Kris Angelis:
I would start off, if you want to reach out to someone who's at a much higher level than you, just to say, "Hey, I am doing this. I really admire you. Can I talk to you? Can I just have five minutes? Can I buy you a coffee? Can I have 10 minutes of your time to ask you questions?" Ask for advice, because not only will you just get a bunch of good advice, you'll have made another connection and that person, you'll be on their radar and they will maybe want to help you. It's been a really good thing for me because worst case scenario, you get some good advice.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month, without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. I'm excited to be here today with Kris Angelis. She's an award-winning singer/songwriter. She had an album that hit a number one on iTunes singer/songwriter charts, performed at festivals, like Sundance, South by Southwest, NAMM. She's an artist in our Gold Arts Academy right now, and we have a weekly wins post. A few weeks ago she posted it in there, just nonchalantly like, "Oh, I just hit..." was it 2000 pre-orders on your new EP?

Kris Angelis:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Walker:
I was like, "Whoa, that's awesome. That's super impressive for an independent artist." I looked into your strategy for what you had done, and I was like, "Wow, this is really a cool idea, a cool strategy, very grassroots." I reached out and we connected and I had a bit of a conversation about it. It sounds like there's some ups and downs, some learning lessons and things that you learn through experience. That'd be awesome to bring on here on the podcast to share some of the lessons that you learned.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, Kris, thanks so much for taking time to be here. I'd love to hear a little bit just about your story with your music and how it got started, and for anyone that's listening to this right now, if you want to give a quick introduction.

Kris Angelis:
Okay. My mom says that I wrote my... sister claims too, that we wrote our first song together when we were three, I have an identical twin sister, and I do remember the song. It was about being cold and wanting to go inside. We just were surrounded by music, not because our family are musical at all, they're all doctors and stuff, but there was just a lot of music that they had, like my grandparents had all these Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and classical music and records and stuff that we just, on our own delved, into and had a lot of fun doing the school plays and then little musicals and getting the bug of performing in that way. I'm going to say we a lot because this is my sister and I, we did a lot of this together.

Kris Angelis:
We would make up little songs in our tree house and learn how to harmonize. Then I branched off a little bit. Well, we started doing a lot of theater and acting, and then my sister branched off and went to NYU to be an actress, and I moved to LA. I was still pursuing acting, but had still been writing songs because it was just a really great way to release the feelings that I was having. I've said a number of times in my life that I don't understand how people who don't have something like that get through their lives. What do they do? I just kept delving into it and performing and it just became my main focus. Yeah, that's sort of my story.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. It's funny. Our son, Ander, is about three years old and he's really getting into harmonizing right now, and it's just a whole thing. He's so proud of himself when he plays the piano, the two notes next to each other. I'm imagining you sitting in your tree house right now and the harmonizing. I'm like, "Aw, that's cool."

Kris Angelis:
That's so cool. I mean, we didn't do it with instruments. We just figured it out. My sister was the one who was really good at harmonizing. I would just think something, and she just, I don't know, naturally could harmonize and I had to learn from her. It's really-

Michael Walker:
That's cool.

Kris Angelis:
... awesome that she's still sings with me.

Michael Walker:
twin sisters harmonizing.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that is cool. I mean, hitting number one on iTunes for singer songwriting, that's an incredible accomplishment. Could you share just a little bit about that strategy, like where did the idea come from, and could you share maybe an overview of how it works for anyone that's listening right now?

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. Yeah. My strategy was very similar actually to crowdfunding that a lot of people have done with Indiegogo or whatever. Usually with crowdfunding, you say like, "If you give me $5, I'll send you a download. Or if you'd give me $20, I'll send you a t-shirt," you know how it goes. I realized that's awesome for being able to make the money to fund the album and the promotion and everything. But then I was like, "How do I sell a bunch of the album?" Because I was having issues with people being very supportive and I would get the money and stuff, but then once the album came out, it was like, "Well, I sold 50 of it. Okay."

Kris Angelis:
I had heard about like, "Oh, I want to get onto that Heatseeker chart on Billboard. I think that it's possible and the artist can do it." I was like, "How can I sell a bunch of albums? I have a bunch of people who I know like my music." I started thinking, "What if I, instead of getting the money just directly from people, they gave me the money by buying the album a number of times?" That's just where it was like, "Okay, if you buy the album three times, I'll send you a CD. If you buy the album five times, I'll send you a thank you card and a CD. If you buy the album 10 times, I'll send you a t-shirt or whatever it was." That's the basic principle. It got a lot of albums sold. Not that all of them were... it wasn't like three buying the album 300 times. A lot of people bought it, but having those little incentives made people more excited about buying it.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Just to reiterate and recap for anyone that's listening to this right now, the idea as a whole is you and Kickstarter, you might have a $500 tier, and for that tier, they get a private show. The way that you did it was, you said, "Okay, we're still going to have $500 tier and you still get the show, but with the $500, rather than just being one thing, it's actually 500 divided by $5 per pre-order, so it's really 100 pre-orders that you can get from it."

