Hi,

This week’s newsletter is more mindset related as opposed to tactical strategy. It was inspired by a recent post the artist Russ made that really resonated with me and felt applicable to artists and creators everywhere.

Let’s explore below.

Let’s dive in ⬇️

In this video at the bottom of this newsletter, Russ talks about the idea of fear of embarrassment and how it can cripple people from getting ahead.

The first part of the video really resonated me:

“Fear of embarrassment is holding back a lot of you.

There’s a lot of people who are not as talented as you who just simply care less about being criticized and made fun of so they’re gonna get further than you.

Fear of embarrassment is friction - causing people to delay, overthink, and avoid risk.

Shamelessness = velocity.

The less you give a f***, the more willing you are to try this or try that and put yourself out there and go after this or that - those people get something.

Luck bets on the ones in motion.”

I don’t want to overhype it but this is one of the most powerful videos Russ has ever posted and something everyone needs to hear.

It reminds me of something I posted a while ago -

I know so many people waiting for the “perfect time” to do something…

Artists waiting for the perfect mix or master to release that song.

Content creators waiting for the “perfect time” to make that video and post it.

I also know a lot of people who suffer from fear of embarrassment and are so concerned with what other people think that it literally cripples them.

They’re so worried about being made fun of that they don’t make that song, post that thing, or pursue that endeavor.

There’s something called The Spotlight Effect - it’s a cognitive bias where people overestimate the degree to which their appearance and actions are noticed by others, believing they are under constant scrutiny when they are not.

It’s so easy to fall victim to this…

“If I post this video, I’m going to get made fun of”.

“If I do this kind of photoshoot as an artist, people are going to laugh at me or judge me”.

The truth is…no one cares. Literally. Everyone is busy and consumed with their own lives. People have their own stress, struggles, and things to occupy themselves with.

The people that do comment or respond negatively weren’t really your friends anyways and weren’t meant to be part of your life.

Some of the most successful people are the ones who simply take the most shots on deck and actually give themselves the most opportunity to fail.

How many songs has Russ released and built in his catalog? Literally hundreds. If he was afraid of releasing 1 bad song and only cared about releasing “perfect music”, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

Fail often and fast. Learn from it. Implement those learnings in the next go around.

Not to sound all motivational corny but I literally see this one concept stopping other people from living their lives and growing.

A lot of times, the action taken that results in failure really just opens the door for the next opportunity. It’s very rare that an artist’s life changes overnight by putting out their first song ever. Or a content creator with their first video ever.

It takes time, consistency, videos that flop, songs that don’t do well, etc.

Constantly learning and iterating.

Failing means trying and trying creates motion and momentum.

Luck bets on the ones in motion.

Here is the Russ video I was talking about.

Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.

Thanks for reading, until next time.

_{The Vault}

 1) Claude - last week’s newsletter featured Claude Code, a coding tool that is part of the Claude family. Claude itself is an LLM similiar to ChatGPT. While I still use ChatGPT, I’ve found it helpful to prompt in multiple places and saw that Claude can actually provide different kinds of responses than GPT - my responses (with the same prompts), have been interesting perspectives. More info HERE

2) The Artist Marketing Playbook - I teamed up with my good friend and fellow music marketing expert Drew De Leon to present The Artist Marketing Playbook. An in-depth look at what an artist can do to set themselves up for success in 2025. More info HERE.