Michael Walker: YEAAAH! Hey Linda, it's great to have you here. I'm excited to introduce Linda O'Connor. Linda is a music manager turned entrepreneur. She went from managing successful bands in Ireland and Los Angeles to founding a company called Micco, a platform designed to empower musicians with tools for PR and promotion.

She also has a background in psychology, holding a degree and industry experience, which has helped her create a valuable resource with Micco. The platform is dedicated to making the music industry more accessible by offering affordable tools, guidance, and community support to help musicians succeed.

So excited to have her on the podcast today!

Linda O’Connor: I gave you quite a light bulb there. I apologize. 

Michael: It's fantastic. Yeah, I always love diving deep into the background and the backstory. I was about to go down a rabbit hole there, but I'll pull myself back up. Everyone does have their own journey and story.

Linda: You're going down the rabbit hole, I'll follow you. I'll be your canary down the line. Go!

Michael: I can sense myself going into existential philosophy mode, which is always a warning signal for me to pull back. I was about to start talking about the unique expressions each of us has and how we're all different expressions of the same source. Our backgrounds, experiences, and who we are make us unique. Even if we're talking about the exact same topics, the way you express, articulate, and crystallize them is entirely your own.

I think the fact that you have a psychology background, along with everything else you've experienced, makes you who you are. It's great to have you on the podcast, and I'm excited to share some of the lessons and insights you've gained—things like how Spotify works, navigating the algorithm, and promoting your music successfully without resorting to buying fake bot plays, which could even get you removed from Spotify.

So, Linda, that was kind of a long-winded intro, but thank you again for taking the time to be on the podcast today.

Linda: I dread the person you're about to talk to because it sounds like too much wind and not enough substance. But we'll see what we can pull out of here.

Michael: No, it's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to it. So, Linda, maybe as an intro for anyone connecting with you for the first time, could you share a little bit about the purpose of what inspired you and the main problem you're looking to solve?

Linda: Yes. I don’t like to bore people with my details either, but I studied psychology because, honestly, I was struggling to think of a subject or a job that I really wanted to pursue. I thought, "Hmm, the only thing I know I love is people." I loved dealing with people, watching people—whether it was something simple and mundane, watching them perform, or seeing how they create art and do things in this world.

That was my passion. At the same time, I was also very worried about getting a "real job."

Michael: Hmm.

Linda: The music industry came calling, and I ended up helping out a band. Like everything, once I start something, it’s like, “Oh no, I’m fully committed.” I realized I loved it because the music industry is so multifaceted. It’s not just one job—you wear a million different hats. There’s a creative side, a business side, and a deeply human side.

Dealing with people is a huge part of the music industry. Artists love the creative parts—we all do. Being in the studio is the most magical thing in the world. Like I mentioned to you before we popped on here, yesterday, I had the opportunity to be at the Spotify Studios in downtown L.A. The setup they have is incredible. I know the studios are mostly for in-house use, but being there felt like this huge privilege.

They had a full grand piano and told bands not to bring their instruments because they have so many available to try. It was amazing. Being in a studio is like Christmas morning—there are always presents and gifts to open. It’s exciting and fun.

But then there’s the flip side: the hard stuff, the more tedious parts like mixing, mastering, and then the real work begins—connecting with people and trying to get your song heard. You can’t just send a link and say, “Here’s my song, listen to it.” People get sent tons of links. While your heart wants to listen to everything, it’s the story behind the song that draws people in.

I tell artists all the time: it’s not just about saying, “Listen to my song.” At the end of the day, when you strip away the layers of creativity, production, and fun, we’re just humans trying to connect with other humans. You, as an artist, use your incredible gift of music—lyrically, musically, and instrumentally—to connect with people you’ve never met.

It’s an incredible gift to leave behind. You’re putting yourself out in the world, replicating your emotions, thoughts, and feelings for others to connect with. But for people to connect with your music, they also need to connect with you. It’s not just about the song—they need to know a little more about you, your story.

Anyway, I got into the music business because I love people. I love dealing with every part of it, including the business side. And that’s what eventually led me to create Micco. I’d go out and meet music supervisors, major management companies, and record labels, and sometimes I’d sit there thinking, “How are you in charge of so much?”

Michael: Hmm.

Linda: Really, I get confused by situations where someone is the head of a record label, has so much power, and yet their other skills—or maybe their personality—don’t exactly match. They might not be the nicest person, but they’re still doing all these things.

What I found difficult about the music industry, even though I’m a very personable person and love meeting people, is the gatekeeping. People are so cagey, hiding contacts, acting like if I take a slice of the pie, I’m stealing from them. But it’s not a zero-sum game. There’s infinite pie for every artist. No one is going to say, “I only love Taylor Swift and won’t listen to anything else.”