Kris Angelis:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
Which I think is just a really smart, really interesting way to bundle it so that it is about pre-order sold. I also think it's interesting too, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts and experience with just the idea of support. When you're reaching out to people to get to a certain goal with the amount of pre-orders, I'm curious if you found that the way that you framed it with like, "Oh, this is about pre-orders and getting as many pre-orders as possible." Do you think that helped you in terms of being able to have people come at higher bundled packages, or how do you think that the framing worked with that?

Kris Angelis:
I think that having that it needs to be before this date, definitely makes a huge difference just as with the crowdfunding campaigns where there's a limit, especially because that date, it wasn't just an arbitrary... "okay, this account it's going to be for three weeks and then it's done." It was, "This is when the album is coming out. And if you buy it before then, then it will help it be at number one on iTunes or whatever." You have to buy it during this timeframe to help it get on the charts to the highest that it can be, because pre-orders, everyone, count towards the first week of sales. That's how you can get on the charts, and as an independent artist.

Kris Angelis:
Having that solid goal with the results, if they do it by then being charts and whatever made a huge difference. And also I was able to do things like, "Okay, when we get to 500 total pre-orders, I'm going to do this fun thing when I live stream." When we get to 1000, I'm going to dye my hair." I did that last time. Just fun little... I did a pie in my face, which it's very silly, but people are into it. Just things like that also are really fun to encourage people to get on board, get on something that's moving. Inertia and momentum is always very helpful and nice things.

Michael Walker:
I can definitely see how having that tangible goal to hit number one on iTunes could be something that really rallies people together. So-

Kris Angelis:
I feel like-

Michael Walker:
Yeah, go ahead.

Kris Angelis:
... I should say though, before we get too far and people are excited and trying to do this, that I found out afterwards, the week that the album came out from Billboard that's not allowed. Billboard specifically doesn't allow you to do incentives like this. Unfortunately, one of my main goals getting on the Billboard charts was thwarted. I didn't know about it because it was a brand new rule. Literally had only been in effect for five months. Anyone who is wanting to do this for that reason, don't, but anyone who wants to just sell a bunch of their albums, encourage people to get it to a chart on iTunes and other things like that, yes. Just wanted to just put that out there.

Michael Walker:
Right. Yep. Yep. I'm glad you shared that. That's the part when we were talking about the ups and the downs and learning lessons.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah, it was a huge bummer.

Michael Walker:
To clarify too, it's not like doing this is illegal or there's anything wrong with this. It's just like in terms of Billboard's rules for how you can chart on Billboard, which is just one platform, they don't.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. It disqualifies you for Billboard.

Michael Walker:
Okay. How does that work in terms of them keeping track of... does that mean if there's a bundle, they only count it as one or they're just like, "No, you're not allowed to do that at all, or else we're not going count it all."

Kris Angelis:
They did it for me is, if you have any incentives, you don't qualify. Period. Because there were a bunch of the albums that I sold that were just people wanting to buy the album straight up. They didn't even know about the bundles. But they were like, "Well, because there was any sort of incentive, we're not going to count it." It's pretty strict.

Michael Walker:
It sounds like it. I'm guessing that there's probably going to be some alternative. This is a rule that's going to be figured out over time. That to me seems kind of unfair, ridiculous. Why would we not incentivize people to buy CDs. At the same time, I can also understand the point that it's like, "Oh, if you're bundling them together with different things..." Heard the Jonas brothers doing something where it's like they sold album with every ticket that they sold, and there's some people who got mad about that, but-

Kris Angelis:
That's what they were trying to avoid this time, is because huge artists like that were doing that. That's what they're trying to avoid. They're trying to make it fair. Unfortunately, it's kind of messing with independent artists at the moment, but it's all... it's one of those things, like you said, it's going to probably even out to something that makes a little more sense.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. Yeah, that's a good question too, in terms of how do you keep it fair? Because I mean, it's like, "Okay, no promotion at all for the album or you can't do any sort of bundles." It seems little [crosstalk 00:11:32], but-

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. I had the question, I wondered... and I think that the fact that I did stuff like, "Hey, when we reach 500, I'm going to do this thing." I was like, "Is that not allowed? Because that's kind of an incentive to buy it." I have to check on that, actually, I'm not a hundred percent sure. But I think that it has to do with as long as it's not something where people have to have bought it to participate. The pie in my face thing was just, I did that on a live stream and you didn't have to have bought it to see me do that. I was just celebrating that I had sold 1000 copies. I think that might be okay.

Michael Walker:
Okay. Gotcha. For anyone who's listening to this, maybe you feel like... dig into the rules a little bit, they might change as well. Just kind of see what it is right now. Regardless, this is a really cool strategy. I mean, also number one on iTunes, which is a huge accomplishment and just for the ability to connect with your fans and to give them an incentive that's based around the music. That's one question I have for you in terms of; it seems like one of the opportunities or benefits from a strategy like this is that, let's say that you did have... it's a $5 EP and you have a $500 tier of something that you're going to offer. Someone gets the $500 thing, they get 100 digital copies of the pre-order. I wonder if there's a platform... if you could answer this, that'd be awesome. But is there a platform that just makes it really... or what would your recommendations be in terms of making it as easy as possible for the person who got 100 pre-orders, can they just share these codes with as many of their friends and family and people can download as they want? Or how does that work exactly?

