The Relationship Barometer
Recently, someone asked me, “Is there anything an aspiring musician should try to get out of the way before even thinking about making a career in music?”
Lots of things came to mind: not having a plan, not perfecting one’s craft, not being business-savvy, etc. You know the list. However, if I had to pick just one obstacle that short-circuits music careers more than anything else is would have to be relationship dysfunctions.
Everybody in this business realizes relationships make music careers move forward (or backward). More than talent, more than good looks, more than money, it’s the quantity and quality of your relationships that make a music career cook. This is true in all businesses really, but especially in music and entertainment. Ours is probably the most relationship-driven industry on the planet.
From a business perspective, relationships are so beneficial because they can lead to synergy – a very real multiplication of energy simply by combining two or more people. In the best relationships, 1+1=10.
So building an inclusive web of relationships is your number one task.
Relationships are a bit like mirrors – they circle back and show us ourselves. In fact, our relationships are probably the most accurate barometer of our emotional health.
It’s not a bad idea to pause and take a good, long look at your relational landscape. Is it littered with shipwrecks or is it a thriving network? Do you feel comfortable meeting new people or is something short-circuiting your attempts at making friends, sparking alliances, and building a supportive community?
You may need to turn yourself inside-out in order to get a good look at what keeps short-circuiting your relationships. I call this deeper look “emotional bushwhacking” and we all need to put ourselves through it, not only to build successful relationships but to rediscover our own hidden potential too. Generally speaking, until you do, you will have limited career success. I’ll state that categorically.
The poet Robert Frost once observed: “Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found out that it was ourselves.” Ouch.
What’s your barometer showing?
11 comments
Leave a Reply
Connect with Peter
Peter: This is so on the money! The best relationships prove themselves repeatedly and resoundingly, but they have to benefit both parties mutually. It is when we share history with others that we gain authority. The social networking phenomenon is wonderful, but it is being in the same room with another person – sharing the same air – that has the most power. And when we move up in our world, hopefully, others move up with us. And of course effective networking is always about the other person, and how we can help and benefit them. Karma wins.
Nice – “sharing the same air” – “conspiring” in the best sense – breathing together. Love it.
Thanks Dan.
Peter!
I’m a bit shocked and disappointed at this advice!
Peter Spellman wrote:
> Relationships are a bit like mirrors – they circle back and show us ourselves.
In fact, our
> relationships are probably the most accurate barometer of our emotional
health.
Holy crap this annoyed me!
Anyone who has read Dr. Steven Covey’s work knows about his disdain for what he
calls the “social mirror” and its power to screw with people’s heads. He
strongly advises against “living through the social mirror.” Examples would be
peer pressure or trying to live up to an overbearing parent’s unreasonable
expectations, or even as extreme as suffering from self-image/body image issues
due to societal pressures created by the media.
In this paragraph you seem to be recommending the exact opposite of
Covey’s advice!
Relationships are most definitely NOT “the most accurate barometer of our
emotional health” and thankfully so! I dare you to go to a safe house for
battered women and try to hawk that garbage. According to your statement, if your spouse
beats you, you must have done something bad and you deserved it.
Emotional health, emotional strength comes from within, and THAT is where your
“barometer” needs to be kept. In order to build and maintain what I refer to as
an “unchangeable inner core” and yet remain flexible and adaptive on your
surface, you can NEVER let the whimsies of others influence you.
Conviction and strength of character are not things that can be seen in a
mirror.
> It’s not a bad idea to pause and take a good, long look at your relational
landscape. Is it littered with
> shipwrecks or is it a thriving network? Do you feel comfortable meeting new
people or is something short-circuiting
> your attempts at making friends, sparking alliances, and building a supportive
community?
> You may need to turn yourself inside-out in order to get a good look at what
keeps short-circuiting your
> relationships. I call this deeper look “emotional bushwhacking” and we all
need to put ourselves through it, not
> only to build successful relationships but to rediscover our own hidden
potential too. Generally speaking, until
> you do, you will have limited career success. I’ll state that categorically.
I’m sure you mean well, but this article is dangerously ambiguous and
misleading in my opinion and I feel you’re a bit out of your depth. You may be a
quite competent “booking agent, label director, music editor, artist manager and
producer” but I’d hesitate to seek you out for psychotherapy.
