In this category you find posts related to success and fame, how they are related or not, and how to deal with it. They also tell you how to deal with failure.
Everyone is looking forward to celebrate christmas again. You see the joyfulness at the pictures on facebook, the happy faces, the happy families, in a cozy living room decorated for the celebration. You enjoy to listen to christmas carols, thinking of the great days that are ahead. That’s also the picture we see in all the advertisements. We don’t celebrate yet, we look forward to it and expect it to be perfect, just like our imagination. The other side is […]
I just finished reading the book “Dag vriend!” (Hi/bye, friend!) from Stine Jensen. It’s very inspiring! She looks at the concept of friendships from various perspectives. One of the perspectives is social media and Facebook. At Facebook, we share with dozens (and potentially millions) of people what we used to share with our best friend only. All the stuff that you don’t want others to know about you, that’s your intimate capital or your intimate treasure. And how more famous […]
Traditionally, many artists think that you can’t have both, creative success and commercial success. You can only be really creative, if you don’t give a damn about commerce. And if you do want to become rich, you make so many compromises that you can’t call yourself creative anymore. A thought that is doing quite well recently in business theories, is that if you show your true self and if you discover your unique talents, that commercial success will come to […]
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 […]
Last Sunday Prince played two surprise shows at Paradiso in Amsterdam. It started with a fuss about the high ticket prices. Still, the shows were sold out within no time. It was a unique opportunity for fans to see their idol in such an intimate setting. I wasn’t there. On Monday I read in the papers about what I call a clash of expectations. First let’s take Prince. He’s a star, used to be a public figure and having very […]
It’s summer and for two weeks we already have great summer weather over here, they don’t expect it to change in the next week. And today my summer holiday starts 🙂 Before summer holiday starts, everyone is looking forward to it. We start to make lots of plans, looking forward to travel and see yourselves in a very different environment enjoying life. Often we create a dream that has little to do with who we really are. Every time I […]
Last week I realized that I shut down when it’s very busy. It feels like making a cardboard box in my mind, just big enough for me to fit in, sitting on my heels. I crawl into it for protection against all the different impressions and problems around me. The first problem with this solution is, probably a pattern since my childhood, that the imagined protection is only very temporary before a feeling of oppression takes over. The second problem […]
Self protection is about discovering the toxic patterns that block your creativity, and how to protect yourself against it. In other words: how can you protect yourself against yourself? In order to be kind to ourselves, we have to be hard against the toxic patterns. Imagine that creativity is all around us, like leaves in the fall, available to every one. We just have to bend and pick it up. And often we just don’t want to bend, we want […]
Admiration It starts with others to admire you. The other side of that admiration is influence. They look up to you and it’s easy for you to influence them. People will not only admire you for your art, talents or knowledge. The media will start to ask you questions about all and everything, even if it’s something you have no idea about. Your influence is becoming bigger. Omnipotence Often the result is a feeling of omnipotence. It starts as soon […]
In the reports of Lance Armstrong’s confessions to Oprah Winfrey it stroke me when he said, that he was convinced to be able to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. It’s this kind of power that you get when you are famous. Others will bring you not only your slippers, but will try to read every wish from your eyes even before you formulated it in your brain. Yes, you feel very powerful! You rule the […]
Music business and fame What do Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse have in common? Yes, they all died at 27. They also probably committed suicide, and they all struggled with dealing with their success and fame. They all had a team of dedicated people around them: at their management, agency, record label and more. But the music business doesn’t really know how to help artists in dealing with their success and fame. And as artist it is not […]
Last week I saw a documentary about Joe Strummer of The Clash. It really moved me! End 70’s he was in The Clash and they became really famous. The documentary was on German TV, so it was synchronized, unfortunately. But I love to share with you his experience with fame: “Seven years ago we wanted to grow bigger than all others but without betraying our message. We’ve fallen into all traps a band could fall into if they start at […]
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views. Click here to see the complete report.
How more success you have, how more people will look up to you. Isn’t that what we all want, secretly, somehow? That people look up to us? They will certainly take us seriously, finally. As most artists, you probably have had periods too that you wanted to belong to the group (at school, in the neighborhood, at work) but didn’t fit in. These are very lonely times. Often you provoke authority in that periods too, you don’t want to adapt […]
Everyone wants to be happy, right? It’s so important, that they even put it in the constitution of the United States, just as the freedom to speak. Too often I register with myself, that I have some very romantic images of happiness. These images often prevent me to really enjoy the moment, for I compare the moment with the images, and often the images are better than the moment. The same is true for success and fame. Most of us […]