The more someone falls in love with one artist, the more they’re open to discovering others. It really bothered me about the music industry when I saw this scarcity mindset play out. I remember speaking with a very successful manager who oversees some big artists. He told me his record label intentionally blocks email and contact information when they send over marketing materials, like radio ads, blog reviews, or playlists. Even though it’s all part of the same team, they don’t share contacts.

That’s what artists are up against. It’s so difficult to figure out who the person is at the radio station that supports and listens to new music. Where are the music blogs? How do we contact them? How do we email them? How do we promote our music? There are countless people out there happy to take your money and do nothing for you.

For new artists, it shouldn’t be that hard to start building your skillset, promoting yourself, and reaching out to people who genuinely want to hear from you and support you. After putting in tons of research—and by "us," I mean me, my friends, and other people working in the industry—we started sharing information. We wanted to support each other. We’re a community of like-minded people who don’t feel the need to hide information.

Eventually, we gathered 10,000 contacts for everything you might need to promote your music: music bloggers, radio contacts, Spotify playlist creators (the independent ones who actually listen to music and don’t charge to add songs), PR companies, and TikTok influencers. We realized we should share this with others and make it available so everyone has access to this information.

The music industry is hard enough. Having access to all this contact information won’t make or break you, but it will save you weeks, months, or even years of research and promotion time. So, we said, “Hey, it’s $10 a month. Sign up, cancel anytime, and you’ve got access for a month.” The goal was to make this resource available so people had one less problem to worry about and could focus on other things.

Over time, especially during COVID, we realized that having the contact information was just part of the solution. Artists also need advice, support, templates, and guides. Things like, “Your single is coming out on this date; here are some recommended distributors we’ve worked with and know are trustworthy.”

For example, just yesterday, I met with someone who runs the music side of Linktree. I had reached out to a few companies—and I won’t name names—but I didn’t hear back from most of them. Then I contacted her. She immediately got back to me, and we met yesterday. It was awesome.

They’re so supportive of musicians. She even showed us some examples, like Billie Eilish’s Linktree. Oh no, I can’t remember Billie’s brother’s name. Do you know his name? That’s not going to go down well…

Michael: Billie Eilish’s brother… what’s his name?

Linda: Yeah, he’s basically like the—

Michael: Finneas! Yes. Sorry, I totally just thought of that on my own. I definitely didn’t just Google it.

Linda: Oh, nice! Good for you. You’re faster than I am. I probably should have just Googled it.

Michael: Yeah.

Linda: Anyway, back to Linktree—Billie’s Linktree, Sabrina Carpenter’s Linktree, and a couple of others. The game has changed so much. I didn’t realize how much. You can now have a music video as the background, embed videos, and make it this fully interactive, vibrant experience for musicians. It’s really cool.

So yeah, I went on a bit of a tangent. But our goal was to organize all this information for musicians and make it super affordable and easy for them. The more we talked to musicians, the more I heard stories like, “You paid how much to who for what?”

For example, someone told me they paid $1,000 for someone to send out an email. Another person told me they were paying $500 a month for someone to submit their music to curators on SubmitHub. I was like, “But you can do that yourself!” They said, “Yeah, I just don’t want to.” I get it, but $500 a month is a lot, especially when it’s just someone using SubmitHub.

Now, if you’re paying for someone’s PR expertise or their deep industry connections, I understand. That can be worth it. But SubmitHub is based on the song itself, not connections. That’s the beauty of the platform.

By the way, we’re partners with Groover. We love them. Dorian and his team are fantastic. They’re really working hard to build a community and make musicians’ lives easier. That’s what we do too—find partners we love and trust.

For example, Horus Music is another company we work with because they have something rare: a phone number. They might be the only distribution company I’ve come across that you can actually call and say, “Hey, can you help me?” We love that.

So that’s what MDSL is about. It’s about providing musicians with all the contact information they could possibly need to promote themselves. We also offer as much support as we can, like guides and a single-release checklist. You just put in your release date, and it gives you one small, actionable step every day leading up to the release.

It helps artists stay organized and reduces the stress of wondering, “Am I missing something? Is this ready? Do I have my smart link in place? Is my pre-save campaign set up?”

We even recommend partners for things like merchandise or setting up your company. For example, we’ve vetted a company in France that we really like. These steps are all about hand-holding support and giving artists reliable recommendations to help them build their music careers without being ripped off.

That was a long answer, but yeah, that’s the gist.

Michael: Make sure you stay away from the whole of that Modern Musician crowd.

Linda: Walking into McDonald’s, saying, “I need to promote the French fries here.”

Michael: I don’t know why I said that one. It was just the first thing that came to mind.

Michael: They’re awesome. We had them on the podcast recently as well, and it was really interesting hearing your story. It seems like the through-line I’m noticing between your background and what you’re doing now is this love of people, community, and an interest in what makes people tick—the psychology of it.