Kris Angelis:
I did it through my website, through Bandzoogle. You can pre-order as many copies as you want of digital things, but you do have to do them one at a time. That makes it a little more complicated, but you can have it sent to whoever you want because you'll get all of those downloads, I think, and you can send them. But also, Bandcamp actually has a setup that's way more easier because they have a gifting option.

Kris Angelis:
Now, iTunes and stuff have a gifting options once it comes out, but Bandcamp is the only one who has it before it comes out and all you have to do is put in whoever's email address that you want to send it to and you can do it all in one transaction. You could buy 20 copies and then send them to 20 different people through Bandcamp. That's the easiest one.

Michael Walker:
Interesting.

Kris Angelis:
Also, iTunes doesn't let you buy more than one copy. I was going to say, I guess the incentives in other ways of just like, "Hey everyone, I'm trying to get to this goal" was how I got to the iTunes one, because you have to have a separate apple account. I know that people weren't creating fake apple accounts to buy my album.

Michael Walker:
Right. Awesome. In terms of the Bandcamp, the gifting flow, so it sounds... let's say for example, someone gets 100 pre-orders, then it's like they can get 100 all at once and then as they're checking out, they have to put in everyone's email, or is it like they checkout and then it's 100 different codes they can give out or do you know exactly how that works?

Kris Angelis:
I believe it's more like you click on gift, put in their information, then gift again, put in their information and then you can pay all at once, versus on my website, for example, you have to click it and then buy, do the transaction every time for each one.

Michael Walker:
Okay. Gotcha. It lets you buy in bulk and it still is a little bit individual in terms of how you're gifting it, but it still works for someone.

Kris Angelis:
Because you have to send it to each of those people. Yeah, I don't think there's a way to put in a bunch of emails at once.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Part of the reason that I'm curious about this is because right before we started the interview, I was telling you that I was coding the app that we're working on right now, and I think that it could be an interesting use case to have something like this, where people can pre-order 300 copies of a digital album, and when they order that, it sends them 300 unique codes and then they can give them out however they'd like to. the unique code, then it gives them the download and maybe it gives them a bit of an onboarding sequence too, where it's like, "Hey, your friend gave you this free code. Here's what to do now. You can get the download here. Also, make sure to join the community if you want to connect more with the musician and other fans of the songs. Here's a video you can watch. Here's XYZ." It's like creating a nice onboarding sequence for people after they share it. I think it could be really cool way to spread the love and to create a .

Kris Angelis:
To get those people to become fans and get an engaged. Yeah, that would be great.

Michael Walker:
Cool. All right. One thing I'd love to dig into is just your general strategy of how... it sounds like part of the success that you experience was due to the amount of personal outreach and just diving in and connecting with people and actually reaching out to people and having conversations. Can you talk a little bit about what your process was for that?

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. Basically, it's not glamorous. It's just, I do a lot of live streaming, getting my myself out there, I do a lot of cross-promotion with people in the live streaming community, where if I have other artists that have great followers on their channels, I'll ask to be a guest on theirs. I'll bring them to be a guest on mine and we're sharing each other's music while sharing fans. I also just did a lot of texting people and sending individual emails and sending individual DMs. Just a lot of that. It was tedious, but worth it.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's awesome. I love that idea. I've been thinking for a while that we could use a lot more of that as a community of live streaming and interconnectedness between the artists. I mean, obviously there's live shows and touring, and that's the whole idea of having a tour package, but what's your process like in terms of identifying and then reaching out to similar artists who have that kind of following, how do you build those types of relationships, and what's the... when you reach out to them and you're interested in doing something, like some sort of collaboration and doing a swap, what does that look like?

Kris Angelis:
A lot of the people that I have met, I guess, are just people that I saw also on my streaming platform that my fans are fans of, and they sort of tell me about them. Then sometimes even my fans who are awesome will help me. They'll reach out to the other person who they're already a fan of and be like, "Hey, you should do something with Kris," which is awesome. The communities on these live streaming platforms are usually really... I mean, I haven't had a bad experience with people being very supportive and wanting to help out each other. What else?

Kris Angelis:
I've met people just through doing live shows, being at the same venues over and over and be like, "Hey, I know you," and meeting in these weirdly now Zoom culture. I've actually made real contact with people through those. I did this Guild of Music Supervisors show with KT Tunstall and Torii Wolf and now I have done some cross promotion stuff with Torii. Like that. Just being in the community and being nice.

Michael Walker:
It is funny how so many things come back to that, you show up and you be kind and you care about other people and you try to provide value. Awesome.

