the answer to all of that was yes. So thank you guys for listening and for supporting and for writing in and sharing with me what’s important to you because that’s ultimately what we wanted to do with this podcast: to spend more time sharing with you our process, Deanna and I, and also it gave me space to be a bit more vulnerable, which I can’t do in 30-second reels that I’m trying to get seen by as many people as I can.

So all that to say, today’s episode is going to be about celebrating this year, 2024. And I’ve got some prompts that we can use together to work through that. I think sometimes it can be very helpful to follow a structure of like, how do I actually try and process my life? Because there’s so much going on all the time.

And I’ve noticed, for me, it’s been easy to be scattered or have thoughts just flying around. You’ve got to do one thing after the next. There’s always a to-do list somewhere in your brain, you know, multiple email inboxes, the works. So hopefully, there’s a little bit of structure today to help us kind of look back, evaluate, see what’s happened, and see how we’d like to go forward.

And ultimately, this stems from some advice that I got once that helped me a lot. Somebody said, “If you don’t have time in your life to think, you’re too busy.” And so really, that idea of zooming out, looking, evaluating what’s happening—where’s my time going? Where’s my energy going? Am I happy with where it’s going? Do I realize that I actually have control over where these things are going? Or do I just feel like a victim to my own schedule that I built myself, by the way?

Um, those are hard questions I’ve had to ask myself multiple times. I remember telling someone I don’t want to dread the life that I’ve built. So, you know, if there’s a moment where it’s like, okay, this isn’t fun anymore, we gotta stop and zoom out. So another great analogy is when they pour concrete for a sidewalk, they crack it intentionally every three feet or so, and so it creates these nice big blocks. Of course, that’s a North American analogy, but, you know, cobblestone.

Like, they’ve got the bricks, and there’s space, and so if you don’t do that, the concrete will freeze and just crack wherever it wants to, and then you’ve got a big mess. So they intentionally crack it so that it is going to be predictable. And so in our life, when we can stop and look and kind of create the space to say, “Okay, now’s the time for me to look back and reflect and see how things are going and see how I’m doing,” that’s kind of the analogy for that.

That’s also why many of you listening know we have a membership for musicians called Fast Forward, and we have about 35 people in there, musicians from all over the world. And we really take time on the calls to do exactly that. To stop and say, “How are these two weeks going? What goals am I working towards? Where did I mismanage my energy? How can I keep going towards what’s ultimately important for me and not getting stuck on this hamster wheel of being very, very busy and not necessarily accomplishing anything,” which is where I have found myself many times.

So anyway, that’s kind of the idea behind this. So that’s a little intro to the episode. And also, you know, why I wanted to do this episode in particular is something I’ve been trying to navigate personally, and it’s this idea of when are we allowed to be satisfied and say things are good and it’s enough because, if you’re listening to this podcast, you have some kind of entrepreneurial drive in you, you know?

So you know what it’s like to keep pushing, next thing, next thing, next thing—next concert, next rehearsal. I got to get ready for this. I have to start practicing that, getting back to messages. I mean, it’s always like this. Huge amount of stuff going on. And then you do the concert that you’ve been preparing for, or you do the recording, or you do the audition, and you don’t even stop to think about how it went or how you felt or did you learn anything because you’ve got to get ready for the next one.

And then the worst part is that somebody—well, some well-meaning person—will ask you, “So how are things going?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” because I’m just running to the next thing and trying to get ready for the next concert. So for me, it’s been, you know, my career completely changed in the last two years.

And when you’re trying to redefine success as a musician, as an individual musician, when you had an idea of success in your life, of what you thought it would mean to make it, I remember having a conversation with a girl. We were leaving school, and she said, “You know, what are you gonna do with your life? You know, what are you gonna do with your career?” And she had shared that she was gonna open a fitness studio as well as continue her piano playing. And she’s like, “What are you gonna do?” And I remember thinking, “I don’t know. I was hoping to make it.” You know, and it’s like, “Well, I still want to make it, but I just don’t really know if making it means what I thought it meant.” And so, “When am I going to feel fulfilled? Do I feel fulfilled?” So is it time for me to say, “Okay, you’re at a good place. You’re doing fine. Stick in your lane, keep going.” Or where’s this inner drive coming from where it always feels like, yeah, but what’s next? Like, at what level of fame or success or followers or impact will you feel like, “Yes, I’m doing it. I’m doing the thing,” you know, and I’ve had glimpses of it.

