 If you don't understand this, I guarantee you're making your career and your life way harder than it has to be. And it can all be summed up with one question. LeBron James, the greatest basketball player of his generation. That's what many people acknowledge him as, right? What if LeBron James was born in the 1800s? What would he be doing, all right? How much money would he be making? Because he already has a net worth of over a billion. He has a billion dollar plus contract with Nike, so many brand deals. He's making a hundred plus million just off of his NBA contract alone, right? Now, what would he be doing in the 1800s? Well, honestly, he was in America, so for the better part of 1800s, slavery was still a thing. He's a black man, a very tall black man, but he's still a black man, right? Very athletic black man, but he's still a black man, right? So, now, that's one question. Just thinking about that. That's a very clear extremity. But even still, as a matter of fact, I'll say this, right? He would not have the same opportunities if he was born back then as he would today. Warren Buffett has summed this up so, so, so eloquently. He always calls himself lucky. And when he talks about being lucky, one of the primary things that Warren Buffett, one of the most renowned investors in the world, talks about billionaire, billion, billion, billionaire, he says, I was lucky to be born when I was. That's simple. I was lucky to be born when I was, and why is that? Because at one point, the marketplace did not exist. The stock market, investing in companies and getting this type of returns, it did not exist, right? That had to be formulated, put together, and people had to agree to it. And at one point in time, somebody with his skillset, which is, you know, the ability to have patients understand business, analyze, take in information to make good investments, wouldn't have been that great is, let's just say he was born hundreds of years ago. And, you know, all he was doing was being a hunter-gatherer. That might have been thousands. I don't even know, honestly. Right, but that, the point is very clear, right? Being born when you are dictates so many of your opportunities and your ability to have success. And I'm going to get to this for artists very soon. LeBron James, all right, I talked about the 1800s, but a guy that's like a brother to me, I know him since literally I can remember, I considered his dad like my other dad, right? And him, he was actually, he had the skillset to be in professional basketball, but he made a decision not to play professional basketball because he needed to stay home and take care of his mom. They used to sound crazy to me because I know a couple other like, you know, older people who have said something like that. Today, you go play NBA basketball to take care of your parents, to take care of your family, change your generational wealth. At a period of time, it wasn't that much money in it. Right? Now, there was, if you know the history, there's like so many issues. Fights, drug, it started to get cleaned up in the 80s with Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan took it to another level. The athletes who are making money today are only making a lot of money today because of the marketing behemoth Michael Jordan became. All right? So why is this so irrelevant to artists, all right? And anybody, but why is it so especially relevant to artists? The opportunities that you have today are ridiculous. Some people say it's easier. Some people say it's harder. Let's put it this way. You have more options. The traditional path is still the traditional path. And the problem that most artists have that is making their life more difficult is they're analyzing their path in music based off of a traditional silo that existed before. There used to be one primary way that we looked at artists being successful. And that was the in front of the curtains dream that we saw when we were little kids. Who's the superstar? I don't know, Whitney Houston, like Aerosmith, right? The Beatles, Jay-Z, Beyonce, you know, Tupac, Taylor Swift. That's how we saw it. That was what success looked like in the music industry. Of course you could say smaller artists, but that was the version of success. Today we have so many things beyond that. We have people who are not signed, who are making millions of dollars. We have people who are having a YouTube channel and they do cover songs only and are making millions of dollars, right? From doing YouTube ads, essentially, and also touring and getting hired for that by corporations. There's so many different paths today. Sing licensing, touring on cruise ships, right? You can get paid $5,000 a night for singing on a cruise ship, right? I've known the people who've had these opportunities. My point is, there's so many different options and you can choose your career based off of what makes sense for your skill set because that's the point of the story of LeBron James I mentioned earlier or Warren Buffett that I mentioned earlier. These people aren't just talented people. These are talented people who are moving in a vehicle that actually allows them to exploit their talents to the fullest and get the fullest benefits from that vehicle, all right? So don't just think, here's a few things at how you wanna analyze things. Don't just say, oh, I don't wanna be on a record label so I'm gonna do sync licensing because there's a lot of money in it. Well, do you have the talents for sync licensing or the ability to mold your talents to fit in that hole and maximize that, all right? That's one thing. Which one of these areas match your talents? And it doesn't mean you can't fit in multiple but is there a way that you can hack one of them quicker? Two, I suggest that you look at the most profitable vehicles because there's a lot of things that, no, it's a difference between, again, LeBron James. LeBron James can just be in a local league if you wanted to but why be in the local league and be the best in the local league when you can be in the NBA? It's more money. Yes, it's far more intense, all right? It