Hello ,

Did you enjoy your holidays? I did, though relaxing wasn't as easy as it sounds. It took a while until I could put my 'perfectionist' mode off as well. That's when I learned that 'good' can be better than 'better'.

With Compass for Creatives I keep inventing myself. Next month I'll start with some guest lectures again for music-management students. Looking forward to it! I'm also developing some new programs for musicians. In the next newsletters I'll tell you more about it. 5-day e-coaching is still available.

As an artist it's also important to keep inventing yourself. You need to know what your audience is looking for, but as an artist you also have to be able to rise above it. Dare to be an artist.

Enjoy the Indian summer,
Hilde Spille

 

Index:


Why 'good' can be better than 'better'

Keep inventing yourself

About Hilde Spille

Connect

 

About me

I'm Hilde Spille and I work at Paperclip Agency since 1995. As senior agent, I'm booking Dutch and European tours for bands from all over the world. Names on my roster include(d) Sass Jordan, Jill Barber, John Watts, Balkan Beat Box, I Muvrini.
Paperclip Agency, facebook

In the last couple of years I've become an international expert in the empowerment of musicians. In November 2015, IQ Magazine (of ILMC) featured an article of me about how empowerment can help musicians who feel screwed by the music business. Dutch VVAO magazine published my article in December 2015, about how empowerment can help musicians to be flexible.

In my unique approach of mental coaching for musicians, I combine results of positive psychology with my rich experience in the live music business. My blog Compass for Creatives has more than 200K views and more than 150 articles. I also give guest lectures to students of music management.
Compass for Creatives, facebook

 

Connect

Hilde Spille
Paperclip Agency
P.O. Box 1519
6501 BM  Nijmegen
the Netherlands
T +31.24.323 9322
e-mail, facebook, twitter, linkedin


If you like this newsletter, please feel free to forward it to anyone who you think might like it too.
Thank you.

© Hilde Spille


 

Why 'good' can be better than 'better'

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. After finishing a task, I always see something that could have been done better. Do you recognize this? A big advantage is, that you keep improving yourself. Once you manage a certain task, you put the bar higher and higher. Next time you will do it better. You challenge yourself with everything you do.

With this attitude, I found it difficult to relax during my holiday. I not only wanted to improve things in the house; even when staying in a luxurious hotel, I thought about improvements for the hotel staff. It’s difficult to chill when you see possible improvements everywhere. When good isn’t good enough anymore, you really have to learn to relax again!

“A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.”
(Paul Gardner)

I guess that’s true for songs and performing too. For every song, you can think of improvements. If you keep insisting in this line of thoughts,  you will never be able to ‘finish’ or to perform a song. With music you also have to ‘stop at interesting places’. At a certain point, good is good enough, even if it could be better. You still have the choice to keep it as it is, or to continue with improvements.

During my holiday I learned again that good is OK and that I don’t have to improve everything. I learned to take things as they come. That’s what relaxing is about.

 

 

Keep inventing yourself

Last year I was a panelist at Summerschool of BKKC. The purpose of Summerschool is to improve the entrepreneurship of artists in all kind of creative fields, from sculptors to flutists, from interior designers to painters.

The main obstacle for the artists present there is to find enough clients. They all feel very creative, but in order to find clients, they have to come out of their studio or workplace to connect to real people. The best way to do so is to investigate the needs of possible clients, and look if your art can meet the needs. One of the most common needs is recognition, not only of you as an artist, but of the client too.

“Recognition is the most requested emotion”, sighs Yvonne Kroonenberg, a Dutch author. She herself is not interested in recognition. For her, recognition is too much about repetition without any thrill of surprise, marvel, abomination, fright or shock.

If you want to be a creative artist, you have to leave the safe path of recognition. The more successful you become, the more difficult it is. Look at successful musicians. Most of them try to repeat their former success by bringing it down to a formula they now imitate.

But the brilliant ones dare to keep inventing themselves, like David Bowie and Prince did. It is always a risk. The audience might not like what you are up to now. But if you don’t keep inventing yourself, you take the risk of losing yourself, losing your creativity.

In research,dying people were asked what they regret. They didn’t regret what they did, the regrets were about what they didn’t do, the risks they didn’t take, the conversations they didn’t have, the steps they didn’t dare to take, the vocations they didn’t follow, the dreams they didn’t follow.

Do you dare to be creative? Do you dare to keep inventing yourself?