Today’s guest has been featured on Disney+, and she helps creative entrepreneurs define and achieve success on their terms. Lisa believes the best way to be truly successful in life and business is to be yourself. In this episode, Lisa Robin Young, founder of Ark Entertainment Media, shares her journey about owning her niche, doing what she loves, and making a profit. Her success started from the epiphany she had after an accident. It was a moment that changed her path. She also mentioned how celebrities build their economy based on who they are. Tune in to this inspiring episode and learn how knowing your creative type can help you make money with Lisa.

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Achieve Success And Make More Money By Knowing Your Creative Type With Lisa Robbin Young

I am excited to be here with Lisa Robbin Young from Ark Entertainment Media. We are going to talk about her journey as a musician and as an entrepreneur. She is multi-passionate like I am. She’s an author and podcaster. We do all the things. We can’t stop ourselves, but it is going to make it super fun to talk to her because we have a lot in common. We have done a lot of the same kinds of things and moved on a journey that took us to the same kinds of things and ways to use the talents that we have. Let’s get started. I’d love to hear like how you got started in music, what your journey looked like, and then we’ll maybe stop on points along the way of interest.

I have been a musician since I was a toddler. We had a big toy box that had a big wooden lid that came down, and that was my stage when I was two and I would sing and dance. By the time I was 3 or 4, I was wrangling up the neighbor kids and charging them a nickel to watch me sing and dance. I always had a side hustle. Music and business have always been in my purview. I went to school. I was about ten and ready for the world. The band from Flint, which is my hometown, made it big, and that was it for me. I was like, “I am going to be a rock star.”

My parents were like, “That’s nice, sweetheart, but you need to have a fallback plan.” Every well-meaning parent does, and I was like, “That doesn’t make any sense to me. If I want to pursue music, I should put all of my efforts into that.” I took all the music classes in high school. I had 2 6 hours because the band teacher and the choir teacher both wanted me, and I was like, “You all have to figure out how you are going to do my grade, but I will sit wherever you tell me to sit.”

Then I went to college. I got my degree in Music Theory, Music History and a minor in Vocal Performance. I recognized I needed to know the business side of things better. I had heard the horror stories of Billy Joel getting taken by his manager, his agents, and all of that stuff, and I was like, “That will not be me.” I took the Business, Law, Marketing, Advertising, and all of those things partly to cover that but also because I have a learning addiction. I want to learn and know all the things.

Why did you choose to major in Theory and History and not Performance?

They didn’t have a composition program at the campus of UM that I went to and they were like, “We don’t have composition, but we have a great Theory and History program.” I was like, “Fine.” I started at Bowling Green in Ohio and they did have a comp program. I was a freshman and they wouldn’t let me into the comp program, but they would let me take intro to comp.

I took Intro to Music Comp and I’m sitting in this classroom. There are 8 or 9 of us. I am the only girl and freshman. They are all juniors and seniors and I outscored them on everything, and I’m like, “You still won’t let me in? This is ridiculous,” and that’s when I left. I left school and I went back a few years later to a different school. That’s the journey there, but I wanted to write because I had a lot of self-image stuff that was like,” I would love to be a rock star, but I have to write good songs first like Billy Joel did.”

That was my model growing up. That’s how that trajectory went that I left and set music aside because I needed a job and work. I needed to make money and I wasn’t in LA. I wasn’t in New York. I wasn’t in any of the music meccas. I was in Ohio, Utah, and Michigan. I had a family. It must’ve been about 2007 or 2008. I was driving my car and I spun across three lanes of traffic on the freeway. I was clutching. At one point, I did let go of the wheel and I’m like, “Whatever happens, happens.”

That’s a Jesus take the wheel moment.

It was. As the car landed and back-ended into the ditch, the semi-truck, the whole vehicle shook and I was like, “I should probably be dead right now, and the ironic thing was I was on the way to my therapy appointment with my therapist.” I get in the car and drive over and I’m like, “This happened,” and she’s like, “What do you think this means?” I’m like, “If this is my opportunity to start over,” because I had been a financial advisor at this point. I had been heavily steeped in like, law, and real estate and all of the financial sector type stuff. I’m like, “If this is my opportunity to start fresh because maybe I should have been dead by now,” then I want to get back into doing music.