So anyway, I’ve been wrestling with this personally because there’s always this pressure to do more. And so this year for me has been kind of thinking about, like, how can I do maybe less but better? And a lot of you who listened to the burnout episode that I recorded, my last solo episode actually on the podcast, shared about, just kind of last February, March, went through a really rough time and realized something had to change, but I didn’t really know what. And so one of the things that that included was quitting one of my conservatory jobs, which was a whole struggle in itself. And if you want to know about that, you can go back and listen to the burnout episode.

But also, I noticed that my stamina got much higher, and I got into a rhythm of, even though I’m constantly traveling, I have a rhythm within the traveling. So going back to this pressure of trying to do more, like, at what point do you be like, “Yeah, we’re good. We’re living the life. We’re living the dream. This is it. This is what I want. I’m good.” I’m just going to acknowledge that I’m good and enjoy it, right? I think I’m still learning that moment of, like, you can stop and be like, “This is, I’m doing the thing,” instead of constantly trying to reach. Like, no, no, no, there’s something, there’s this undefined thing that I’m striving for that I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s out there, you know. So that’s where I’m at.

And that’s why I think it’s so important for this episode so we can all take a collective breath and be like, “Okay, whoo, we’re doing the thing. We can celebrate that we’re doing the thing.” And you know, if you’re listening to this, you’re a fearless artist. You’re a musician, and you’re putting yourself out there, and you’re going after what you want, and it’s hard.

And you have probably fallen on your face, and you might have some mud on your face or a few scars, or somebody burned you with some rude comment, or somebody asked you, “Are you making a living?” Or somebody asked you, “Are you just playing background music at parties?” You know, or whatever it is, you know, there’s some mud on you, but you’re showing up, and you’re pursuing, and you’ve got grit, and that’s why you’re here.

And you want to keep building a career of impact. And that is so beautiful. It is so beautiful that you are looking to use the gift that you have and share it with the people around you and make the world around you a better place. Um, you know, I had two concerts tonight, and people are just so thankful.

They’re so thankful. And it wasn’t your typical classical music. It’s not what I trained to do with my degrees. Or, you know, going back to that original definition of success. It wasn’t that I played Adele tonight and another French singer-songwriter and like, I love those. Like, God bless Adele. Look at what she’s done for the world.

Okay. So, like, I have no problem with that, but what I’m trying to say is this original idea of success as a classical musician, playing Adele doesn’t fit into that little box, right? I think one of the inner mindsets that we’re fighting against. But anyway, people are so grateful.

They’re thanking me. I’ve given them this beautiful experience. They’re sharing about it on Instagram. They’re telling their people. One lady came up—it was her birthday. This other little girl came up. She hugged me because it was the cutest thing ever. And so, you know, we’re taking what we’ve been given and we’re sharing it, and you’re giving this to people, and you’re making their lives better. Whatever you’re doing, whether you’re teaching your students, whether you’re organizing a Christmas recital for them this Christmas, whether you’re performing and doing gigs all over, and you’re playing background music at elderly folks’ homes… Whatever you’re doing, I just want to say thank you for taking what you’ve been given, crafting your gift, practicing, showing up, doing the work.

Thank you for doing the work and for sending that into the world because you’re making it a better place. You’re sharing light, and you’re sharing love, and you’re bringing warmth into the world, and that’s what people need, especially in this time. You know, Christmas, holidays, time can be difficult for some people, whether or not you’ve got family stuff, or you’ve lost someone this year that meant a lot to you, or they’re, you know, people are going through hard things.

And music is healing. I think we all know that. It gives something that we can’t express in words. It gives something to people, and you’re using that, and you’re sharing that with your community. So first of all, thank you.

So, with all of that, thinking about how we’re going to let go of the pressure to always do more, we’re just going to relax and reflect on what we have done, and then we’re going to think a little bit about what we want to bring into the new year.

Reflecting is essential because I think it helps process what’s actually been going on. I think it’s very often easy to underestimate the impact that we’ve had. It’s easy to underestimate the growth that we’ve gone through. I know this from my own self because of this pressure thing of like, what’s next, next, next.