Kris Angelis:
The one thing that I will say too, when I was doing my messaging reach out, which is genuine and also helpful is that the end of the message was always "and please let me know how I can help you too," because a lot of the people I was reaching out to are musicians. They're already willing to help because they know what's up, they know that it is helpful, but I'm like, "Send me your links. I will pre save your stuff. I will buy your stuff. This is a two-way street." I think that was really helpful as well.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. There's a story, I'll skip quicker to the punchline because I've told the story on the podcast before, but I love this story because it just illustrates the importance of cross connectedness and serving other people. But the punchline of the story was that there was two different meals that were set up. There's one in heaven and one in hell, and it was the exact same meal, but everyone in hell was torture, everyone in heaven was amazing. They were like, "Well, what's the difference?" It's like, "Well in hell, they're all trying to feed themselves and they're all eating these three yard long chopsticks, and so they're trying to feed themselves and they can't do it and it's terrible." Oh, that's terrible.

Michael Walker:
But up in heaven, they're still using the three yard chopsticks, but it's like they feed each other. And it's like, "Oh yeah, that's such a beautiful story" because in so many ways, it's so true that we tend to lose perspective or so identified with ourselves that sometimes it's so helpful to have someone else that can provide value for us the same way that we can serve other people that we can have perspective of for them and-

Kris Angelis:
Absolutely.

Michael Walker:
... those three yard-long chopsticks.

Kris Angelis:
How it's so fun to give gifts and stuff like that. That reminds me of something, because I grew up in Northern California, near Big Sur after moving from Florida and, oh my gosh, wow, we're a bunch of hippies. But I went to this little party one time where it was a group of people and there was a bunch of lovely food, but the rule of the party was you can't feed yourself and everyone fed each other. Yes, we were a bunch of hippies, but it was so fun and it was such a lovely little experience of community.

Michael Walker:
Wow. That is like the realization of that story in real life. That's awesome. Out of curiosity, when you're talking about doing these live streaming collaborations and you're on their live show they're on your live streams, what have you found has been the best way to sort of interact and to connect with each other's audiences, especially, do you just play songs for them or do you just listen to your songs in the background, or how does that work?

Kris Angelis:
When we're cross promoting? Generally, first of all, if I'm trying to get in to someone's world, I will go to their stream and just be in the audience and give them little tips or prizes or whatever you give them, the support and comment and stuff. And then I don't just cold and be like, "Hey," and then when we do something together, if it's a split screen, usually it is a split screen thing, I will just take turns playing songs. I'll play a song, they'll play a song, we'll talk about them, just like a songwriter in the round kind of thing.

Michael Walker:
I love that. That's so cool. It's kind of reminds me of with Paradise Fears when we were coming up on YouTube and some of the smartest things that we did was these collaborations with other musicians and doing videos together and doing songs together. That's like these cross-pollinating type of thing. It seems like there's so much opportunity in terms of just collaborating with each other, both musically and what your... I love the idea to talk about you doing live streams back to back and kind of trading off one and the other. Imagine people doing festivals, like that, where you could put together... My friends started like, "Oh, we even do something like that with Modern Musician." We could have some sort of festival or something where we have on a songwriter rounds. It's cool idea.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. Did you hear about UnCancelled Fest last year in 2020?

Michael Walker:
Mm-mm (negative).

Kris Angelis:
It was this big thing that a bunch venues put together at Hotel Café, and now I'm just blanking on... The Rockwood in New York and some other venues around the country got together and had a bunch of sponsors, ASCAP and whatever. Every day, there was a lineup from 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM of different artists. And this one was 45 minutes to an hour chunks. But I played right after Colby Kelly and William Fitzsimmons, and that's cool. And people-

Michael Walker:
That doesn't sound intimidating at all.

Kris Angelis:
No. I'm like, "Why am I after them?" Maybe I was before them, whatever, it doesn't matter. There's that way of doing it where you set up a schedule, even though no one's in the same place, people are there for the festival. That's cool. What I'm talking about is, you're actually in the same stream and you can actually talk to each other. Both of those things have been really, really useful because people get on board and they're like, "Oh yeah, I'm going to watch this festival online," and especially with Twitch, which is really cool, you can do this thing called rating, where I play for whatever, however long, and then I bring my entire audience digitally, I don't know how they do this, but they all just get dumped into the next person's live stream. They're there in their audience. They don't even have to do anything, they're just there. Then that person can do that for the next person. It's really cool.

Michael Walker:
I love that. I think it was Ari Herstand, I was doing an interview with him a few weeks ago. And he was talking about this idea of rating. Twitch is definitely an interesting platform. I know it's mostly for video game industry, but it seemed like they have some really innovative ways that they're kind of garnering that community.

Kris Angelis:
Oh, yeah. It's really good for music too. I have a friend, Zane Carney, who does some really cool stuff on there and he makes his living from that, basically.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Kris Angelis:
I mean, he does some other stuff too. He's a professional guitar player, but he makes thousands of dollars from Twitch, just from live streaming on there every month.

Michael Walker:
Wow. That's super cool. We don't have to be super down a rabbit hole or anything, but do you know roughly how much time per day he is spending live streaming on Twitch?

Kris Angelis:
I don't know if he does every day, but when he does, I think it's about three hours. But you don't have to do that. He just is this crazy jazz guitar player, he nerds out on learning, live learning jazz songs and he just

Michael Walker:
It's so cool.

Kris Angelis:
He plays one song and it's 20 minutes long.

Michael Walker:
Right, right. If you're going to be practicing and you're going to be learning, you're going to be performing anyways, why not document it? You'll bring people along for the ride.