You need to do what creates a space of safety for you so that you can take risks, show up more authentically, and do the work that really matters to you as a musician and as an artist. Click To Tweet

I have to jump in because this is so analogous to my story. I was trying to do music on the side, but I was a director of finance. I was an accountant. I had my two kids, my first daughter and I developed an auto-immune disease and I got sick and I ended up in the hospital. It was 2005. It was similar to your timeline, and I had that same thing. It’s like, “I’m losing weight. I cannot keep anything down. If I get out of here, I’m going to do music,” and it’s that moment.

This is where it gets a little woo-woo because if it wasn’t already woo-woo enough, this is where it gets really woo-woo. I got in the car and as I started the car to head back home, I heard this very clear voice, and I like to tell people that God talks to me in the voice of James Earl Jones. I hear this booming point, you are going to record 300 songs and I’m like, “What now? I’m going to do what? Come again?” I’m going to record 300 songs. I’m like, “That seems like a lot to me, but okay.”

We started down this journey of setting up the studio in the house and recording. Not necessarily to put it out to the world but to build this body of work and learn how to use all this equipment because I had never done it before. We are about halfway through that project. We have got 130-ish songs that we put together.

Have you written all these songs before?

No. Many of them are cover. Some of them are original songs and a lot of them are covers where we have taken a song out of its genre. That’s where my last album was born. It was this whole, “Let’s take these songs that people think they know. Let’s give them a new setting so that people can experience them differently.”

The song that gets played a lot is our smokey and bluesy version of Aerosmith’s Dream On, and we have done it in performance and people will pull me aside afterward and go, “I finally know what the lyrics are to that song. I never knew those lyrics. I didn’t know what they were.” It’s eye-opening to see this song is very timeless that was written by a seventeen-year-old Steven Tyler, and he sings it now in his 60s, and it’s still so relevant and we do it without screaming guitars.

The people can take it in and let it have a deeper meaning for them. People who would never listen to Aerosmith or people who only ever hear the guitar and turn it down. People who only ever listened to Tony Bennett. Let’s bring some of that together. Let’s give people an opportunity to experience the stories of music in different ways and let that change their lives. That’s what I live for with my music and my performance in general.

Women of Substance was an online radio platform and now it’s a show. When it was online radio, I had a show called We Have Got It Covered, and I loved when people would submit covers like that where it was completely taken out of a genre. Some heavy metal songs have now become a jazz standard style. It shows off the timelessness of the melody and the lyrics that someone wrote that someone who doesn’t listen to that genre would never hear that song because they can’t hear it. They have to turn it off because it’s like, “This is not my thing.”

Music has always been about storytelling, and that’s part of why I resonated so deeply with songwriters and musicians like Billy Joel. It’s like we, as minstrels, our muse is the world around us. Our muse is the life that we are living the lives of our friends and colleagues, the stories that they have to tell the rich tapestry of the connections that we have made in the life that we are living. To be able to bring some of those threads out and craft a little micro tapestry for people to appreciate the colors and the nuances in the storylines of people who might want otherwise you might never, ever hear about or know about, but that story is a timeless story. It’s that timeless arc of the hero’s journey and we need that. It builds us up.

There’s a time and a place for here’s my number, give me a call, and let’s go meet somewhere. Those songs are fun and I like those songs too. Those aren’t the songs that last. I was talking to somebody about a time and there’s a guy on YouTube who did this mashup of the six-country songs that all sound identical. They have the same formula and he plays all six of them together at the same time, and you are like, “It sounds a little busy in the middle, but it sounds like it’s all one song.” This formula worked in country music for 5 or 6 years and they were all top ten hits.

 

I was like, “They are all forgettable. None of them are Bohemian Rhapsody. None of them have the substance, longevity, and memorability of that type of classic tune. It was a very daring and risk-taking song when it was put together. It was three songs that Freddie Mercury smushed into one. We need that creativity, ingenuity, and inspiration as human beings trying to get through our day. The idea of a world without music. A world without good stories told true music, but that’s not a world I want to live in.