You don’t actually realize how much you’ve grown until you look back three, six, nine months and say, “Oh yeah, I remember how I used to think about that.” Or, “I remember how I used to approach that,” or “That old habit that I used to have that I ended up overcoming.” You know, we have so many people in our membership Fast Forward who will share right now. There’s people who are sharing daily wins, and it’s stuff like, figuring out a practice routine that works for them, figuring out a health routine, getting to the gym often, eating well, taking care of their mental health, journaling. A lot of people are reading The Artist’s Way right now, and they’re sharing. It’s a beautiful book, by the way, if you haven’t checked it out—The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

And, you know, they’re sharing how they’re developing their creativity and their souls, they’re feeding their artistic souls. And there are so many ways that we’re growing, and because there are small things that we’re adding to our lives, maybe you don’t recognize the growth. And I know for myself too, it is so hard for me to recognize the growth and to have such a strong inner critic that I’m still trying to overcome. It’s very easy to dismiss any efforts because it’s not here, and I’m raising my hand for everybody listening on audio.

You know, it’s not, because it’s not at the 200 percent perfect mark. It’s only maybe, you know, half, half of that or 25 percent of that. You’re like, “Oh, well, I can’t count that because it’s not finished yet. It’s not perfect yet.” I mean, that’s an old mindset that I’m still trying to overcome, but it’s like, “Well, we have to learn how to celebrate the process and the steps forward.”

Because first of all, sometimes there’s just a tipping point, and you push and push and push and push, and then, boom! One day, it all flips, and it becomes easy because you put the systems in place, and you put all of that momentum and energy forward, and then it just catches, and it gets it, right? And then sometimes it’s just exponential growth. Like, suddenly, it’ll just take off, and you’ll get it. Or it becomes a rhythm, and it just becomes really easy to maintain whatever new thing you’re doing.

And for that example, I’ll use this podcast. I mean, we successfully released an episode every two weeks, and we put a system in place, and, you know, Pokey, our amazing producer in New York, makes sure that things are going out. And he asks me if we’re working with episodes ahead of time. So these are all things that we’ve put in place to kind of protect this new rhythm that we added something new to the schedule.

So if we don’t take time to stop and look back and think, you’re not going to be able to see all the ways that you have grown. And within those steps are the potential for more growth, right? So we can’t crush the efforts. And I just think of like a little plant that’s trying to grow. And because it’s not a tree, you’re angry or frustrated if it’s like, “Well, no, the plant will become a tree. Just keep it going. Keep it growing.” Okay. I hope you guys are with me.

Okay, so we’re gonna take a breath, we’re gonna be present, and I have a couple of prompts that I want to share with you to think about this last year. So, do you have something that you are most proud of from this past year? By the way, I would love for you to actually write me and tell me what the answers are to these questions. Um, if it would be helpful for you to send a voice message or whatever, write it down. I would love to read these.

So, what’s something that you’re proud of? Maybe you reached out to someone who was intimidating to you. Maybe you networked with someone new. Maybe you sent the pitch, or you sent a proposal, or you practiced a difficult piece of repertoire, or you started composing again. Maybe you picked up an old creative habit that you used to have that you gave up on. Maybe you shared your music with someone new. Um, maybe you remember inspiring a student. Whatever it is, what are you proud of?

Um, I mean, obviously, I think I’m proud of this podcast. And I’m also proud of taking the risk to quit my conservatory job because that was really scary for me. Because it meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me, and it’s hard to let go of things sometimes and trust that other things will come.

Second prompt: What did you achieve that you thought was impossible? What did you do this year that, in, you know, one year ago, you would think, “No, I could never do that.”

We have some great examples. Uh, someone in our membership just won a huge amount of money in a grant for her brass ensemble, and that was something that really surprised her, was unexpected. Um, I think for me, one of my 2024 goals was to finish recording my album, which I did last week, one week ago today, as well as a Coldplay album. I have 16 Coldplay songs that I just recorded that I’m going to be releasing.

And, uh, I—it just felt impossible. It was just like one of those huge things in your head, like breaking it down. And actually, project planning, managing a project, is like, there’s so many complicated mini steps.

Third prompt: What challenges did you overcome, even if it didn’t lead to a big win?

Okay, this is coming back to this plant-tree analogy. We’re not killing the plants, okay? We’re trusting that they’re going to grow into trees. So even if you didn’t get the tree this year, where are your plans?

What challenges did you overcome? What limiting belief did you overcome? Maybe you used to view yourself one way, and now you view yourself another way. Maybe you used to think that you could never be reaching out to certain people, or performing in a certain festival, or talking at a certain level. And then you stepped out, and you knocked on the door, and you made the phone call, and you sent the email, or you put yourself out there. You started posting on Instagram.