Kris Angelis:
Exactly. Because that's the cool thing about live streaming that I've come to know. It's very casual. It doesn't have to be this like, "Oh, this big deal show, and I have to look a certain way and not mess up." It's very interactive. I get more tips and engagement and people watching when I'm just sitting there talking to them and I'm playing and I'm like, "Oh, oops, I haven't played this song in a while. Let me figure out how it goes," and they're helping me with the lyrics in the comments, and I'm just responding in between verses then I am on a stage, even though it's live stream with everything, the lights and stuff, people like that too. And that's definitely has its place for if you want to charge for tickets or whatever, but it can be super fun and casual.

Michael Walker:
I love that. I think it's such a good reminder for people too, that you don't have to be perfect. You don't necessarily have to... you can't ever make any mistakes, and sometimes those things that are actually what make you more endearing and it's more important just to show up, just to show up and be yourself and then you'll learn as you do it.

Kris Angelis:
You might as well get in front of a new audience and maybe make some tips while you're practicing.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Heck yeah. I guess one thing I'd be curious about, just digging, because you've accomplished pretty amazing things. I think a lot of independent artists just seeing number one on iTunes singer/songwriter and seeing that the types of festivals that you've played and the career that you've built is really awesome. For musicians who are just starting out, they're aspiring to reach that level, I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about your story and your journey, early on, maybe before had validation, you're still figuring stuff out, do you remember what some of your biggest challenges were when you were first starting out?

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. Definitely more of the imposter syndrome of being worried that I wasn't good enough for whatever I was trying to do. But also money can be a stumbling block for sure. But I would just say knowing people, and I think this is a lot of... it's true for any business. I don't mean, oh, you have to know someone, you have to be someone's niece or nephew or something that's in the business already, just being part of the community, like I said, because those things, everyone can rise together and help each other. The Hotel Cafe actually did this several years ago, where they had a bunch of musicians that were playing there and they were all good, and they were like, "Well, we can't afford to go on tour by ourselves, and we wouldn't be able to fill these venues by ourselves, but if the eight of us go, we can compile our audiences and get a van and then have this really successful tour."

Michael Walker:
That is really important. I think your being willing to show up and really making that a core piece of your strategy, connecting with people, reaching out and building relationships. There's a couple of things that you said that I think are awesome, things that we could maybe dive a little bit deeper into in terms of both of imposter syndrome, early on, which I think is something all of us struggle with, even when success comes.

Kris Angelis:
I still do.

Michael Walker:
I think that that's something that we can definitely dig into. Then of course, I think there's a lot of money mindset types of things with musicians too just in terms of leaning about self worth and how we value our music. But to start out with that imposter syndrome, I'd love to hear a little bit about your perspective on imposter syndrome. When you were first starting out, how did that show up and what is it like right for you still going through that?

Kris Angelis:
Oh gosh.

Michael Walker:
I know, I'm kind of putting you on the spot too here, but I'm happy to share some... I think all of us have this fear of being fully seen and this imposter syndrome. I think it's a really good thing to be able to shine a light on it.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. I think it's very good to surround yourself with people who are at a higher level than you, because then you have something to shoot for and learn from. But it can also be a little scary because you're like, "Well, I'm not that good or whatever." Not in a "I'm not that good" imposter way, just if you're like, "Well, I'm not at that level yet." It's like that's okay. Just learn from it.

Kris Angelis:
But yeah, imposter syndrome. I definitely have struggled my whole life with going back and forth between being like, "Hey, I think I'm pretty good," and "wait, I guess I must not be because things aren't going as fast as I want them to. Maybe I'm just crazy." Or I'll look at other people and I see what they're doing and maybe I don't like it or I don't think that it's working, and then I'll be like, "Oh my gosh, what if that's me and that's why it's not working." Because I'm just one of those people who... this is a weird, inside out imposter syndrome, sometimes I wonder if I am a person who thinks that I'm better than I am, if that makes sense.

Kris Angelis:
I guess that is just what imposter syndrome is. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well at all, but basically, there's just this gut fear of wanting to put myself out there and then thinking, "Oh my gosh, what if they just think that I'm terrible and how dare I, or what if I do get an opportunity and I am not up to it or something." As I've gotten more achievements and more experience, I think that it's definitely still here. It doesn't go away, really. I mean, I have more evidence that it's probably not true that I'm terrible, but there's still that little voice in my head that's like, "Oh, well, the reason that I am not selling out theaters yet, maybe it's because nobody likes me or maybe everyone who likes me has terrible taste" or just silly stuff like that.

Michael Walker:
Thank you for sharing that. I think it's really brave to be able to share that. I certainly resonated with that too. It's really rare that any of us who are listening to this right now, or any of us, or either of us, we're the best in the entire world. It's so easy to compare ourselves. I've heard this called comparisonitis before, but just this feeling of like, "Am I good enough or I'm not good enough?" Or the being afraid of being fully seen and not being good enough, I think is something that all of us can relate to. I'm curious about, in terms of that inner work...