requires more focus and sacrifices. However, the benefits are so much greater. So when you analyze the vehicle, also understand what is the potential return on your investment that you're gonna get for that time? So yes, where do your skillset match? Yes, how much return can I get for the time that I put into this? I promise if you start to become more creative, you'll realize that there's opportunities out here like the Homie Cash Mace. He got over $100,000 for writing one song for the company Spanx, one song. And he got that off of a DM. DMing the company, a song that he wrote for them and then the company sent it over to the founder. She loved it. They took the song on, easy. And that's a particular story. And it's not always necessarily that easy, but there's so many opportunities like that. See what you forget and where the bubble that you exist in looks like this. Me as a marketer, I get baffled sometimes when people are like, yo, you're a genius for X, Y, and Z. The things that you just said and the things to me seem like things everybody knows, right? Everybody knows in my bubble, the marketers that I'm always around, the people who are very marketing savvy in general, even if that's not your job. So it just seems like everybody knows in the way that I move and bubbles I move in in the music industry. Outside of that bubble though, there's people who literally have never heard these type of concepts, literally never made these type of connections. That's just not what they do. There might be a doctor, it might be a lawyer or whatever, right? Oil, whatever. Because of that, I miss out on all types of opportunities where my skillset could be worth even more because the knowledge is scarce in that way. And what I'm saying that is, you as an artist, we get so caught up looking at the music industry, the record label path and the things that are heavily marketed, you don't actually understand that your value outside of the traditional music industry can be far more without the large fan base. Because what the traditional music industry wants to see is primarily have a big fan base and be able to monetize you, but through tours, streaming, all right? Those primary things. And then of course it'll stand it to like, singleize, extend things like that, right? But you hit up a company like what he did, Spanx, a clothing company, people who are not in music, right? They're looking at it completely different and your value is worth even more because they don't do this for a living when they have an entire vertical built out to maximize music. So I can make a small investment and only give you $5,000 as an artist and say, this is your record deal and then I'm gonna squeeze everything and get millions out of it. Like they don't have that system. They're maximizing their money on clothing or whatever they're doing. This is what's possible when you escape the programming of the music industry because a lot of you don't realize that ever since you were a little kid, you've been sold this dream, this vision of what being a successful artist looks like. That's what you've seen. It's programmed into you, but there's so many other paths because DMing a company and getting $100,000 for writing one song with no manager, that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me, right? But a lot of artists don't even think that path or don't even, and still wouldn't even be satisfied with that path and doing things like that over and over again because they've been sold a particular dream. Now, if you have your dream, your dream is your dream, I'm not saying do that, don't do it, but I understand there's so many options today and I'll round it out with one point, but I wanna remind you, these are the things that you need to decide on. One, what is your skill set, right? Truly, truly, truly, what's your skill set? What's a vehicle that can allow you to exploit that skill set? Yes, some people are good at instrumentation, some people are good at production, some people are good at writing, some people can rap and freestyle real cool. There's an entire platforms now these days, battle rapping that have grown to like millions of dollars at this point, some people can sing, acapella, all these things, right? All these things exist, which vehicle makes sense for you? One, what's your talent? Two, what vehicle makes sense for you? And actually three, what vehicle's gonna allow you to maximize, right? Choose a vehicle, this the entrepreneur side of it, right? I know people don't wanna talk about money like they did take decisions, but that gives you more, more time and energy to focus on the things you wanna do. So what's the vehicle that allows you to maximize that talent more than anything else, all right? And then three, look outside of the industry, the typical programming. See if there's other options that you didn't even realize existed because let me tell you this, you are lucky to exist in a time where there are this many options, but you're unlucky if you don't have the perspective to see those options. Cause check this out, we talked about LeBron James, if he was born in the 1800s, he really wouldn't be making the money he makes today. There's a player on the Los Angeles Lakers bench right now that has a three-year, $32 million deal. In 1988, Michael Jordan signed an eight-year, $25 million deal. I repeat, Michael Jordan had a eight-year, $25 million deal. There's a player on the bench right now that has a three-year, $32 million deal. Talk about luck. It's more profitable today. It sounds ridiculous saying this. It's more profitable to be a bench player today than to be Michael Jordan from an NBA contract standpoint back in 1988. And think about how much less work this guy has to do, how much less foolishness and media frenzy and how much effort he has to put in. Like, it's completely different. That's luck to be born after Michael Jordan helped blow the NBA up as opposed to before Michael Jordan helped blow the NBA up. I'll leave it at that. That perspective and seeing things differently can make things so much easier for you. So choose wisely.