I mean, gosh, that’s such an important and fundamental thing. Regardless of the industry—whether it’s the music industry or elsewhere—it’s so important. Relationships, building networks, understanding how people think, and what makes them tick are essential.

But beyond that, it’s also just life itself, right? Life and communities, having conversations like this—it all comes down to people connecting. I love what you said about music being an incredible way for people to connect. But at the deepest level, what we’re really doing is figuring out how to build relationships and connect with other human beings.

Linda: We’re in the human business.

Michael: We’re in the human business, for sure. Gosh, knock on wood. The AI is probably listening to us right now, thinking, “We’ll see about that.”

Linda: Artists are worried about AI taking over the music part. I don’t want to get too much into it now because, honestly, I love using AI. A big part of our next rollout is our AI prompt library for our members.

It’s super helpful for writing bios, pitches, brainstorming, or even creating social media posts. But at the end of the day, there’s still so much to be said about the human element—mistakes, rawness, and the things that feel real.

Michael: Absolutely.

Linda: There’s something about that. I don’t know if you’ve ever read a book called Blink.

Michael: I think I read it a few years ago.

Linda: Right. It talks about how there are things we just know, even though we don’t know why or how we know them. It’s that expertise.

There’s this one story in the book about a Greek replica statue that everyone vetted as real. Scientifically, it was confirmed to be authentic. But then an expert looked at it and said he couldn’t explain why, but he just knew it wasn’t real.

And the same with an EMT who looked at her father-in-law at a wedding and just knew he was about to have a heart attack. She doesn't know why, but she just knows. Instinctively, we're trained to know what's real and what's not real. We don't know why, but we're not going to lie to ourselves.

At the same time, I recommend anyone does whatever they want to make themselves happy. But we can't help but notice that something is different. If there’s a feature change, surgery, or something like that—maybe the lips are bigger—it’s fine. Great. You look beautiful. You feel good? Fantastic. But our brain is so trained on what is real and human.

Artists worry that AI will replace them. AI is never going to replace the raw emotion of an artist performing and connecting. And that's why I emphasize two things about the human aspect.

One, when I talk to artists about promoting themselves, I remind them: don't forget that on the other side of this email is another human being. We often get so busy thinking about my song, my story, my playlist, my fans. But if you remember for a second that the other side is a human, it changes everything.

At the end of the day, people like to work with people they like. This is why sometimes the best person for the job doesn't always get it. Not saying Ed Sheeran isn’t an amazing artist, but everyone says he’s just the nicest guy in the world. And at the end of the day, nice guys don’t finish last. They don’t. People like working with nice people. They like being treated well.

When I talk to artists about pitching themselves, I suggest making sure the goal is clear. When someone reads your email, you don't want them scrolling because no one has time for that. You’re not a PR company, so don’t use a press release format with “new release” or similar jargon. You’re an artist, and there’s so much value in being personable, passionate, professional, polite, and persistent—but politely persistent.

When you reach out, aim to make the recipient feel special. Make it clear that the email was written specifically for them. And it doesn’t take much! That’s why we include so much detail in our databases—like their name, links to their social media—so you can say, “I follow you on Instagram” or “I follow your blog.”

You can even engage subtly. Like some posts, comment here and there so your name becomes familiar. It’s a sneaky psychological trick: infiltrate their subconscious with likes and comments. But don’t blow up their Instagram in one day. Be subtle. Slide onto their profile and show a little support. This is a two-way street; it’s a human business.

When the email feels personal, you’re already in the top 1% of people pitching. If you’re not copying and pasting, if you’re saying, “Hey John, I follow your blog Rock Blog 24. I saw your last post about [artist]. I love that artist; they’re a big inspiration to me.” It shows you’ve looked at their blog and know they’re a human being.

Never say, “I think you’ll like my music.” No one wants to be told what they’ll like. Imagine if someone pitched to you in an annoying way, saying, “You will like this, take this, buy this.” It’s not sales; it’s promotion. Promotion is a subtle art.

The goal is for them to feel like, “Wow, this person gave me the time of day, was specific, and made a human connection.” Mention your song release date, include some context about your following, and close with gratitude for their time. It doesn’t have to be complicated—just human.

I’ve received emails where people drop F-bombs or are mean because I can’t post their music. While we’re not a blog, we have access to blogs. And the industry is very small. Everyone knows everyone, and the pool is interconnected. People move from job to job, but reputations follow.

Even yesterday, at a gathering with a couple hundred people, I saw many familiar faces still in the industry. And everyone talks. You don’t want to be remembered for the wrong reasons.

On the human connection topic, two TikTok staff members at the event were discussing promotional strategies. TikTok is a mystery to many, but it works well. Their key message was: artists who understand what resonates with people excel.

Who cares if TikTok is around in five years? The point is that right now, short-form content connects. Thirty-second to three-minute videos that feel raw and human are what work. Whether it’s a lip-sync, trend, or dance moment, finding that viral element is what matters.

