I’m happy to say this rate has steadily declined since new government initiatives were introduced later that year. The person most surprised by the success of the event was me.
I couldn’t believe that I had put the whole thing together, and it worked. I’d never have believed I had it in me, and if I hadn’t put myself under enormous pressure I may have never discovered what I was capable of pulling off.
A few years later, I had a similar experience when signing Evermore. As I wrote in my last blog, when we started out we had nothing but a dream, and threw everything into it. Music management is a special kind of business, because a project failure is never an option. You can’t take on five bands and hope one of them works out like you can with start-up ideas.
Every band is a group of people’s careers – their hopes and their futures. As their manager, you are responsible, so you better not fail! I thrive in this environment because I hate failing and I love pressure.
As a band manager, I personally signed ten artists and eight of these reached gold sales or better and continue to make a viable career in music. It’s a pretty good strike rate considering that only a tiny fraction of artists reach this level of success. I do attribute a lot of it to the pressure I apply to both the artists and myself.
Now, I’m in the biggest pressure cooker of them all: a start-up. Within four months of starting Posse I did three crazy things. Now I recognise my subconscious was at work, torturing me to ensure the best chance of success.
What were they? I spent my house deposit on the domain name, accepted investment from friends and told everyone I knew that I was starting the business. I couldn’t back out now without incurring massive damage to my reputation. I’d placed myself under as much pressure as possible!
Now we have a full-time team of 11, $3 million of investment behind us, and a whole industry watching to see if we make it. If we don’t, there’s no plan B. I have no idea what I’ll do if this doesn’t work. That leaves me with more sleepless nights than I should have.
The effects of stress aren’t pleasant; I’ll write about that in a later post. But I’ve experienced it before and learnt that when I’m under the most pressure, extraordinary things can happen: Which is how I know we’ll make it.
The Olympians provide an inspiring example of achievement under pressure. When JFK declared in 1962 that America would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, he had no idea how this would be achieved. By publicly declaring the challenge, he put an entire country under pressure to make it happen – and they did.
So, if you’re thinking about taking on a new challenge, my advice is to get our there and put yourself under as much pressure as possible!
I’m constantly surprised at how I manage to bounce back when times get tough and how, despite the sense of not knowing how I can cross the next mountain, I always do.
These moments of self-doubt and stress are charged with pure magic. At least you know you’re alive!
