Hey there,
My last video tanked.
My YouTube comments section is mostly positive, but this guy was not impressed.
(I conveniently left in my buddy Jordan's reply. Everybody needs a friend like Jordan.)
In all honesty, I'm not mad at the guy. He's entitled to his opinion, and it's safe to assume there are others who share his POV but prefer not taking a shot at me in the comments section.
Truth is, the majority of my YouTube videos underperform. 80% of my views and subscribers come from 20% of my videos.
The same holds true for my music licensing endeavors. Most tracks earn dollars. A handful earn thousands.
You've gotta know the data, and it's important to post-mortem when our precious creative outputs die young.
But routinely giving in to the darkness is both unhealthy and unsustainable. I know.
Now comes the time to recommend you do something that has been a lifelong struggle for me.
Say your peace with your art before it leaves your control.
A thousand tracks and half-a-thousand videos later - with each rep - I’m learning to make sense of the feeling I get when I know I’ve done my best work, or when there’s work to be done.
It’s far from an exact science, and every project is unique. A custom music track due at 5pm Pacific Time requires a different level of self assessment than the 12 track funk/folk/glitch-hop album you’ve been working on since Obama was in office. Marathan runners and sprinters both have 2 legs, but that’s where the similarities stop.
I’ve learned to trust the “I have no idea what else I can do to this” feeling. That’s when I get my wife involved, a strategy I cannot in good faith recommend. I can recognize that way she squirms in the chair when her baseline of annoyance is elevated.
I hate to say it, but most of you struggle with this skill. Am I wrong? I’ve done a scary amount of making and sharing, and I give myself a C+, at best.
You can get better at knowing when you’ve done your best.
Talk soon,
Jon