One artist created five separate TikTok accounts to test different techniques, approaches, and content styles. She essentially conducted her own psychological experiment to see how to game the algorithm. The algorithm is smart—it picks up on what humans like based on saves, hearts, and replays. And it happens fast.

So yes, promotion today requires creativity. It’s not just sending an email. You have to be active on TikTok, Instagram, or wherever your audience is. TikTok, for example, is now even encouraging photo posts to hook new users. Whether it’s Reels, TikToks, or YouTube Shorts, short-form content is what resonates.

I’m not saying create five accounts and test everything, but at least give one account a try. Start somewhere.

Michael: This is great. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. I feel like the fundamental thing that I hear you saying is that the bottom line is that this is all about humans connecting with humans. And however people are connected with each other right now, including some of these platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok, the primary way that people are discovering and connecting with each other is through short-form content. And so, it's a tool. Ultimately, it is about authenticity and connecting with other humans. But there are ways that you can be smart about figuring out what's connecting and resonating with people right now by looking at things like trends, seeing what other people are posting, and figuring out what's working right now.

Also, finding a way to connect with who you are and do those trends in a way that feels authentic.

Here’s a question for you. I’m sure a lot of artists who are listening to this right now may feel a bit hesitant about using some of these platforms or even the concept of using trends, or doing things like cover songs, for example. They might wonder, how do you draw the line between chasing trends—doing stuff just to fit in with what people are searching for right now—while also maintaining your artistic integrity, authenticity, and being yourself?

I'm wondering if you have any tips or guidance as it relates to connecting with people through being yourself, while also maximizing some of those opportunities with the trends that are happening right now?

Linda: That's a tough question. Obviously, as I go back to what I said before, we know when someone's comfortable or uncomfortable. We know when someone's being themselves or when they're not. You should never do a viral trend if you're not comfortable. Of course, you want to be outside your comfort zone. That's where we grow. You don't want to be like, "I'm only safe doing photo things." No, you should be a little uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, you want to be authentic to yourself, and you want to find a way that resonates with fans and shows that maybe you don't take yourself too seriously as an artist. That's okay, too.

Maybe there are things you're really serious about—like your music—but maybe being out there in a certain way, like, I even watch Nara Smith, the mom (not the mom talk, but she’s very viral and famous). I don’t know the appropriate way to say it, but she has many titles, and she’s very successful on TikTok. She's now kind of making fun of herself by wearing extravagant dresses. So, she's poking fun at herself. Maybe when you're doing something you're uncomfortable with, whether it's a trend, a lip sync, or something you're hoping will help you reach more fans, maybe just make fun of yourself. Find the humor in it.

I don't know if you've seen on TikTok the "dancing with stars" viral lift that everyone’s trying. Most of the most successful ones are the ones where the person can’t do it. They fail at getting the person up, and they drop the person. It’s okay! People love to see someone try something and not get it right. That’s fine, too. You look at someone like Chapel Roan. She’s literally said she hated putting out those videos, talking about her fears, her life, and what she was doing in LA. Going live, she didn’t feel comfortable doing it. She didn’t want to do it. But now, you see she’s gotten past that point of virality. She’s had this amazing year, amazing tours, and festivals.

Now she’s like, "Oh, actually, I don’t know if I can curse on this podcast, but there’s a bit of a FU to the industry." Maybe now she’ll say, "I don’t have to dance every time you tell me to dance. Maybe I will cancel a show for my mental health." I respect that. She’s like, "Hey, that’s how I feel. I’m willing to take the backlash for that." She is drawing a line, creating her own safe space, and saying, "This is what I'm comfortable doing."

But before she got to that point of success, she was putting out TikToks every day, even though she hated doing it. So, do you create TikToks even though you hate doing it? I guess it depends on how much you want to reach new people every day.

You know, TikTok says, "Hey, create your own trend." For example, lip-sync to your own song or do a dance. Trevor Brown did this. He sat there thinking, "What can I do that would have a viral moment?" Things like the lyrics—T.O.T.T. for example—she was singing and thinking, "What kind of lyrics should I use to create a dance trend?" She was very strategic about her marketing. She wasn’t sitting there saying, "I’m a struggling artist. I don’t care who hears about it. I’m just going to play my shows and that’s it." No. She was thinking, "Maybe I don’t like this part of the business, but I’m going to do it because my goal is to headline festivals and play for hundreds of thousands of people." She was willing to shovel through the crap to get there.

It depends. How much are you willing to shovel to get to a point where maybe it pays off? Are you willing to put out TikToks that maybe don’t represent you? TikTok says, "Whatever you do, don’t delete them. It’s okay if they don’t work." But the thing is, you’re creating content, you’re putting yourself out there.

And what they’re trying to say to managers is, ideally, you can use all the data points in there. TikTok sees tons of data: who’s watching, when they’re liking your video, the time of day, what point they’re liking it. They can pinpoint what’s working and what’s not. It's wild.

