Inspiration | Wendy Day

Hi guys, how are you today? Today I want to talk about inspiration, inspiration. Um, you know, there's so many things in life that kind of get in the way of us fulfilling our dreams or living our dreams. Making money is one of them. Stress, family members, people that surround us. You know, we've got so many different things that tug us in a negative or unhappy direction. Not saying that those things make us unhappy, but obligation kind of tugs us into to different directions, and we sometimes forget that we need inspiration. I know that I do. I'm one of those people that can easily get bogged down in the daily routine and doing what I have to do and what I'm obligated to do, and sometimes I forget to seek out inspiration. I notice that I need it when I begin procrastinating a lot. Like if I've got a list of stuff to do and I find that I don't do it, I start doing other stuff. I clean my office, I'll watch TV. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I'll go through periods where I'll binge-watch TV, which is my way of procrastinating. You know, I'll start reading magazine articles that are of interest to me instead of writing an article for my blog that I'm supposed to be doing. So in order to get past the procrastination, um, I usually have to do stuff that inspires me. And the way that I get inspired, I guess like everybody, um, I make a list of the stuff in life that makes me happy and the stuff that I'd like to do more of. And in that list, there are always things that inspire me. There are things that just make me happy that I do, um, but there are things that inspire me. For example, um, ideas inspire me, like reading books, non-fiction books where people talk about their lives and what they've accomplished, or books that talk about a new way to do things, or even books that are like historical. Like there's a book about, you know, like the history of bootlegging in the urban music community, and that book really inspired me, um, not because of all the bootlegging that went on in the urban music industry, but just in the way that people share music with each other. It kind of ushered in the whole free music business model, and I know a lot of you really hate that because you're struggling to make money. On my end, I kind of embraced it. I hate it too, but I embraced it, and I figured out a way for my clients to make money even though, you know, MP3s are basically free, even though music is free. Panel discussions inspire me. Um, great music. I love great music. Great music. I guess I'm in the right business, aren't I? Um, great music inspires me. Not just rap, you know. Rap is the genre that I love the most, but I listen to a lot of new age. I listen to jazz, classical, rock. Um, the only things I don't really listen to are country and opera. I really don't enjoy those two genres, so I don't really listen to them very much. Great movies inspire me, you know, feel-good movies really inspire me. Traveling inspires me, you know, I love to travel. I love food. Now food doesn't inspire me, food just makes me happy, but you know, I'm a foodie. I like a good meal. I like a weird eclectic mix of flavors that come together, you know. So I guess what I'm recommending to you is that you make a list of 10 things. Start with 10, you know, go, go deeper if you can, but you start with 10 things that make you happy. And then of those 10 things, figure out which of those you like because they inspire you, or and which you like because you just enjoy them. You know, for me, food, I just enjoy it. Travel, I enjoy, but it also inspires me. It gives me ideas. It gives me energy. It gives me relaxation. It gives me things that help me get to the next level in my business. But I think of all the things that I do in my life, and it's gonna be different for everybody. You you know, it's gonna be different for all of you. The thing that inspires me the most really are ideas. I love, I love reading and hearing different ideas, whether it's in person, one-on-one with another human being, or whether it's, you know, listening to somebody do a TED Talk, or going to a music conference or a tech conference and hearing people speak on a panel. Um, I, I read a lot of books, and I get a lot of my ideas and inspiration from books. You know, something as simple as, um, when I was negotiating my first deal, you know, we were able to get the Masters, and that idea came from me reading a biography about Lucille Ball and how when she started Desilu Productions, instead of taking money from a studio that she would have to pay back, she decided to invest her own income into creating her own film studio, which nobody had really done at the time, you know, of an actor. Movie studios were owned by conglomerates and run by movie moguls, movie executives. And she decided to be like an independent, um, film and TV producer, and she started her own production company so that when she went and did a deal for I Love Lucy, she owned the rights to that, and she retained ownership, um, and did all the filming at her own studio. And she changed ownership for actors in movies. And when I read that in the early '90s, I thought, well, why can't a musician do that? Why can't a rapper do that? I knew that they'd have to have some supreme leverage. I didn't think that, you know, any regular person off the street could then negotiate to own their masters. But I knew that if I ever had the opportunity to do a deal for somebody where they could own their masters, that I would ask for it. Maybe they'd say no, but you know, it was something to ask for. So when I was doing my first deal, it— we had a lot of leverage, so why not? And we were able to get that caveat in the, in the agreement, you know. So inspiration comes from many different sources. You just have to figure out where yours comes from. You know, I hear a lot of people say that their kids inspire them. And that's a wonderful thing as long as it's the actual interaction with your child or something that occurs when you're with your child that inspires you, not the obligation of having a child and having to support that child. What I'm talking about today is not financial. It's not about money. This is about what inspires you that makes you get up off your ass and create and, and not only do what needs to be done, but grow your brand and grow your opportunity. Things that make you not want to procrastinate anymore, things that make you want to succeed. And yes, money is very much a driving force, but You could be doing anything and make a lot