Michael Walker:
It's also interesting too. I think that there's so much... the foundation of personal growth comes so much from how we identify ourselves and our willingness to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations that stretch how we see ourselves and allowing the old version of ourselves, the old version of who we thought we were, to let go of that and to assume a new identity and to reach the next level. And anytime that happens, there's a bit of dissonance. Whenever you have a goal and you think about like, "I want to achieve this goal," then it creates... I think the same thing, why surrounding yourself with people who are at a much higher level is both uncomfortable, but also it will stretch you higher, big time because you see it's possible, and there's a bit of dissonance because it's like, "If they can do it, then I can do it too."

Michael Walker:
And there's sort of this acknowledgement of that, that's uncomfortable because sometimes I think that means we have to take responsibility for it like, "Well, I got to show up. It's my fault if I don't do this thing."

Kris Angelis:
Yes, exactly. Well, that's one of the things that I was going to say too about the beginning of the careers. I just wish that I knew a lot of things, especially as a completely independent artist, if you get signed, then the people that you're signed with know this stuff, but things that I just was like, "Wow, I just didn't even know to be doing that." It's not that I just was lazy or wasn't good enough. It was just I didn't know that I could set that up and be getting that source of income, or I didn't know about publishing and all that stuff. But actually to speak to what you were saying, I have a close friend who when I met him, was playing at these tiny little venues, little bars and stuff, and now has won five Grammys in the last couple of years.

Kris Angelis:
That's one of the reasons why I started trying to win Grammys, because I was like, "Well, I'm not delusional. I don't think it's going to happen just immediately, but oh, it's something that's possible? Okay." Because that didn't even occur to me as something to even try before, but now it made it seem possible because someone I know... multiple people that I know now have won Grammys and I'm like, "Oh, okay, well, let's do this."

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Well, I'm on your side. You got this for sure.

Kris Angelis:
Thanks.

Michael Walker:
It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. But I love that. Just the being around people, where it shows you that it's possible. I know for myself, both with Paradise Fears, but also with Modern Musician, there's no way that we would have built the business that we have if it wasn't for surrounding myself with people at a much higher... way smarter than I am, much higher level, way more successful and seeing what just... it's almost like osmosis. Just being surrounded by that, it lets you see what's possible and it pulls you up.

Kris Angelis:
Like you were saying about mindset being such a huge thing, is like everyone who's succeeding obviously has a success mindset. Whether or not they had it to begin with, they are experiencing it now. If you can soak that up and be in that space too, you'll probably be doing more of the right things than if you're surrounded by people who are like, "Ugh, it's so hard, I'm struggling," which we all vent. It's fine. But what you surround yourself with is important.

Michael Walker:
Oh, what's up guys. Quick intermission from the podcasts, I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public. They're normally reserved for our $5,000 clients personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps to Explode Your Fan Base and Make a Profit With Your Music Online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic, an automated funnel that's going to grow your fan base online in a systems designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music. We've invested over $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers, and really see what's working best right now for musicians. I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. If that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you can click on to go get that.

Michael Walker:
The other thing I wanted to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating new podcasts is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. That'll help us reach a lot more people. If you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right. Let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, this is powerful. There's a book that I'm rereading. I've read it a couple of times. It's like a classic book called Think and Grow Rich. There's a big section on this. He was the person who invented this idea of a mastermind group. A lot of the idea of a mastermind group is what we're talking about right now about surrounding yourself with people who are at a higher level and pull you up. But I'm wondering from your point of view, it seems like there's so much resistance that comes up both internally and externally. Whenever we set a goal or we really want to achieve something great, then just inherently in that challenge comes resistance and challenge and things like we're talking about, leaving people that we used to have connections with, maybe we start to have loosened ties with some of those people, and we start connecting with people who are more aligned with where we're going.

Michael Walker:
But there's also the sense that... I think for a lot of us, the thing that holds us back from going after our goals and really being at our highest ourselves is this fear of losing our connection with our close ties that we already have maybe, or maybe being disapproved of, or being rejected because it's like, "Who are you to do this thing that makes me feel uncomfortable?" I'm curious just to hear your thoughts on... someone who's listening to this right now, I hear this a lot. People who feel like they don't have that kind of support, they don't have the community or the peer group around them that's pulling them up, and maybe they actually have some... I mean, probably the closest one is the person in their own head. That voice that's basically of holding them back. What would your recommendations be for anyone like that who's struggling to stretch outside of their comfort zone and to find that peer group?

Kris Angelis:
Okay. Well, one of the things that you said about wanting to stay in a place that's comfortable for you is real, the struggle is real. As much as you might want something. I have noticed, at least now consciously over the last couple of years, feeling like, "Oh, I think I really do have a fear of success. I really do have..." because whatever you've been in for a while, your subconscious, your body, your whatever, is used to that and it's what it knows. Whether or not it's good for you, the new is scary because it doesn't know that because your body's like, "I've been in your mind or I've been surviving in this place," even though the place is not believing in yourself and struggling, "this has been working, so let's just stay here." The cave. I'm going to stay in this cave because I'm safe.