There are different kinds. Those kinds of country songs, or Call Me Maybe or whatever, are what you put on the radio when you are in the car and do not want to focus on it. It sounds good and you are going about your day, but if you want to experience the song. That’s when you have a song like a Billy Joel, Elton John, or Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s almost like you are going to a live show. You are going to sit there and you are going to listen to it. Those are the kinds of things I listen to on my walks and stuff because I don’t have other distractions. I can dive in.

Even the music that is for the sake of fun and entertainment. That’s still allowing us to feel something. That’s still allowing us to have an experience. Saturday nights, I will write for fight. I’m like, “I don’t think I’m going to go out and fight, but I love that song. I’m going to like bop around to it and I feel energized and alive.” That’s the purpose of the song. It’s not to inspire you to go out and bash heads in. It’s to get you alive and feeling things in your body. That’s what good music does and that’s what great storytelling can do.

Once you have this epiphany that you are going to start recording, are you also out there performing, or are you building up a fan base? Where did you go from there?

I started recording on my own and then started sharing some of the videos of the rehearsals and the performances I was doing, which led to my 2nd and 3rd album. That work is out there. We are working on album number four right now. I tell people it’s pop infused jazz and blues. We do jazz and blues. We pull these songs out of their genres and bring them in.

In the process of working on the music that I have been working on, I was also invited to be a guest featured artists. I don’t know how you call it. I was put on Disney+ in a reality show. I’m still out there performing. I’m still doing a little bit of touring. That’s been real challenging the last few years, pandemic and whatnot.

What is that reality show? Is it on yet?

It’s still on. It’s called Encore. It’s the show where they take adults and reunite these casts of high school musicals to remount their high school musical, and you’ve got less than a week to put the show back on. Some of us didn’t even have the same roles we had in high school. Learning new lines, choreography, and all of that stuff.

I was one of the kids from my high school that got to go back 26 years after we mounted that production and do that show again. It’s out there. It’s episode three of Encore on Disney+. It’s fun. It’s a great opportunity. In that instance, what I liked about that opportunity was that we were doing this production of The Sound of Music. Almost everybody knows The Sound of Music and there’s a storyline there.

As it was a reality-based show, we also got our storylines. For me, as a performer, that’s the thing. For me, it’s never been about, “Look at me. I want to be a rock star, but I want to be a rock star because I recognized the influence and the impact that you can make in people’s lives immediately.” When the song is over and people come up to you, they say, “I never knew those words, and now they mean so much to me.”

If you don't like the success you see, you have to make decisions about what you will be so that success will look different tomorrow. Click To Tweet

That is the pinnacle moment. That is the mountain top experience for me. It’s like, “I made a change in someone’s life.” You are on stage and you are performing in a theatrical production and you’ve got to have a New York accent, and somebody from New York is sitting in the audience and comes to you afterward. You are speaking in your regular American Midwestern dialect, and they are like, “You are not really from New York?” I’m like, “No. I have only visited three times.”

To be able to reach into people and stir up stuff that maybe hasn’t been stirred, needs to be stirred, or needs to be stirred again to inspire them to incite them to make their lives better, that’s always been my driving force. From the time I was three, wrangling the neighbor kids, I’m like, “This is going to change your lives. Give me a nickel and I will show you more.” That’s always what it’s been for me.

The time I was singing at a coffee shop and I was singing a song about my grandmother who has Alzheimer’s and a guy came up to me afterward. He’s like, “My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and this made me feel less alone and less scared,” and handed me a $20 bill. I was like, “That’s awesome.” I love that about being a performer, recording artist, and all of that.

This plays into one of the things you like to talk about is being a celebrity in your own niche. In my twenties, I wanted to be famous, By the time I was 30, I was like, “Not really. I don’t want to be famous. I want to do music.” Now, I’m like, “I want the people that are going to be affected and love what I do to see what I’m doing. That’s all I want.” I’d love to have you talk a little bit about that idea of celebrity versus celebrity within your niche.