They’re saying to artists, "The goal for you is to create a viral type of TikTok where a few people start creating their own versions." That’s when you know you’re influencing the platform, and others are trying to copy what you’re doing. And then that kind of keeps going. But, I mean, I always tell people, too, I remember a year ago—or was it yesterday? Who knows—I remember a year ago when Ed Sheeran, Florence and the Machine, and Halsey were all publicly complaining that their record labels were giving them crap for not creating a streaming story on TikTok, Reels, and not putting themselves out there.

And yes, they were like, "I’ve sold millions of records for you. I’ve sold out tours across the world. Why do I have to dance for you?" The record label was saying, "We can’t market you the way we want to. We can’t market your upcoming release as well as we’d like without a streaming story." And in part, you understand where someone like Ed Sheeran is coming from: "I think I’ve done enough as an artist. Why should I have to dance on TikTok?" But, if record labels are harassing their golden eggs to dance, can you imagine how important it must be for an indie artist to find their niche on these platforms?

We as artists are in a numbers business now. It sucks, but it’s true. Before they even listen to your song, they’re clicking on your profile. They’re looking to see how many followers you have, how many listeners you have on Spotify, how many streams you have on Spotify. How seriously have you taken yourself as an artist? How many fans have you connected with? What kind of story have you built for yourself?

And I think it’s funny—Ed Sheeran’s first TikTok was like, "I don’t know why I’m on TikTok. They’re making me do this. I don’t want to be here." It was kind of surprisingly funny, and it worked. But now, he’s like the TikTok king. He’s always doing some random, cool, quirky marketing tools. Did you see that peep show-style TikTok?

Michael: No, I didn't see that.

Linda: Yeah. So people will be like, "Okay, I'll pay to see Ed Sheeran." Other people are like, "Uh, this is obviously like a scam." People go in, and the curtain would open, and it'd be Ed Sheeran sitting there. He'd play guitar and sing like 30 seconds of a song, and those curtains would close.
 Or recently, I saw him on some boat going down a stream or a canal, stopping people, saying, "Hey, what song do you want to hear?" And they’re like, "Oh, is that Ed Sheeran?" Obviously, all of this content is being put up, like, on TikTok, but clearly, he didn't want to do it. He’s seen the value of it, and now he seems to be really enjoying it and milking it. So, good for him. It can be done.

Michael: So interesting.

Linda: If Ed Sheeran’s doing it, you should do it.

Michael: Yeah, I mean, just the point they brought up, too, I feel like it's really interesting from a motivation standpoint. It's like, do the ends justify the means? And how do we trade short-term pleasure in exchange for long-term fulfillment? How do we set that for ourselves? I know the marshmallow test was really interesting. They had kids, and they put a marshmallow in front of them and said, "Hey, if you don't eat this marshmallow when we leave the room, when we come back and it’s still there, then you get two marshmallows." They recorded it, and apparently, it’s really funny just watching the kids try to resist the urge to eat the marshmallows.

Linda: The key is not to look at it. That's the key. Don’t look at the marshmallow. You have to trick yourself.

Michael: You’re right. Gosh, like, what is it? That story where they tied him up with the sirens so he couldn’t go? Even though he heard the sirens’ call, he couldn’t—
 Linda: What are you talking about? Yes.

Michael: Oh, really? What’s it called? Uh, the Odyssey? Or is it Odysseus? But basically, it’s like a story from—I'm probably pushing this, but I think it’s from Greece, from way back. There was Homer in The Odyssey. But the takeaway is, it is relevant to this conversation. The captain, they were going to sail through the seas, and there were a bunch of sirens who would sing siren songs. They were very tempting and would try to eat them or kill them. They had earplugs, and most of the crew had earplugs, but he didn’t have enough for himself. So they tied him up to a stake so that, even though he heard the call, he wouldn’t go.
 But I’m curious. I’ve heard this wisdom kind of reflected in different ways.

Linda: Later.

Michael: Do you choose to do the hard thing now, which will benefit you long-term, or do you live the easy life, which leads to long-term difficulties? It’s like thinking a lot harder. I’ve always found that concept really interesting. And also, it’s a balance because I don’t know—if you're always living for the future, you might miss out on the present and not appreciate the moments you're in. But at the same time, so many of the best things in life come from fulfillment, from putting aside the short-term stuff, like, "I'm just going to go do a bunch of drugs all day and not do anything."
 Maybe in the moment, it's fine, but you know—there’s short-term pleasure versus long-term pleasure. And there’s a lot of wisdom in living in the moment, appreciating things, being grateful for what you have, and not just living for the future.
 So, I’m curious if you have any perspective or thoughts on balancing both—having goals and wanting to achieve something fulfilling in the future and doing something hard now, like posting on TikTok, even though you hate it. You hate posting on TikTok right now, but you know that if you do it consistently, it’ll lead to beneficial results.
 I’m curious how you’d recommend someone watching or listening right now, who’s been on the edge, thinking, "Oh, I should probably do this social media thing, Instagram Reels, or TikTok," but feels overwhelmed, and doesn’t really want to do it. How can they build that discipline and habit in themselves?