Kris Angelis:
Even though outside is this beautiful meadow, your mind is like, "I don't know about that." That's real. And it's okay if you're feeling that way, but you just have to try to tell yourself in your little kind way to calm down and realize the possibilities. One of the things that I noticed was I had this mindset of money and success, having more success and wealth in my career. I started feeling embarrassed about even mentioning it because of this limiting belief that I discovered that I was like, "Well, if I don't have a lot, then people will help me and people will take care of me." And I realized like, "Oh, if I start doing well, then everyone will just jump off the bandwagon and they don't want to be here with me anymore. Or I won't be able to do the things that I have been doing because I get good deal from people who just want to help me out, and then I won't be able to get further because then I want just more money. I'll just stay in the same place."

Kris Angelis:
But it's like, "Wait, hold on, hold on. Even if that's true, you will get more successful even than that, and then you'll be able to pay everyone what they deserve," which I definitely want to do, I'm a big fan of paying people what they deserve, "and you'll be able to do the things above what you're used to." I guess I just got into this mindset of... which I think is so... I'm rambling, but so prevalent in our society, and I think it's really unhealthy, that it's cool to be a struggling artist. Not that it's not cool, but that somehow if you're successful, then you are automatically a sellout and your music isn't meaningful anymore or something like that, which is just really damaging and not true. You know what I mean?

Kris Angelis:
I got this feeling of, "Oh, if I start doing well, then people aren't going to respect me as an artist anymore," which is dumb because there were a lot of... when you really think about it, the artists that you love are really successful and you don't think they're dumb and not meaningful. Just stop it. I've done a lot of meditation. I've done just digging into these false beliefs, exercises, all that stuff that I just said, stuff that I discovered in the last six months from doing these kinds of questioning of myself. I don't know if that answered your question, but-

Michael Walker:
That's so beautiful and well articulated, and so valuable too, I think, because again, these are things that all of us have faced at one point or another, and the things that literally hold us back from reaching our goals. Thank you for sharing that and continuing to do that inner work and uncovering those beliefs, because I mean, it's not just you, right? These are undercurrents in the music industry as a whole, and these are deep rooted things, and there's a reason that there's been the, quote unquote, starving artist mentality for a while. I think this is really part of the movement that us having this conversation right now is helping to bring awareness to this and to process and to let it go because you're right, that's holding us back. That's not healthy, good stuff that's helping us be abundant. That stuff that's literally holding us down. That's awesome.

Michael Walker:
It reminds me of another story, an example. When you talked about like, "Yeah, we get comfortable with... even if it's something that is holding us back or it's unhealthy, it's something that we're... it's normal, we're used to it. It's safe and not uncomfortable." [inaudible 00:43:49] the story of... I think I'm going to butcher it, but there's 10 maids who, they carry fish, rotting fish with buckets and they're carrying them. And then they go to sleep next to the buckets, and they're sleeping or whatever. Then there's one day where they left their rotting fish buckets at the beach and they saw this beautiful flower bed. And they're like, "Wow, this is awesome." So they all laid down and they try to go to sleep, and they couldn't sleep.

Michael Walker:
They're like, "Wait, what's going on? We're in this beautiful flower bed that smells wonderful." Then one of them realized, "Oh, it's because we don't have the rotting fish with us." So they brought back the rotting fish. I think it was just an example of... I mean, I don't think the moral of the story isn't, "Okay, we should just bring our rotting with us everywhere." I think the moral is that sometimes we do get used to things that are totally uncomfortable and aren't really good, but we can get used to them. But it's only uncomfortable until you get used to the new thing and it becomes comfortable. Then you can set new goals for yourself.

Michael Walker:
There's probably a healthy amount of dissonance that we can pray for ourselves. I've thought about this a lot in terms of even just chords on a piano, in dissonance, when you play two chords next to each other that clash or that they don't harmonize, there's a natural feeling of wanting resolution. It literally creates this sense inside that's like, "Okay, there's something that needs to... it's not quite right." Then it resolves.

Michael Walker:
I think that there is movement, there's movement in the dissonance and in frustration and challenge. I think those are the things that as a society and entrepreneurship, that's what it is. Where it needs come from, is from dissonance, from challenge, from frustration. That's where the best, most successful businesses come from, is from solving that deep rooted dissonance. I think you can intentionally create dissonance for yourself that helps you move towards your goals. By setting goals, we create that dissonance. I'm not where I want to be, but there's that balance where you don't want to set it. You just feel terrible about yourself. I'm not worthy as a human being.

Kris Angelis:
You have to have reachable goals.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I'm curious, as someone who has grown a lot and achieved this level of success now, what's your goal setting process like? How do you set that stretch for yourself without... it's like a rubber band, right? You don't want to stretch it too far so it snaps, but what does that look like for you?

Kris Angelis:
I think a good example would be with my last two releases. I decided to say, "Hey, I want to get 1000 pre-orders." That at the time was like, "Wow, I don't know if I'm going to achieve this," but because of all of the incentives and stuff that I did, I managed to achieve it and I think that just the fact that it's a goal... here's one thing that I will say about goals. I think there's some discussion about this, but I am a big proponent of sharing your goals with people, with whoever and anybody that you can, everybody, because people will jump on board and try to help you, because they see that you're up to something. And people like to be part of something that's happening.

