Most of us are taught at an early age that failing at something is bad/wrong/shameful.

Let’s dispel that myth right now. Failure is a necessary part of success (at least for 99% of people.) Part of a recipe for success is the willingness to get right back up each time you fail.

A personal example:

I have recently failed: On the first post of this blog I stated that my goal was to release my music EP by April 1 2018. I ended up releasing it on September 14. I missed the mark by a whole 5 and 1/2 months. Why? Sure sometimes things take longer than expected. Maybe it’s hard to schedule with the guest musicians, maybe the mastering engineer is backed up for a few months. In this case, none of those things happened. Sure, I could make the excuse I was busy opening a show on 42nd street (http://smokeyjoescafemusical.com) but even that is not a valid excuse. The music was done for April 1st. The one and only thing that stopped me from releasing it on time was fear. I thought that maybe I could get a better vocal take, I could EQ the guitar a little better, - but I did none of that. Here are the lessons that I take from this failure:

Your first creative release(s) are not likely to be “perfect” but at some point you have to let them go. Here are the benefits of letting them go on the sooner side:

1. you learn from the experience of releasing them and getting feedback on them

2. you clear your palette to create something new

3. you have a chance to create other opportunities

4. you begin to or continue to create/add to your body of work

In summary, if you are waiting to release something that you made and you are not doing anything to make it better STOP WAITING AND LET IT GO!