Linda: Well, I actually read a book very recently that really drives home this point, and it's so small. I’d highly recommend it to everyone. If you're like me, I bookmark the chapter and I bookmark the end of the chapter so I know how I was getting there. I really like the finish line, even if it's just the chapter.

I’m not into like, you know, needing results all the time. I'm a very "all super focused or I don't get anything done" person. So I like having a goal, a deadline, a timeframe—get it done. What works well for me is time boxing. So I’ll say, "From 3 to 3:30, I’m going to work on this," and I don’t give myself other options. I try to tie myself to the chair, like Homer. But to talk about the “hard now, easy later” concept, the book is called The Compound Effect.

It tries to drive home the point that it’s actually rarely the big decisions that have the long-term effect on your life. It’s not like, "Oh, I’ll go to the gym for five hours tomorrow, and the next day I’ll be fit and healthy." Everything in life is made up of small decisions made consistently over time. It’s not sexy, it isn’t fun, and it doesn’t sound like a solution to everything, but that's how everything works in life, in the music industry.

You can obviously see it with diet and exercise and physical health—it’s slow, slow, slow, and then all at once. So tomorrow, you could decide, "I’m going to go do drugs with Michael, and we’re just going to drink and eat junk food." It’ll probably be okay the next day, but if you do that every day for a long time, you’ll end up in an early grave. One bad or one good decision won’t change your life, but if you make one small decision every day and stay consistent with it, it will.

If you decide, "I’m just going to post one little thing every day," or "Today I’m going to create three little pieces of content," or "I’m going to take a walk and talk about my upcoming song," you’ll see progress. Instagram is your storefront. It’s your brand, it’s like you telling people, "This is who I am." If they came and had a quick look, they’d get a vibe for who you are as an artist. TikTok, however, is behind the curtain. It’s the real you as an artist.

You don’t need something huge to happen to break as an artist. You don’t need to get signed or get a big feature. What you need is to take the long-term approach—be consistent. Every day, do one small thing to promote yourself, work on your music, put yourself out there. For example, make a plan for this week: your goal is to practice guitar for 30 minutes a day. Next week, practice piano. Write one lyric for a song tomorrow, two lyrics the next day, three the day after. You’ll be building every day.

It won’t seem like a miracle or an overnight success, but you’ll be steadily working towards your goals. Have you heard of Seinfeld’s advice on this?

Michael: Yeah, Jerry Seinfeld, the "Xs." I think I’ve heard this one.

Linda: Yeah. It’s so psychologically satisfying to never break the chain. I have an app called Streaks, which I rarely buy apps, but I knew it would work for me. It helps you track things you want to work on every day, whether it’s practicing a language, meditating, or just staying hydrated. Can I do this consistently over time? And that’s all I focus on. I don’t overwhelm myself with big goals like booking a tour or getting on a festival lineup. I just focus on manageable daily tasks.

If you commit to doing 30 minutes a day—whether it’s writing or creating social media content—that’s progress. What you get done, you get done. What you don’t, that’s okay. You can always try again the next day. Progress is happiness. When you don’t do something you promised yourself you’d do, that’s when you start to feel down. That’s when you get hard on yourself, like, "Ugh, this whole week went by and I didn’t do one thing for music."

I think people often struggle when they think about the bigger picture. But even if you just commit to sending 10 emails a day for promotion, it’s manageable. You could block out some time, whether it’s first thing in the morning or late at night, and say, "That’s my time to work on sending 10 emails." When you get that done, it’s a win.

I’m always going off on my own tangents, but yeah, it’s about making small, manageable steps every day. Some people sit down thinking, “Wow, my song’s coming out tomorrow, and I have everything to do.” That’s why I like having an eight-week lead-up to a release. Take two weeks to gather everything—your assets, artwork, social media profiles. And that’s why we have a single release checklist at Micco. We know there’s a lot to do, but we break it down into manageable steps. One thing a day, like setting up your Spotify for Artists account or getting verified.

It’s like that old phrase: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That’s everything in life—how do you get healthy? You start by walking for 30 minutes today. Tomorrow, you do it again. And before you know it, you’re jogging, thinking, “Wow, I didn’t start out thinking I’d run a marathon. I just started by walking for 30 minutes a day.”

Have you heard of Kaizen? It’s a Tony Robbins concept, and it’s all about making small improvements consistently.

Michael: It's like this… the incremental.