If you haven’t already watched it, I highly recommend looking at Jennifer Lopez’s documentary Halftime.

I’m not watching that on the airplane. I think I didn’t quite get to the end.

You don’t need to watch very much of it to get the sense of how much responsibility a celebrity carries on their shoulders. I have worked with people who are starting from scratch and nine-figure music superstars with signed NDAs. When you look at people at that level, they are building an economy based on who they are.

They have got employees, staff, teams, dancers, musicians, entourage, and all these people that they have got to pay a paycheck to, so it’s even more important for them to stay in their zone. One artist I worked with had to sign a contract that said we would only address them in a certain way. We wouldn’t mention any of the work that they do. There were all of these conditions around and I was like, “This seems ridiculous.”

I recognized that even making mention of those things could be a trigger that takes them out of the zone. They are not performing at their best if they are out of the zone. If they are not performing at their best, that will impact the lives of all the people around them, all the people that are relying on them for a paycheck, for a roof over their heads, and for food in their mouths. I was like, “I don’t know that I want to have that much responsibility.” Unlike you, I was like, “I want to perform and I want to do this on my own terms. I want to have some staff and a team to help me, but I don’t want that much pressure.”

Then to be in the public eye all the time, the critical public eye of what is she wearing and did she gain 10 pounds more? All of the stuff that goes with being a celebrity. When you are a celebrity at that level, you are a target for a lot of stuff that you didn’t ask for. Some people like J-Lo are wired for it. At one point in the documentary, they are interviewing Ben Affleck, and he said, “I said to her one day, ‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ She said, ‘I expected it.’” She knew if she was going to rise that high, she had to have tough armor so that she could withstand the slings and arrows.

 

She still was affected by it. No one wouldn’t be affected by the stuff that she was getting around all of her relationships. She has a much thicker skin than most of us.

Part of that comes from this idea of separating ourselves from the work. At one point she says, “I came to the realization that I wasn’t doing this for the award. I was doing it for the impact.” Don’t get me wrong. The money is important too. It was about how I could touch, change, and reach people. The awards are that nice extra to have a thing.

When I looked at my own work and what I was trying to do, I was like, “I want some recognition because I have worked hard, I know my stuff, and I’m good at what I do.” At the same time, I don’t need a massive entourage, tour bus, stages that rotate, and all these fireworks. I’m like, “I don’t need all that. I can be the celebrity in my space and be known by the people who matter to my economy. To the income, livelihood, and lifestyle I want for myself and the people supporting me.

I don’t need to be the next J-Lo or the next Beyoncé. I can be the best me and still make good money doing what I love and serving the people who matter most to me. Developing an audience that gloms onto that, gets that, and appreciates that. I have read a book maybe in my twenties. The name of the author escapes me. Her first name was Jayda, but I can’t remember anything else. It was Jayda something, and it was a book for musicians about how to have a six-figure career as a musician.

What she had said was, “You find six towns in your regional area where you can go do a show twice a year. Sell your merch.” This was all before the internet. This was all before the World Wide Web. You don’t need a world tour to be successful and be a celebrity in your space. It’s about being true to what matters to you. Owning the dream that is your dream and not somebody else’s, standing your ground on that while you are building this body of work that’s going to outlast you, and recognizing that as you are building this body of work, this is also intellectual property. It’s an asset. It’s a financial resource.

As you are building that, future generations get to derive some benefit from that as well. If you are setting things up properly, if you are treating this as the business and not an expensive hobby, you have the potential to be as big or as small as you want to be and still make plenty of money. That, to me, is what becoming a celebrity in your niche is.

It’s like, “You don’t have to chase after gigs, clients, or leads anymore. Everything is much more effortless because they know who you are. They are like, “Bree. I love her work. Yes. Let’s have her. I need to think about Bree. Let’s do that because Bree’s amazing.” People start calling your name and calling you instead of you having to go, “Please, will you book me for this next gig? Please can you find a spot in your show for me?” People are like, “I know you. You are awesome. Of course, we want you.” That’s what becoming a celebrity in your space looks like.

