Hi,

This week’s newsletter is dedicated to an interesting moment that happened at the US Open this past Sunday night - the mindset behind that moment felt super applicable to artists and creative professionals everywhere, so I thought it was worth sharing.

Let's get into it below.

This newsletter highlights:

Let's dive in ⬇️

This past Sunday night, tennis players Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton faced off in the US Open Final. Alexander Zverev ended up winning and took the title.

What’s interesting isn’t the fact that he won but what happened afterwards…(if you follow tennis, you prob know what I’m talking about).

Here’s a clip if you missed it:

Basically, he won the title and didn’t even realize it LOL.

After winning, he walked back to the baseline and got ready to return the serve. In his head, it was 5-1 with a game left to play and he had no idea he just won the US Open haha. Meanwhile, in reality, he'd just won one of the biggest titles in tennis.

Zverev beat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2 in the final. He closed it out on his very first championship point and basically just stood there on the baseline until he realized he won.

After the match, he explained that he’d lost track of the score and thought he was up 5-1, not 6-2. He said the mix-up actually helped him, because it prevented him from getting nervous when serving for the title. He literally joked that if he'd known the real score, he probably would've hit three double faults instead of one out of nervousness.

The clip has been everywhere the last few days, with all types of captions about what it represents:

This concept resonated with me as someone working in the music industry, where looking at the “scoreboard” can easily become obsessive and take away from having fun.

What’s super interesting is that Zverev didn’t always play the game with such a carefree mentality. In 2020, he was up two sets in the US Open final against Dominic Thiem and actually ended up losing because he got in his own head.

He’s said that before he won his first major in Paris, he carried around a lot of stress wondering if he would he ever win a title. That stress caused him to overthink and affected his play - after winning, he was able to relegate that stress, be present, and enter flowstate. Essentially, he was able to distance himself from the outcome and just be present.

This idea of looking at the scoreboard runs rampant in the music and entertainment industry, partially because it’s how the music industry defines success (and how people earn a living).

Almost everything is about data (to understand who’s making money and who’s not) which creates this underlying scoreboard in people’s minds. It’s super easy for that scoreboard to create stress, tension, or overthinking.

I'm calling this concept Scoreboard Blindness: the idea that you tend to perform better when you're not constantly aware of where you stand.

Now…this definitely isn't some new-age concept. There’s a 1974 book called The Inner Game of Tennis that’s actually built on the idea that every match has two games:

It’s super fascinating. There’s also science to back this theory up. Sian Beilock is a cognitive scientist who has spent her career studying why talented people choke or underperform. She defines choking as doing worse than you expected because of the situation and what's riding on it.

Research points to two reasons why this happens:

Her own origin story actually sounds like a music industry story - as a high school soccer goalkeeper, her coach invited college recruiters to one of her big games. Knowing all eyes were on her and that her performance would have consequences, she started overthinking things that should have been automatic and made mistakes she normally doesn’t make. She essentially ended up blowing the game which caused her interest and curiosity in why it happened.

In music, it’s easy to replace "recruiters in the stands" with "how are my numbers doing?”.

What is super challenging about the music industry’s scoreboard is not only how the industry shaped itself around it, but that it updates every second, in real time.

For example, Spotify for Artists shows a live stream count that refreshes every two seconds. I myself am guilty of pulling out my phone every 10 minutes and obsessively looking at the live counter of a song I’m excited about or a high pressure release.

How many streams does it have?

Did it beat the last release?

Are we hitting our goals?

How do we sustain and scale this?

Then add social media engagement across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.

You can see how this cycle can easily turn someone psycotic lol.

In my experience, there are three scoreboards people in music look at and each one has potential to throw off your game in a different way.

1) The song scoreboard. Streams, saves, playlist adds. Basically, data centered around a specific song. Staring at this one mid-rollout can lead to real stress and anxiety that takes away from actually enjoying the process.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Russ interview that really resonated with me. He shared that one of his favorite songs has around 8 million streams despite a $160,000 music video while one he likes a little less has +1 billion streams. If he'd judged his catalog by a day-three scoreboard, he would have stopped long before those 26 plaques.

2) The content scoreboard. Likes, views, shares. We all know this one. How is the content performing? What’s working and not working? Why is it working? How do we replicate it?

3) The career scoreboard. Monthly listeners, follower count, plaque count, how many shows you’ve sold out, and where you are in comparison to your peers. This can easily become the existential one and make some people spiral, especially with how easy it is to compare yourself to others on social media. This also applies to professionals working in the industry, not just artists or creators.

It’s important to say a few things because I think it’d be easy to misconstrue this article.

Firstly, having all of this information available to us is a blessing. It helps us do our jobs, understand what’s going on, and make smarter decisions to better our careers. Information is key and I’m not discounting that in any way.

Secondly, the music industry runs off these things. I can’t just sit here and tell you not to care about them when it’s literally how people earn their livelihood.

To that I agree with and would say this article isn’t about not caring or not looking at those things - it’s about not letting those numbers throw you off your game or preventing yourself from having fun and enjoying the process.

That means not obsessing over making the song you think people want to hear - make the music you want to make and genuinely enjoy.

It means not obsessing over making content so much that you forget why you make music in the first place and your love for the game.

It’s also a reminder for professionals working in the industry (I’m talking to myself as well) - it’s so easy to constantly be looking at the data and asking if it’s enough, that you lose sight of why you started working in music in the first place or even just enjoying the process - the everyday things that come with being in this industry and the small moments that make it worth it.

Rick Rubin has a quote in his book The Creative Act that relates to this:

“Inspiration comes first, you come next, and ‘the audience comes last.’

People hear that and assume he doesn't care about fans but in reality, the audience comes last for the audience's sake - you can't make your best work while you're busy catering to them.

The scoreboard works the same way. You stop staring at the numbers mid-point so you can be present, enjoy the game, and enter flowstate.

The funniest part about this story is that Zverev didn't plan any of it…

It wasn’t some super-calculated mental trick he played on himself.

He simply just miscounted LOL. But for a few minutes, he got to play a championship game without the weight of FEELING LIKE the championship was at stake. He was in flowstate.

Most of us will never accidentally lose track of our numbers (the industry won't let us) so we have to do it on purpose.

Btw, I promise I'm not telling you to stop caring about your analytics…

Just don’t let it stop you from being present and enjoying the ride.

Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.

Thanks for reading, until next time.