Do You Ever Feel Like Quitting? Read This.

Music is a hard business, and it's getting harder every day.  Very few people will make it in music, and the competition is fierce.  So what sets you apart from the competition?  Except in rare circumstances, I believe the ultimate deciding factor is persistence: the main difference between successful and failed musicians is that the successful ones did not quit and were able to outlast their competitors.  The one thing I've heard repeatedly from music industry people is: If you want to make it in music, don't give up.

I often read Tim Ferriss' blog.  Tim is the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, and a guest lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Princeton University.  Independent musicians are essentially entrepreneurs, and so much of the same advice applies to both.

Today I read a post on Tim's blog entitled The Prescription for Self-Doubt: Watch This Video.  Here's an excerpt from the post, which I recommend reading in full:

Business icons, superstar professional athletes, billionaires — it doesn’t matter how rich or how accomplished — I’ve had them all tell me the same thing…
There are moments when you feel the world is too much. Days and even weeks when you want to (or perhaps do) pull up the covers and half-sleep in bed until nightfall, avoiding a feeling of hopelessness that seems insurmountable. Long-awaited deals fall through without warning, haters attack you without reason or fact, circumstances turn good decisions into awful realities — sometimes it just feels like the deck is stacked against you and there is nothing you can do about it.

Have you felt that way?  Has the music business provided you with tremendous ups and soul-crushing downs?  You are not alone. 

But will you quit?