You know, we had so many great musicians do our social media sprint this year, which is our six-week social media program to help you develop your own content strategy related around who you are as a musician and whose audience you want to reach. And so many of them overcame the fear of being seen. I mean, we had one girl who went from zero posts to, uh, yeah, posting three times a week for the whole six weeks, and she realized that she could do it, and it was so freeing for her because it was like this big fear in her mind. And then actually, when she got into the rhythm of it, it was totally doable.

Okay. Number four: Where did you share your music and with whom?

And this is important. I really want you to think about the impact that you’ve had on people and who these people are. Because when you know the difference, whether it’s, you know, your aunt and uncle, and they’re just so proud of you because they’ve seen you grow into a musician, or maybe it’s your school kids, or maybe you conduct a band or your studio, your teaching studio, or maybe you’ve had bigger concerts or you did a cool outreach concert, whatever it is, where did you share your music and with whom?

This is a fun one. How did you surprise yourself this year? Uh, what’s something that you did that you didn’t think you could do? One of my 2024 goals was to run a half marathon. I hadn’t run one in, I think, three years. And it was on the schedule. I just didn’t train, which is kind of typical for me, unfortunately— not following the plan and just trying to pull it off at the last minute. Oh boy, I’m still overcoming that. Anyway, I did it, and it was awesome. It was awesome, and it was a perfect day. And it’s one of the really nice memories that I have, probably of this year, because it was also a goal for me.

So, how did you surprise yourself? Was there something that you did—a new gig, a concert opportunity—we just had someone reach out, and people are booking tours for themselves, they’re pitching concerts or ideas or proposals or collaborations to people that they never thought were possible. Somebody shared today in the mastermind, actually, how much he had valued the sprint because he wasn’t sure if he needed it, but then realized the value of community.

So, what’s something that you did that surprised you? Okay. This is a fun one. It’s related to networking and community, which we highly value at the Fearless Artists because our community is so rich with wisdom and encouragement and people.

Um, who did you connect with this year that made a huge impact in your life? And we strongly believe that without community, we wouldn’t be nearly as far as we are. I know the Fearless Artists wouldn’t exist without Deanna and me doing it together because, yeah, I might have the spark and the push and the flash, but she has been the steady accountability, planning, making things come to fruition with the accountability, with the structure. Laying things out, making sure that we showed up on time, making sure that we were sticking to what we said we were going to do. Without each other, we wouldn’t have been able to continue to do this, that’s for sure.

So, who did you connect with that made a big impact in your life? I know I’ve also made a few important friendships this year that have shaped me and shaped my thinking. And that is incredibly valuable for me because I’m always trying to surround myself with people that I want to become like. Um, you know, the five closest people to you shape you. So who’s that for you? And, as a bonus, you can send them a little text message after you finish this episode and just say, “Hey, you made an impact in my life this year, and I want to thank you.”

Okay, the last one is: Who are the people in your life that you want to invest more in this year? This is also related to who are the people that you want to have an impact in your life. That means that you want to be a bit more intentional with building relationships with them this year. That means, you know, spending more time with them, if you can, in person, or at least if they’re long distance, then you’re intentionally grabbing like a coffee chat, regularly sending voice memos, reaching out to them, following them on Instagram, like paying attention to what they’re posting, commenting on their stuff, you know, like just being really intentional about building relationships. I think relationships are so key and so valuable. “Two are stronger than one.” That is very serious. It’s not a catchphrase. When one falls, the other can help him up. We are stronger together.

And so many people in our membership—one of the most common things we hear is people say, “I’m so glad to know I’m not alone. It’s such a relief to know I’m not alone. I’m not the only person struggling with this.” Because we all think we’re the crazy ones. We all think we’re the only ones that get rejected. We’re the only ones that have ideas that we never get to. We’re the only ones who put off things for months and months, and everyone else’s has got all their stuff together because they post about it on Instagram, right?

All of that is not true. So unless you’re sharing openly with people in your life and you have your inner circle where you can be like, “Hey, this is actually what’s going on,” that’s going to give you the accountability to become everything that you’re meant to be. And we need structure. We need boundaries. We need healthy people in our lives to provide wisdom and to call out the greatness and say, “This is what you’re capable of. You need to go for this.” Otherwise, you’re just going to stay stuck and be frustrated because you know that you’re meant for more. So we want to invest in those people. Someone for me is my colleague in Rotterdam, Peter Schoendewaard.