Finding that space. For me, the spaces were so specific. It’s like my local churches, mothers of preschoolers’ groups or women’s groups in California because they talk to each other and I was doing the circuit. People started to know me or whatever. You don’t need to reach out further and the internet has made it so much easier too because you can still do the local thing, but you then can also build a tribe of people online that are your people, even if you are not able to go out to their location.

I can’t tell you the number of virtual concerts that I have done myself, participated in, or sat, watched, and enjoyed because I was like, “I don’t even want to put clothes on and go out in the world. I want to sit here and enjoy something and let me do that.” I have done house concerts where we have got the cameras set up and we are streaming it out to a paid ticket audience. I get more money from the paid tickets from people in Europe that are watching me live than the people in the room. It’s about figuring out for yourself what works for how you are uniquely wired to work.

You and I are what I would call fusion creatives. Good at a lot of things. Don’t ask us to pick one. If you are like me struggle with asking for help or receiving help. We are getting better at that. We are like, “We are learning. We are getting better.” There are also two other primary kinds of creatives. The chaotic creative who is very go with the flow and trust your instincts. The experience is the most important thing like, “What is it going to look and feel for my people?” That’s the Lady Gagas of the world.

As a musical artist, especially if you're doing cover songs, it's really easy to borrow and take and use what's already been done and then put your little flavor on that. Click To Tweet

That’s where they shine. That’s their focus. It’s got to be a great experience. It’s got to wow my people. On the other end of the spectrum are the linear types. These linear types are very much a what’s the budget, what’s the schedule, the systems and the processes, and order is the rule of the day for these folks. As they are so number-focused, they often find financial success a little faster than everybody else, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible for everybody else. It means you have to find it in the way that works for you.

I got to ask. How many creatives do you think are in that linear because I feel like there isn’t a lot?

Linears don’t tend to self-identify as creatives, but when you think about interior designers, instructional designers, or anybody who’s developed intellectual property. Systems methodologies. One of my favorite linear cusp types is Mike Michalowicz. He’s written Profit First. He’s a linear cusp type. That’s why he writes books about systems, methods, processes, and all of that, but he’s also got a little bit of fusion in him.

If you read Get Different, he’s talking all about the crazy ideas that he tries for marketing.

They are out there. They don’t tend to identify as creatives, but here’s what I tell people, “All entrepreneurs are creatives. Not all creatives are entrepreneurs.” If you were a creative, someone who uses your creations, ideas, and innovations as your livelihood, then yes. You are a creative entrepreneur and it behooves you to be looking at your business with the eyes and lens of a business owner. Not just, “These songs are my babies.”

They might be, but some of them will be more profitable for you than others and you need to make some very serious decisions as a business owner about what song I will lead with when I start the show? What song am I going to end with when I close the show? What’s going to create the best story for my audience in this setting and these conditions and pick the songs that are going to help your audience come along with you for the ride. You can’t be like, “I like that song. I’m going to play that one all the time.” Maybe your audience hates it and you shouldn’t keep playing it. It’s a thing. You got to recognize that.

Maybe the song doesn’t come across as well live as it does on a recording. It’s long and you love it. It’s so personal to you, but good point. Let me ask you this. I do always ask this because we are the Profitable Musician Show and all that stuff. We talk about income streams. How would you say your income streams break down? Not even as a musician because you are a multi-passionate, as you call it, fusion creative. You are doing a lot of different things, which there are many musicians out there that are doing that or could do that. It’s super interesting to learn how does your PI break it down as far as your income streams?

I don’t have a lot of performance income right now from the music side of things because the pandemic has been where that’s at. We have been doing a lot of moving and traveling. We have moved twice now. It’s been a bit of an adventure, like trying to get the office set back up and all of that. The bulk of my income right now, probably about 80%, comes from the business side of things I’m doing, like work coaching with clients and working with other creative entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.

Part of that is because we have a pay for results model. If they make money, we make money and if they don’t make money, we don’t make money, but we keep helping them until they do make money. That’s how we set this up. I would say probably about 15%, not quite 20% of the revenue is coming from merch like books, CDs, online classes, and things like that.

