Snakes and ladders is an ancient Indian board game. It’s very simple: you roll the dice, move your piece accordingly. If you come to a field with a ladder, you can move up to where the ladder ends. If you come to a field with a snake, you have to move down to the tail of the snake.
Recently I did some reflections on my work as booking agent and as personal e-coach for artists. It reminds me of this game. You as artist are the player, you have to roll the dice, you move the piece. All I can do is provide you with ladders. The ladders are of different lengths and at different levels. And if you have a good team that works together well, they will try to fill all numbers with a ladder. They will make you rise quicker than you could with just rolling the dice.
And there are snakes too. The snakes block a ladder on their fields. Snakes are setbacks. It can be the market that is ignoring you, or family circumstances that hold you back in taking opportunities, or health problems that put you down, or lots of other stuff. No one can predict if you will step on a snake or when, no one can predict the eyes on your dice.
How do you deal with your snakes and dices, with the setbacks and uncertainty of being an artist? In the game you will roll the dice again and hope that you opponent is stepping on a snake too. In real it works best if you don’t look at your opponents. Looking at your opponents (other artists) will make you feel insecure, especially if they haven’t had your setback yet. It helps if you concentrate on your strong points. The five aspects of success (see tab above) will help you with it. And if you want more help, I can coach you in this. Please ask if you have any questions.