Kris Angelis:
Just saying, I want to telling everyone, I want to reach 1000 pre-orders and then having these little benchmarks and getting people excited about it. That's how I did that. I managed to reach it. Then this year, it was 15 months later, I was like, "Well, I did 1000. Why don't I do 2000?" Which is like, "Well, that's crazy again, it's doubling it, but might as well try because we it last time, so I already have that social proof." "Hey guys, we got to 1000 last year, let's do it again." This is how all games and stuff are. When you game-ify things, and you're like, "Oh, get to this next level." That's what people are excited about. I do that for myself and I get other people to play the game with me, especially for things, you have to buy my album. I can't do that myself.

Kris Angelis:
I had that from last year, the proof. Then I felt like, "Okay, even if I don't get to 2000, because that is a crazy big number, I will probably get to 1000, which is still amazing. Even if I get halfway there and I'll probably get something." The fact that any goal that you're trying to reach will have, in the process of all of the actions that you're taking to achieve it, benefits, even if you don't reach the goal. One time I was in this contest where I had to get all these votes and I got so close, I got to number two. I didn't win, so I basically didn't get anything. The number one person got $10,000 and all this crazy stuff for their career and I didn't.

Kris Angelis:
But I didn't not get anything because through the two or month long process of trying to win this contest, I got people really engaged in my music, I got a bunch of interviews and reviews of my stuff and opportunities to play shows because I was putting myself out there so much to try to win this contest. There was a lot of side effects that were very good. I'm a big proponent of make a goal, tell everyone about it, and be aware and open to the other things that will happen because you're trying to reach that goal.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Even just the mindset of approaching it like a game, like a game, what's the point of the game? Well, to have fun, but the game, it can be competition, but ultimately it's a game. And in order for a game to work well, like you said, it need to have a tangible score, it need to have a way to benchmark and see how are things going? Also, you have different strategies to improve it. I think that just, the mindset of approaching your career or approaching your life in the way that it's a big game and don't lose sight of the fact that it's just a game, and the point of it is to enjoy it and to have fun. But also, there's a lot of really good lessons in there just in terms of how you approach that.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Well, hey Kris, this has been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I appreciate you coming on here and sharing some of the lessons that you've learned. For anyone who is listening or watching this right now, who wants to learn more, listen to your music or connect deeper, where do you recommend that they go to?

Kris Angelis:
Krisangelis.com has all of my socials on it. I'm the most, I think, engaged on Facebook and Instagram, Instagram more. I'm at Kris Angelis on those things, but it's all on my website. Also, I'm on Patreon, if you want to get more involved and hear all my stuff and see all my stuff before anyone else.

Kris Angelis:
I also wanted to say one more thing that I have gotten really clear on very recently for people who are starting out and anybody is, if you don't have something to offer necessarily, people love... and you know this, I'm sure you've talked about this before. People love to give advice and talk about what they've done. One of the things that I've learned is, while it may be a huge long shot and maybe make you come across like, "Whoa, okay, that's strange." I mean, do what you want to do. Take big risks, swing for the fences. But I would start off, if you want to reach out to someone who's at a much higher level than you, just to say, "Hey, I am doing this. I really admire you. Can I talk to you? Can I just have five minutes? Can I buy you a coffee? Can I have 10 minutes of your time to ask you questions, ask for advice," because not only will you just get a bunch of good advice, you'll have made another connection and that person, you'll be on their radar and they will maybe want to help you.

Kris Angelis:
Instead of just making the direct ask, you could just ask for advice on how they did something and maybe they'll offer it to you. I mean, I wouldn't assume that's going to happen, but it's been a really good thing for me because, worst case scenario, you get some good advice.

Michael Walker:
That's such a good lesson. I appreciate you sharing that. I think that's definitely a superpower is learning how to listen and learning how to ask for advice and to get feedback both from your audience and your fans, and also from people at that higher level, reaching out what that frame of you is no more powerful. If you're talking, if you're speaking and you're exuding stuff, you're making statements, there's nothing coming in, you're not learning anything. It's like all this stuff come in. But if you're listening and you're asking good questions and you're absorbing, then there's a flow there where you can learn and you can also relate with people better and connect with them. You get more understanding, more knowledge. That's a great lesson. I appreciate you sharing that.

Michael Walker:
Well, Kris, you're awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast-

Kris Angelis:
Thank you so much.

Michael Walker:
... and I'm looking forward to seeing the next EP and what you come up with then.

Kris Angelis:
Yeah. Thank you. I think I'm actually putting out a deluxe version of this album on my birthday, July 23rd. It's going to have some extra fun stuff, new songs and other versions and stuff on it.

Michael Walker:
Hey, there you go. Awesome. I would totally encourage anyone that's listening to this right now, go check out Kris and follow her and listen to the music and just keep tabs and see what she's doing, because this is someone who has invested a lot of time and energy, and I think you probably can... we talked about osmosis and learning, surround yourself with people who are just a level ahead of you and just pay attention to what they're doing. Kris is a starting point.

Kris Angelis:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today.  podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media and tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you, who want to take the music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.