This was before the pandemic. Have you shifted more into the coaching side?

The first year of the pandemic was great for me. 2020 into 2021 was a good year for me financially because people were pivoting and people were looking for new ways of thinking and so, yes.

I experienced that too. A lot of us experienced that as people who help musicians to pivot and explore new income streams.

People who were leery about doing anything online also started to make a mass migration. “This is the only way we can do this, so let’s figure it out.” Us being at the front edge of that and we are like, “Come along. Let us show you how that works.” What I’m finding now is I’m stepping more into performance opportunities and recording opportunities because these virtual walls have come down and people are like, “You can record that track digitally and send it to me.” I’m like, “Yes, I can. As a matter of fact, let me do that for you. We don’t have to be in Nashville, LA, New York, or wherever the hotspot for your music is anymore.”

We need to build those relationships so that when someone needs a drummer, they can call you and you can sit and do that track for them, and send it to them. I’m seeing more of those opportunities coming back and for me, it’s still almost all of them are digital. That’s because we landed in Bloomington. I’m still learning who’s who and what’s what in my local area.

I totally get it. I moved back down here right before the pandemic. Even if I did want to relaunch my performing career, it wasn’t going to happen because I moved back. Now, I took a church job so I’m getting that every week, and then that’s opening up opportunities. Once people see you out there, then they are like, “Do you do weddings?” All that stuff. You got to get out there

Let me speak to that for a second. I want to encourage musicians who aren’t yet at that profitable and sustainable place with their music to do whatever they need to do to have some sustainability and relief in their lives. If that’s a day job, a bridge job, or driving ride share. Do what you have to do and let the “stigma of that.” Drop the judgment around it because here’s the thing.

Every single creative that I know starts waiting tables, driving buses, clean the floors, doing whatever they need to do, and then they rise. J-Lo did not start as J-Lo. It was a long career that got her to where she is now, and she started to literally started by leaving or running away from home basically at eighteen years old. Living on people’s couches and doing whatever she could to do a gig.

You’ve got to do what creates a space of safety for you so that you can take those risks musically, show up more authentically and do the work that matters to you as a musician or artist. If you are constantly wondering about, “Where am I going to sleep tonight? How am I going to put food on the table?” That saps your creativity.

There’s been a lot of judgment around, “You are a musician who also works a day job.” We have got to let that go. We have got to take that away because we all have to do what we can to get from survival from subsistence into this place where we are thriving. I’m going to tell you, when you have that piece handled, profitability and sustainability in your business becomes so much easier.

I resonate with this and have been thinking a ton about it lately because you are right. There is a stigma. It’s like, “You got to have no plan B. You got to get out there and do it. If you have a plan B, then or if you’ve got this other thing, then you’ll not do it.” That’s not true. If you get out there and you don’t have anything else sustaining you, it’s going to kill your creativity because you are going to be stressed, but it’s also going to because you to show up as desperate like, “I need this gig. I’m not going to be able to pay my electric bill if I don’t get this gig.” Showing up desperate is not going to get you the game. I have done enough hiring to know it’s palpable when the person needs the job, making them undesirable.

Don't try to be somebody else. Bring yourself fully and completely to every performance, every rehearsal, and every song you write all the time. That's not always easy, but it's imperative. And the rewards are worth it. Click To Tweet

This is true for entrepreneurs and musicians across the board, and I tell people, “Shift your mindset. Let your job be your sugar daddy or side hustle. Music is my thing, and my day job is my side hustle.”

It’s your number one music investor.

This is my biggest patron. My biggest sponsor because the job where I am is my biggest sponsor. The more we change that paradigm, the more we are going to be able to create lives for ourselves as musicians, artists, and creatives that are fulfilling so that we can feel like we are successful now. I have this thing that I tell my clients, “Success is a destination and you are already there.”

Take a look around you. Look at the room that you are in. Look at the space that you are in. Look at the clothes that you are wearing. Look at the car that you are driving. Business success right now today, and if you don’t like the success that you see, you have to make some decisions about what you are going to be, do, have, or experience differently so that success looks different tomorrow. End of discussion.