of money. You could be driving a truck and making money rather than writing rhymes or songwriting or DJing or producing tracks. You know, those are all things, they're all careers where you don't get paid right away. It's, it's not like you wake up one day and say, oh, I'm going to be a songwriter, and then Beyoncé calls you and says, oh, I heard you're a songwriter, write me a song. It, you know, it It's a growth process that takes years, sometimes decades, to develop and get into the right circles in order to reach the people that can benefit from your art, right? You don't wake up one day and say, "Oh, I'm gonna be a producer," and you meet Drake on a plane and you give him a track and he loves it so much that he goes and records to it and it becomes, you know, a hit record for the entire summer. It's a growth art form. You've got to get really good at what you do, which takes time. You've got to get into the right circles, which takes even more time. You've got to learn the industry, which takes time. So it's all very time-consuming, and if you're driven by money There are just better ways to make quicker money than the music industry. So you've got to tap into your inspiration. You've got to figure out what it is first, and then you've got to do whatever it takes to inspire yourself. And then if you're somebody who has a successful mind state and a successful attitude, you're going to want to do whatever you can to be the best you that you can be. And, you know, that means something different to all of us. You know, I'm not somebody who puts a lot of value on the outside shell, so I don't spend a lot of time in the gym. I don't go and get plastic surgery. I don't spend a lot of time putting makeup on. You've probably noticed, you know, I'm just kind of me. But I do spend a lot of time developing my mind, and I spend a lot of time learning how I can be better and sharper and do things, you know, um, if I'm good at something today, that's wonderful, but how can I be even better at it tomorrow? The parts of me that are weakest, like the parts where I need work, I work on those. I strengthen my weaknesses, um, even in my business I hire staff that are great at what I suck at. I don't hire people that are good at what I do because I'm already good at it. I hire people that can complement my weaknesses and help to make me stronger and help to make my team stronger and my business stronger, you know. And all of these things come from being very real with yourself, being very analytical and figuring out, okay, how can I do better? I've learned a lot from a writer named Jack Canfield. Jack Canfield's like one of these self-help gurus, and I've actually been to two of his live seminars, and they've been really rewarding. The first time I went, I went alone, and it was on my birthday too, bizarrely. And it was a week-long process of just analyzing, you know, who I, you know, I analyzed who I was as a person and how to get better at what I do, like how to get past like those voices in your head that tell you you're not good enough, you can't do that. And also find out like what was holding me back. And I learned a lot about myself. Well, anyway, One of the things that Jack Canfield does that I find really helpful, and I don't quite do it the way that he does, but at the end of every day, um, he rates himself on a scale of 1 to 10 in different areas. Um, like he'll rate his relationship, like, um, you know, how, how did I, how well did I interact with my wife today? You know, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being you blew it and 10 being, you know, you went all out. And he does that in every area of his life, business, personal, interacting with his kids. He writes a lot of books, so productivity is really important to him. You know, how productive was I today on a scale of 1 to 10? You know, we have days where we try to get shit done and we can't, like we just don't, we're not very productive. And then we have days where we're just able to handle everything, you know, almost like that Superman, you know, thing where everything you set your mind to, it just, it just flows and it works. And although I don't, I don't rate different areas of my life on a scale from 1 to 10 because that's just not me, rating systems are kind of bunk to me. But I'll sit down and at the end of the day and I'll think about, you know, everything that I did that day, like what could I have done better? What needs attention? What do I need to work harder on tomorrow? For me, I get a lot of stuff to do, and sometimes I get overwhelmed and I'll procrastinate, as I mentioned earlier. So I may think about it at night before I go to bed about how— and I don't do this right before I go to sleep because it would keep me awake. But a couple hours before I go to bed, I'll stop and think, okay, You know, did I accomplish everything that I wanted to today? And if I didn't, why didn't I? You know, was it that I had too many different things coming at me, in which case then I need to delegate more stuff to my staff? You know, or did I accomplish more than I had hoped? You know, and if I didn't accomplish stuff, was it because I ended up doing busywork so that I wouldn't have to deal with it? You know, and I analyze where I can do better. And when I'm planning out my day for the following day, if something didn't get finished, I make sure that it gets done the next day. And that analysis is what enables me to make sure that I get it done the next day, because I've already, you know, accepted responsibility for the fact that I didn't do it, and I make sure that it gets done. But all of this like is fueled for me by inspiration. And I'm not inspired by money. I'm not a person who's driven by money. And if you are, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But for me, I have found that when I make decisions based on what I'm passionate about, or what I care about, or what accomplishes my mission in life, I make better decisions than when I make decisions based solely on money. And that's just me, everybody's different. But you have to find what your inspiration is and tap into it. And again, you can do that by just making a list of things that make you happy and that you enjoy, and then figure out from those things what really inspires you and what really makes you a better person, makes you better at what you do. And makes you, um, happy and makes you feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. Okay guys, that was my chat on inspiration. Thank you for joining me, and I will see you soon.