He’s done a recent podcast episode with us about branding. I mean, he has been so influential in my thinking and recommending books, recommending resources, just talking through stuff. What are you going after? Making a plan, helping me overcome fear, being there for me when I needed support. And I mean, you just want to keep people like that in your life close.

Okay. Once you’ve done through those prompts and, you know, if you need to pause the podcast and think about it or come back to it or talk to your spouse or your friend or whatever, like do that. ‘Cause I think it’s so good to reflect and go deep on these things. We just really want to celebrate some wins that we saw in the Fearless Artists this year.

Uh, we saw so many people, first of all, take action, putting themselves out there, overcoming fear. I mean, we’re called the Fearless Artists because I truly believe that most of the things that we’re dealing with—yes, there are practical strategies and skills that we need to market ourselves and brand and communication skills and all of that. But it starts with mindset. It starts with believing that what you have is valuable. It starts with believing that what you have to share is worth sharing, that there are people who need to hear it. And if you don’t have that confidence in yourself, then that’s going to affect how you present ideas to other people, how you act when you reach out to other people.

So that inner work is the first thing. That’s why we want to say be fearless. And even if you do feel afraid, I mean, I can tell you, I was not a happy camper recording last week because every single note, I mean, the microphone doesn’t lie, unfortunately, and it was very confronting. But we have to be fearless. We feel the fear. We do it anyway because if we don’t, you’re just going to stay in the exact same place that you are, as I already said. And that’s frustrating. That doesn’t feel good. That doesn’t feel like what we’re called to do. We’re called to bring what we have into the world and to craft. And it’s going to require grit, and it’s going to require perseverance, and it requires you showing up over and over—refining, redefining, reframing success.

So whatever you thought success was going to be like for you in 2024, can you find how you were successful? Can you reflect on the growth that you made, on the steps that you made, on the steps that you’re going to continue to bring with you into 2025?

And again, coming back to sharing the wins in our community. I mean, we’ve had people come up with new offers. We’re having people who created courses and they’re marketing and selling, they’re building their audiences, they’re monetizing their followings. They’ve done big concerts, learning to create content, share an audience, build their followings around that, get consistent newsletters out to their fan bases so that they can continue to bring people with them as they grow in their careers. Releasing singles, marketing those singles, selling lessons online, finding students online. We have seen people in our social media sprint get concerts and get students because of their content strategy, people coming up to them in person and thanking them for their influential content. I mean, these are people who were hesitant to share what they were doing online and then having people come up to them and say, “Hey, I saw you posting about playing with an orchestra.” That’s so cool. You know, it was a conductor that came up to her and started sharing, and they started a whole conversation about a potential concert coming out of that because he saw what she had already done.

So, I mean, things like that, where you can really open doors for yourself just by showing what you’re doing, being present, being active.

Okay, and we also want to take a second and talk a little bit about creating a wins list for 2024. So wins are something that we start every mastermind, every membership call with. We just try to do it quickly in the chat and think about one positive thing that’s going on for you. And that’s really because we’re trying to shape our mindsets.

Again, like so much of what we talk about is just starting with the right mindset. You can create your own opportunities. You are in charge of your career. You have what it takes to build the career of your dreams. Everything that you need is right in front of you. And even if it’s not what you want, eventually you have enough in front of you to take the next step.

So here is your challenge: Set a timer for five minutes and just write down as many wins as you can think of. And don’t let your perfectionism critic come in. Write them out of order if you need to. Not in order of importance. Just write down anything that comes to mind that you feel like you made strides in.

And I love that because it’s going to build momentum, and momentum is going to carry you forward into the new year. Anything, by the way, because you know, being a freelancer is so connected to your health, wholeness, body, soul, spirit. So we’re talking, you know, mental health, your physical health. If you have a faith, um, anything that you’re doing in these areas, as well as your professional career—to build you as a whole artist. You are an artist that can encompass every part of your life. So we have to take care of every part of our life, and we can’t neglect one area because it will come out eventually. And this is how we can help prevent things like burnout or just not enjoying what we’re doing anymore by recognizing.

Okay. Are we off balance? Is there an area of my life that I need to tend to? Maybe I need more family time? Maybe I need more intentional conversations? Maybe I just need to sleep longer? I need days off. You know, these are all things that you can recognize. And those are wins, by the way. If you took time off, if you took rest, and we talk a lot about this a lot in our membership about how people are resting, how they are recovering.