What do you choose to do? That’s up to you. I can’t say, but once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. If you are not happy with the success you have, then you got to do something different. Something else has got to happen for you. Otherwise, you are going to keep staying stuck in the same paradigms. If that means getting a job and get a job. If that means asking a friend to support you financially, starting a Kickstarter, or whatever it takes. Don’t have shame in the fact that we all need to live, survive, and pay the bills, whatever it takes.

I have been thinking so much about this, so I’m glad that you brought that up. Don’t feel shame in doing this. I love the idea of thinking that my boss is my biggest patron. I’m working for him because he or she is providing me the money to fund this thing, or you are a freelancer or whatever. As you said, you are your own biggest investor. It’s going to make you feel so much more comfortable in the space of being an artist because you are not stressed, desperate, and all of that.

I love this conversation. I’m glad we got there. Is there anything else that you want? We have covered the creator’s spectrum and hearing the three kinds of creators. We talked about being a celebrity in your niche. Is there anything else that you want to make sure to talk about while we are here and we have got readers?

If you remember nothing else from this episode, the one thing that I always want to drive home is my favorite quote from Judy Garland. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” Especially as a musical artist, especially if you are doing cover songs, it’s easy to borrow, take, and use what’s already been done, but I’m going to put my little flavor on that. It sounds so much like it’s already been done. It’s not innovative. It’s not new. There’s no life force in that.

I’m inviting you to stand in what you love, what’s true for you, and what you want to bring into the world because there’s nobody else on the planet that’s you, that has your life experiences, that has your worldview that’s been through what you’ve been through. All that stuff can shape your music, work, and interaction with other people, and we need that. The world needs who you are. I want you to be yourself, wart, sparkles, and all.

We talk about warts and all, but we have sparkles too. Let’s accept all of who we are and bring that to the work that we are doing. Bring that to the music that you are creating because that’s what your audience wants. Your right audience wants to be your fan because of who you are, the messages you are bringing, and the way you are showing up. Lady Gaga has her little monsters who are rabid adoring fans of hers.

 

Some of those people might like Katy Perry, but some of them may not. Some of them might like Shania Twain and some of them may not. Some of them might like you and some may not, but your little corner of the world has a collective of people who are clamoring for exactly who you are and what you have to offer, but you have to take down those masks and share them. Don’t try to be somebody else, bring yourself fully and completely to every performance, every rehearsal, and every song that you write all the time. That’s not always easy, but it’s important, and the rewards are worth it.

That’s a great one-minute inspirational speech there that you gave, and that’s important. You also have books and a podcast, so can you tell them what those are and where they can find them?

You can find my books on Amazon or where any bookseller is sold. The Secret Watch is a parable about defining and achieving success on your own terms. Creative Freedom, on your dreams without selling your soul is my first how-to guide for building a profitable and sustainable business as a creative entrepreneur. It goes more into the creative types and how to craft something that works for you.

You can go to my website, LisaRobbinYoung.com. Take the quiz. Find out what your creative type is. You don’t even need to opt-in. It’s there freely available for you. I’m on all the socials as Lisa Robbin Young. You can Google me. I’m around. You’ll find me. I would love to connect and learn more about the creative work that you are doing. Let me know.

Thank you so much. This has been great, super inspiring, and also educational and strategic. Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

 

Important Links

• Lisa Robbin Young
• Women of Substance
• Profit First
• Get Different
• The Secret Watch
• Creative Freedom
• Lisa Robbin Young – Instagram

 

About Lisa Robbin Young

Lisa Robbin Young didn’t wait to get discovered. She is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and accomplished musician with multiple albums to her credit. Lisa’s been featured on Disney+ and is the host of Creative Freedom, a show that’s evolved into a book, podcast, and live event series. She helps creative entrepreneurs define and achieve success on their own terms. Lisa believes that the best way to be truly successful in life and business is to be yourself – warts, sparkles, and all – so you can Own Your Dreams Without Selling Your Soul.