How to Avoid Burnout

What's up gigging pros. It's Jared Judge, I brought my microphone on top of the mountain today still in my Arizona trip. And today I wanted to chat about avoiding burnout as a gigging musician. And I wanted to chat about this because you know, I'm sure every musician listening to this knows somebody or maybe even feels this way themselves, who is feeling burnt out or jaded or frustrated, and ready to throw in the towel. Whether or not you're a seasoned veteran who's been playing for 50 plus years, or if you're just getting into this gigging game, and you realize it's not as easy or as glamorous as you thought it was going to be. And so I wanted to chat about it. And I'm actually in the middle of reading a book called, there's a customer born every minute. It's about the life and times of PT Barnum, the circus guy. And I thought it was super relevant to share because I got to this point where the book is written by Joe Vitale. It's like he's doing kind of a analysis piece of PT Barnum's life. And what PT Barnum did so well, that basically helped him create an empire that, you know, and we still hear his name, all over the place, even though he died over 100 years ago. And one of the pieces of information that I got out of this book was that Barnum loved his customers. He loved who he serves on a daily basis, you know, it was his job to love them as much as he possibly could, and delight them in, you know, any way possible. And there was a story of, you know, Barnum, somebody wants that Barnum, you know, customer's being a jerk to me. and Barnum said, Well, you're the customer is paying you for the right to be a jerk to you. And they're being a jerk to you, because you're not serving them. Well, you didn't satisfy their expectations. And so how does this all relate back to music? Well, as you know, my philosophy on gigs is that gigs are not just another gig, you are serving a customer with your music, whether or not that is a bride and groom, trying to kick off their marriage with a, you know, live music experience. Or if it's a corporate event planner, trying to delight their clients and encouraging them to continue having a lifelong relationship with their business, or even a bar or restaurant manager whose main business goal is to bring in more customers to buy food and drink and keep them drinking there for a long time. That way, they come back and become lifelong customers. So these are our customers as musicians. And the sooner we accept that, the more success we will have booking gigs, specifically booking the high paying gigs because we are niching down and serving these customers at the highest level, which means we can demand a premium price. And so burnout happens when you don't love what you're doing. If there's an aspect of what you're doing that, you know, you might feel like I didn't sign up for this, or the people I work for are jerks or this bar manager stiffed me. And, you know, it's that's totally fine when you don't like your customer. But that's not a long term strategy that will help you prevent burnout. So how do you do that? How do you prevent burnout in this specific way? And the answer is either find the customer type that you love serving, or find a way to shift your mindset so that you do love the customer type that you are serving currently. So for my group, Dream City Strings we serve brides and grooms getting married. And we serve them at a very high level through a very thorough planning process. In fact, the whole BookLive oftware was designed around my xperience booking and planning, edding gigs and then oordinating them. And so our rocess of consultation and oving our customer is very horough, very in depth. And the eviews that we get afterwards how that did I always love erving brides and grooms? No, ou know, I'm like many other usicians I when I first tarted, got into this game, I ust wanted another gig. But ver time, you know, you start o develop a bond with the eople that you serve. And when ou realize that, as the usiness owner, which you know, f you're running your own igging group, that's a business ou are the business owner, you et to dictate and control the ifferent aspects of the way you unction. And so I realized that could at every possible oment, even right now, I ealized I could be serving that ustomer at a much higher level. nd just by doing that, I tarted to appreciate them more nd care for them more and, you now, design the way that I run y business around to that ustomer instead of around my roduct, which is, you know, ive music. And so you know that hat has a nice feedback loop ecause the more I care, the ore I love the customer. And he better experience they have, he more they feed that back to e and I get more positive eedback and continually want to erve them at a higher level, hich helps me avoid burnout. ut I want to give another xample. So if you're listening o this podcast, you are an xample of my other type of ustomer. So yes, musicians are y customer for the Gigging ecrets book and the BookLive a p. And, you know, if I be honest with myself, I didn't always love my fellow musician as I should have. And you know, that's something I'm also working on. And I've been working on it for a while, and I, I do love you don't worry, you're, you're not unloved, listening here, I wouldn't be doing this podcast if I didn't love my fellow musician. But when I went to music school, specifically, the second time around, the school I went to there was kind of a bad attitude problem in the school. And, you know, I probably contributed to that, I'll be honest with you about that. But in general, like, there was a lot of competition between different musicians, and it didn't manifest itself in a positive way that caused people to get in the practice room and really try to top one another, it manifested itself in kind of a, like, people had this air of superiority walking around, and they looked down on their fellow musician, and cliques would develop. And it just had this uncomfortable environment. And even, you know, this is where I did not participate in this. But you know, for getting people to come to band and orchestra rehearsals, there were a lot of people who would groan and grumble and say out loud, that they don't want to go to rehearsal, which was, you know, that's tough to do, when that is what you're getting your degree and his music. And so that was tough to be around when people would complain about the very thing that they're paying 1000s of dollars to get a degree in. And so just that, that negative atmosphere kind of hurt my ability to to love my fellow musician at that time. And it's taken me a little bit of time, and also just finding and talking to more musicians and serving them. That is helped me get over that. But there are things that can damage your love for your customer. Like if you're a bar or club, musician, and a club owner stiffs you that can, how are you supposed to love somebody who stiffs you, but you have to get over it. You know, I had to chat with more musicians, you know, once I graduated and got out of that atmosphere, you know, I surrounded myself with musicians that I do love serving, and not all of them have bad attitudes. And that helped repair my love for my fellow musician. And it helped me celebrate their wins more, you know, when somebody would win an audition, instead of being jealous about that, I would be so happy for them. Because how can you celebrate your own success, when you can't even celebrate the success of somebody around you. And so, love your customer fiercely. Because they are your customer there are aside from your regular family and your pets. They are the people that you will be surrounding yourself with the most. And by just shifting your attitude a little bit. And understanding how can I position this or how can I frame this thought in a way that helps me love and serve my customer better. That's gonna help you avoid burnout. And if you're not willing to do that, well then you know, you're gonna have a very difficult time maintaining a positive attitude as you play your gigs or book your gigs. And quite frankly, it will affect your success at booking gigs. So if you want to be more successful, love your customer better. And you know that I want to close by saying I do love you, the musicians who are listening to this I love my customers. And I'm continually working every day to find ways to love them more and serve them at a much higher level. So I hope this was helpful. For you liked it, leave me a comment. Make sure to subscribe and like this podcast. And by now if you don't know I'm giving away a free copy of my book Gigging Secrets, you just have to go to GiggingSecrets.com pay a little bit of shipping and handling and to arrive at your doorstep. And then you have all of my secrets of how I book and play over six figures of gigs. So get that today. Remember you are just one gig away