Linda: Yeah, constant and never-ending improvement. You can't turn everything around tomorrow, but tomorrow you can be 1 percent better. And then the next day, be 1 percent better. There's a whole, you know, I have a thousand books on how to be better. I should read them. I do, I do my best. It won’t be hard. I do read them. I think it's pretty much all the books that are like, "Oh, blank or Tony Robbins" or anything. I'm a fan of Dr. Wayne Dyer. I really do love books about human psychology, self-improvement, meditation, anything like that. But it was like this British cycling team, and they were honestly the worst. They weren't getting anywhere, anytime. It was just like, there was a very famous bike company. And they were like, "Hey, can we use your bikes?" And they were like, "No, you guys are just so bad that you will actually embarrass our brand." So the new coach comes in, and he's like, "They're looking for this massive fix, like, 'Hey, we're just going to turn it all around, Hollywood style, like some TV show or movie.'" He’s like, "No, we’re going to work on small, incremental improvements. Nothing game-changing." I got the word in at the end. Nothing like, "Oh my God, how can anyone take that on board?" But it was very small, 1 percent changes over a consistent period of time. Next thing, they were unbeatable. But that's sometimes life. I know we all want tomorrow morning to be like Chapelle Row and then headlining festivals. But remember, it took her 10 years to get there, and that's okay. Because, you know, she became tough, learned the industry, learned how to connect with people. And she still obviously knows how hard it is. Sometimes people want to connect with you, and maybe you're just not feeling it. She’s finding that part of the street, like where people are just running up to her, screaming at her from car windows. It's a little jarring and understandable because being in the public eye, being an artist, or putting yourself out there is not easy for anyone. So don’t be hard on yourself. Just work on being 1 percent better every day. Give yourself a small task to complete every day, and when you get that task done, whatever it is, give yourself a nice big red X on the calendar or on your planner. I’m a big messy planner-type person, but I’m like, “Hey, good job, me!” It’s all about the small wins. And then when you look back in six months, you’ll be like, "Wow, yay me!" I feel like, really, you know, I’ve come a long way. I think that’s it—most people make these huge resolutions on January 1st, thinking, "Oh my God, I’m just going to be a different person." No, you don’t have to be a different person. You just have to be 1 percent better. And then on the 2nd, continue. And before you know it, it’s just manageable and you won’t quit. Because we’re not really meant for these massive changes. We’re meant for slow and steady wins the race kind of stuff. We all want to be the hare, but we’re the tortoise.

Michael: Hmm.

Linda: I don’t know. Did you need to talk, or was it just all me? I feel bad for you. Do you want me to ask you a question?

Michael: This is fantastic. I appreciate it. Yeah, I really think there is magic to habit, you know, the habit building, habit development. And like you mentioned, doing the same thing for half an hour a day, an hour a day for a week or a month, it does get easier. It becomes automatic. Our brains and our habits are magical. It makes doing the hard thing easy if you do it for long enough. So yeah, I think it's motivating, hopefully, for everyone that's listening right now, to hear that and to remember that, you don’t have to feel overwhelmed or go crazy. If you just focus on incremental habits and doing the small thing every single day.

Linda: I was at the sound.

Michael: Linda, it's been awesome connecting with you today. Thank you again so much for coming on the podcast to share some of the lessons that you've learned. You’ve asked someone who has a lot of perspective on being both in the industry and connecting with a lot of the quote-unquote gatekeepers, as well as your background in psychology and understanding the people and connection part of it all. I thought it was a really interesting conversation. So, thank you for being here. And for anyone that's listening to this right now who is interested in exploring more of the resources that you've created at Micco, could you share what's the best place for them to go to connect more and check out Micco?

Linda: Forgot I’m here to sell. God, bless us. Okay, now. We're very available, blessa. So we're on Zoom, WhatsApp, and Instagram. But if you would just go to the website, which might be the easiest to find, it's www.themicco.com. It was supposed to be The Music Industry Connection Company, but then I thought I'd be super smart and make it a short algorithm. And, uh, I realized now it sounds like the "Meeko" dot com, which is fine, as long as you come to us. Or you can find us on Instagram at Hey, @Hey, H-E-Y, M-I-C-C-O. And yeah, we're very open to helping artists. Whether you're a member or not, we’re just excited to connect with people. We're excited to find communities to promote. We just worked with Girls Behind the Rock Show. They are an incredible community in New York with 15,000 members. They're a nonprofit and a wonderful bunch of people. It’s an incredible community for girls or non-conforming individuals to join. They're supportive of art and just added their open mic. We love hearing from people in the music industry—musicians, managers, record labels. We’re kind of a one-size-fits-all. And yeah, we’re just constantly growing and evolving, adding a lot of tools that can hopefully really solve people’s problems. That’s what we’re in—the solutions business. That’s our goal: you come to us and say, "Hey, this is my problem." We love that because then I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. We can work on something like that and make it available." Thanks for letting us know that that's what you're struggling with. So yeah, come to us with your struggles and we will do our best to help you. Famous last words.

