BY JESSICA VOIGT-PAGE
Jessica Voigt-Page is an Australian classical saxophonist based in Texas. She teaches 70 students and hosts camps and events with her own business Saxophone Academy Austin. Her career sees her take the roles of entrepreneur, music director, private teacher, and college professor success coach for musicians. In this blog, she enlightens CutCommon readers on how to generate a powerful mindset to drive success.
As an entrepreneur or creative person who wants to make a living doing what lights you up, it’s not enough to wait for things to come your way. You have to be willing to go all the way with you dream, and pursue your purpose with determination and grit.
You have to create a powerful mindset to support what it is that you are trying to achieve – and one of the cool things about being a musician or creative artist is that you already have everything you need. In fact, you probably already have that mindset, but you didn’t know you could apply it to anything outside of the practice room.
So, let’s just take a couple of seconds to think about the skills you have developed as a musician. Off of the top of my head, I can think of quite a few:
- Determination
- Goal setting
- Achieving goals
- Scheduling
- Time Management
- Collaborative skills
- Leadership skills
- Networking
- The ability to read people
- Creative problem solving
Think about what other skills you may have developed as a musician. Now, let’s think about how these could help you in your business:
Determination
When things get tough (which they will), and you have a hard time seeing results for all of your hard work (which also happens), determination will get you to keep pushing no matter what. You have it in spades – and it will be your biggest asset in business!
Goal setting and achievement
In the ‘real world’ (i.e. outside of music school), I’ve found this to be a huge issue for people when they’re trying to make something happen. You already know that setting and achieving goals over the space of time will make you better at something. How else would you have become a musician? You have an advantage already.
Scheduling and time management
This should not be a surprise to you. Business success is all about scheduling a time management. Luckily for you, every day of your life has been a practice in the art of time management and scheduling. Add to that a splash of responsibility and reliability, and voila! Business pro.
Collaborative and leadership skills/ networking and the ability to read people
I have grouped these together because they all relate to the same thing: the way you interact with those around you. Communicating with your clients is super important in business, and all of these are things you’ve developed from playing with other musicians in ensembles, collaborating on projects, being able to communicate with others from across the room without making a sound, and knowing how to be a team player.
Creative problem solving
Business owners have to be creative people in order to have the flexibility to meet the demands of their client base. Whatever business you are in, want to be in, or end up in, having the ability to offer creative solutions to problems makes you an invaluable resource. Did you ever have a musical issue you needed to work out, and had to find multiple ways of addressing the issue before you reached success? Just think about how useful that skill will be, and how well it will serve you as you grow your empire.
What other skills do you feel you’ve developed from your time in music school? I’d love to hear them and to hear how you believe they will be of use outside of your practice room! Email jess@jessicapage.com or leave a comment below.
Visit Jessica’s blog www.jessica-page.com where she shares more info and tips about business skills musicians can develop to achieve success. She also offers one-on-one business coaching to musicians. You can follow her on Facebook through The Abundant Musician.
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