Our neck of the woods is caught in the death grip of a heat wave and I hear much of the country is suffering the same fate. Never the less, at the screech of dawn on Sunday we put our heads down, mustered an almost believable happy face and set up our tent for the
FOUND FLEA. It was a good day, in fact, a very good day! Sales were steady and we made contact with a huge number of folks who had no idea we even existed. It continues to amaze me how many folks we still have yet to reach despite all of our advertising and our continuing PR push.
In the hustle and bustle that was this week I finally realized what it was I was feeling and why the feeling was so very familiar. Growing a business feels an awful lot like the quest for tenure. Anyone in academia knows immediately what I mean. You just never lose sight of the goal of tenure - it influences every decision you make from which concerts and projects to take on, to how much outside committee work to do.
In my musings on this idea I realized that a single bit of advice I received from my mentor
Abraham Skernick still sticks with me to this very day, though it resonates in a new way for me now. He advised me to say yes to each and every opportunity that came my way for the first three years of my life as a professional musician. He said that long after I'd celebrated my 20th or 30th year of teaching and playing (this is year 29) that I'd be able to link my current successes to decisions I made in the first three years of my professional life. He was so right. Today I find that once again I'm weighing every decision I make in light of a larger goal. FOUND occupies most of the available time in my day and space in my brain. The work is tremendously satisfying and I'm convinced it'll pay off in much the same way as my quest for tenure many years ago.
In the hustle and bustle that was this week I finally realized what it was I was feeling and why the feeling was so very familiar. Growing a business feels an awful lot like the quest for tenure. Anyone in academia knows immediately what I mean. You just never lose sight of the goal of tenure - it influences every decision you make from which concerts and projects to take on, to how much outside committee work to do.
In my musings on this idea I realized that a single bit of advice I received from my mentor Abraham Skernick still sticks with me to this very day, though it resonates in a new way for me now. He advised me to say yes to each and every opportunity that came my way for the first three years of my life as a professional musician. He said that long after I'd celebrated my 20th or 30th year of teaching and playing (this is year 29) that I'd be able to link my current successes to decisions I made in the first three years of my professional life. He was so right. Today I find that once again I'm weighing every decision I make in light of a larger goal. FOUND occupies most of the available time in my day and space in my brain. The work is tremendously satisfying and I'm convinced it'll pay off in much the same way as my quest for tenure many years ago.
Your comment touched me in a special way this morning. Not only because of my space at FOUND but also because of other things I am involved in. I recently said yes to an opportunity that didn't seem to turn out the way I expected but in the days following it there have been extraordinary developments that would not have happened had I not said yes to something that originally scared the wits out of me. Thank you for sharing those very personal thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThank you for listening and responding. Interesting times these are!
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