Michael: I like it. I like it. I feel like that could be a slogan, like on a billboard somewhere.

Linda: Yeah, I always joke to my significant other, um, I’m in the solutions business, creative solutions. It’s called Solomon’s Paradox. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.

Michael: I think it’s Solomon. Solomon. Now you’re not "solo man," so... Solomain?

Linda: Why does it sound weird now that I’m definitely thinking about it? It's fine. People from all across the lands—see, back in the day, there weren’t continents or countries. It was just lands. All across the lands, they used to come to him for solutions to their problems. He was amazing at giving the best advice. He was known for just solving whatever problem you had. But the paradox is—because that’s why it’s called Solomon’s Paradox—his own life was in disarray because he was always working on other people’s problems. That way, he didn’t have to look at himself. So please, what can we do to solve your problems so I can feel really focused on you and not have to think about what I’m doing?

Michael: That’s amazing. So there you have it, folks. Come to Linda with all of your struggles and problems, and they will be solved.

Linda: Pick him up.

Michael: Well, we’ll put out the links in the show notes for easy access. This was a really fun conversation, so Linda, thanks again for being on the podcast today.

Linda: Oh my god, thank you so much for having me, and I’m sorry, your ear must be on fire right now. At least you have that cold plunge. You’re going to need it after.

Michael: Tomorrow morning. I thought every morning—it’s a habit. That’s what you’re talking about, right? It’s a habit. And it was hard. It was hard getting into the cold plunge the first week, I would say. But it’s gotten a lot easier, and it’s just this incremental, small habit, and it’s made an impact. I mean, I haven’t gotten sick compared to when I had three kids. I used to get sick every month, several times. Now, it’s been six months without it. So there you go. That’s living proof of what you just shared.

Linda: It’s incredible. You can see that it’s actually scientifically proven to boost your immune system, which is amazing. Now, my question is, do you look forward to getting in the cold plunge? Because I’m like… I know, being comfortable isn’t something we're built for. You’ll never grow if you're comfortable.

Oh my god, I'll tell you one lobster story, and then you can go. I love telling people the lobster story. So, the lobster, he grows a little bigger, and then his shell is too tight. He’s under pressure and uncomfortable, and then he goes under a rock and sheds his shell, allowing him to grow a bigger one.

Over and over, the process happens, and he gets big and strong, and the shell gets stronger and bigger every time. The whole story is about how you have to be under pressure. You have to be uncomfortable to grow and get strong. So I know that, but I also don’t like being uncomfortable all the time.

So I want to know from you, do you actually look forward to the cold plunge now, or is it still like, “Oh God, here we go”?

Michael: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I mean, I do really enjoy it now. Like, I genuinely enjoy it. When I'm in the cold plunge and when I get out, I noticeably feel better. I guess there are endorphins that get released right before. Uh, literally moments before, I feel like it’s almost like mental jujitsu.

It’s nice having it as one of the first things I do in the morning when I wake up. So it’s sort of like a way to train my brain to do the hard, uncomfortable thing fast.

You know, eat the frog, like Brian Tracy suggests. And I also do it based on a different book I read called The 5-Second Rule.

Linda: Yeah.

Michael: It’s the Mel Robbins one.

Linda: Right. Mel Robbins.

Michael: Yeah, and the whole premise of the book is, you know, you just count down from five and you do the thing that you’re feeling you don’t want to do or that’s uncomfortable. I’ve found that really helpful for me—getting out of bed in the morning, for instance.
 I go into the cold plunge, and I just go, “5, 4, 3, 2…” And as soon as I start counting down, it’s like 99 percent of the time, I just do it by the time I get to zero. But sometimes, it takes a little time for me to warm up.

Okay, like, here I go. There’s the cold plunge in front of me. I’m going to get in that. It’s going to be really cold for a few seconds, but then it’s going to start to feel better.

Linda: Have you seen it?

Michael: I only go in for about three minutes.

Linda: Three minutes?

Michael: Yeah, the cold plunge. I think the reason I do three minutes is that the science says around three minutes is when you get the health benefits. After that, you can stay in longer, but it’s more for psychological benefits. The health benefits are activated around the three-minute mark—that’s what I’ve heard, at least.

So yeah, it’s three minutes in the morning. I also do my vocal exercises in the cold plunge as well. I kind of double up with it a little bit. You’d think that being in the cold plunge would make it harder to sing, but I’ve actually found that it doesn’t make it harder. It’s a nice warm-up in the morning.

But Linda, again, it’s been great having you on the podcast. We’ll put all the links in the show notes for easy access. Thank you for what you’re doing for the industry, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Linda: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me. I would say “thanks for taking the time to talk,” but you didn’t get to talk. I talked. Thanks for taking the time to listen, and I enjoyed it.

Michael: YEAAAH!