And by the way, I heard a great analogy for rest and recovery, and I’ll just share it here. I just heard it a couple of days ago. So you think of it like a bathtub, and you’ve got a certain level of water in the bathtub, and resting is when you plug the drain so that the water stays. Those are activities where you’re not draining the energy that you have.

Okay? So examples can just be, like, you know, not doing any extra activities, not being around people that drain you, not doing gigs that drain you. That’s kind of a way to create rest. Recovery is how do you add water into the bathtub, like turn on the faucet? How do you add so that you feel refreshed after?

So that’s maybe a bit more intentional—going out for a walk or spending time with the right people or spending time alone, or you know, turning your phone off or not answering your emails, or going on a vacation, you know. And whatever it is, I just thought it was so interesting to, like, okay, we need to plug the drain, and we need to add water. Those are two different things. So I’ve been thinking about that this week. And that can be a win for you when you’re learning how to rest and recover. That’s extremely helpful.

Something I’m doing this month is like I have this little advent calendar that’s tea, and it’s so cute. I just love it because every day I pick my little tea, and I read the thing on the back about what Christmas thing it is today. It was about, um, what recipes are going to be made for Christmas time, and I got a little recipe, and I just thought it was so cute. It’s just like this little ritual that I added to kind of create this rest and this little breather space in my day. Like, I would count that as a win.

So just remember, wins can be very small. You wake up, and you look at the sun for the first five minutes of your day instead of at your phone. That’s a win. Okay, because we’re just focusing on what’s working and how we can maximize what’s working.

Then, we also want you to think about sharing one of your wins with us. We just love so much when people share with us the impact that what we’ve been doing has had on them. Today in the mastermind, people were sharing two of them who did the social media sprint recently. And, uh, they were saying that it created so much momentum because it’s an accelerated six-week program where we work with you to create a content strategy around who you are as an artist and what you want to share and who you want to share it with.

And now they’re in the mastermind, which is more a long-term career strategy. They’re like, “Oh, I’m just so glad I did the sprint because it gave me so much momentum and acceleration towards figuring out who I am and what I want to say.” And now I’m putting in the long-term career strategy in place to, like, both of these people are just trying to get more concerts for their performing career. I’m putting like websites in place, press kits in place, um, all that stuff to be ready for the pitches and the proposals. And that’s just so refreshing for us to know that what we’re doing with the Fearless Artists is making an impact, and we can tangibly count and see that it’s growing people’s careers and how they’re bringing new opportunities into their lives because of what they’re implementing from what they’ve learned from us.

Okay, I hope this has been helpful. It’s supposed to be a short episode, 30 minutes, you know, me talking with a microphone always takes a little bit longer, but I hope that you gleaned something from today. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for all of the support for the podcast.

We always want to finish with an action point from the episode. So I would just ask you to go through those prompts and just send me a DM, answer one of the questions. You can write to me at the Fearless Artist Mastermind on Instagram. And follow us, share this episode with a friend who needs to take some time to rest and reflect. I would love to hear what has helped you. I’d love to hear anything that you’d like us to talk about in the podcast in the future.

And again, just remember to take time over the holidays. We wish you a wonderful, wonderful time with your friends and your family. However you are celebrating, however you’re getting some downtime. Remember that you are worthy no matter what your output is and that your creative soul needs to be cherished, nourished, and valued. We just hope that you have wonderful people in your life who are going to celebrate you, celebrate the gift that you have, celebrate what you’ve brought into the world because creative work is exhausting. And so that’s why it’s so important that you also take time to recover.

So we hope that you have a wonderful time of recovering, and I know Deanna feels exactly the same way. And she and I will be together over the holidays. So that is also very exciting. We’ll be ringing in the new year together, and we can’t wait to share more with our amazing community of Fearless Artists in 2025.

We are extremely honored and privileged to work with you and to have you in our lives. I thought so much of this community over the last two weeks because I was on my own doing my recordings, and it was, as I shared, very hard and confronting, and I totally spiraled. And I was like, “No, we are fearless. I have the bag. We have merch now. It says we’re not starving; we’re thriving.” And we have these incredible people, and I thought of everybody and how they show up and how they, you know, they go after things and we do hard things because we’re fearless, and that kept me going in hard moments. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this community.

We look forward to seeing you very, very soon. Follow us and share it and all that great stuff. And we’ll see you on the next episode. Be fearless.