I don’t think examining the symptoms, as you seem to be suggesting, is as
important as discovering the source. Judging your own self-worth based on
whether your “relational landscape is littered with shipwrecks” is a recipe for
disaster in my book. As a matter of fact, every friend I’ve known who had the
bad habit of doing that, seemed to be overly pre-occupied with gaining
validation from others, rather than building self-worth from within.
Just take a look at some of the many music stars who ended their lives
tragically. What do you think they were most likely doing:
Living life based on a strong internal sense of self-worth, and convictions?
or
Seeking validation from their “relational landscape” and the often fickle
public?
I think the emphasis and motivation for working on one’s emotional well-being
should be your own health, NOT whether or not you are pleasing others and
“making friends, sparking alliances, and building a supportive community.”
Those things will naturally flow if you are operating from a strong place
internally. Otherwise you may build a seemingly “supportive community,” but in
reality you’ve surrounded yourself with duplicitous people who are more likely
to take advantage of you than truly care about you.
I think many of those tragic superstars found themselves in that exact situation
unfortunately.
- Noel
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Noel and I appreciate the strong feelings and cogent thinking you bring to the topic.
It’s an inner/outer dance – always.
Anyone who knows me knows that I champion creative individuality and cutting tributaries off the mainstream. In my thinking “relationships” include those with oneself and one’s planet as well. I don’t advocate validating one’s worth/health solely on the basis of external relationships, but I continue to affirm their accuracy in reflecting how well we’re doing in this thing called Life.
By the way, I haven’t read Covey but in checking out his “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” this morning, I noticed that a good 3 of the 7 are primarily SOCIAL . I mention this because you cite him as an influence on you.
Success in life and success in relationships seem to go hand in hand.
If you’re interested in some expanded thoughts on the “inner/outer dance”, please have a look at my essay, “Musician 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…Developing Music Careers in Uncertain Times” at http://www.mcareerjuice.com/musician-2-0-3-0-4-0/
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. It’s a worthwhile discussion.
I will read it Peter thanks. Covey’s work is most definitely an influence on me and I certainly have no doubt that much of what we do as humans is by nature, social. We are social creatures.
Acknowledging that however, is a far cry from defining oneself based on the opinions of others. That’s cart-before-the-horse thinking. You can’t earn respect without giving it first, you can’t earn loyalty without proving your own first, and you can’t expect others to sincerely validate you until you’ve proven yourself worthy. It all has to start from within. The best thing about that process, is that a true sense of self-worth is created, not a false image created from the social mirror. With a true sense of self, we can easily weather the frequent storms of disapproval that fickle and often duplicitous people can hurl at us. If we depend on the success of our relationships to define us, instead of defining ourselves, we allow ourselves to become the victim of whimsy. What we need to do instead, is depend on the success of US to define our relationships.
How can you recommend using others as a barometer of our own emotional health when we have no way of knowing if THEY are healthy? It’s a risky bet to cast your most precious inner core out onto the winds, hoping for the best. The old saying is “Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.” It became a time-worn adage because of its powerful truth. Don’t externalize that which should be protected deep within your own core. Emotional health is not always so different from physical health, and there’s a good reason why our most precious organs are protected by layers of bone and muscle.
Yes of course success in life and success in relationships go hand in hand, but they both flow from within, not the other way around. Defining oneself based on the expectations and approval from others may gain you some benefit in the short term, but it’s a hollow victory. You do so at the cost of your own self. Meaningful relationships happen when people recognize and value what’s inside.
Some of history’s most important figures were not always well-liked or popular. The common factor in their success stories is that they were always true to themselves, even in the face of fierce opposition from others. You don’t build that kind of internal strength by depending on the social mirror for your self-worth.
MUSICIAN 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 is a good read Peter, thanks. It appears to me that you and I share many of the same beliefs and ideas, which has me even more perplexed about this article than I was before. The advice you give here seems to run contrary to what you have written in your book.
“How can you recommend using others as a barometer of our own emotional health when we have no way of knowing if THEY are healthy?”
Agreed. I am not advocating using OTHERS as a barometer of one’s emotional health. My focus is on “the quantity and quality of our RELATIONSHIPS” with others as the barometer. And certainly not the ONLY barometer, but “the most accurate” one in this context.
Hopefully that clarifies it.
Thanks again for reading and sharing your thoughts Noel.
Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your site is excellent, let alone the content!