Suzanne Paulinski: ... We are motivated by inspiration. If you're always burnt out, if you're always neglecting time for yourself and cutting yourself off from things, your body resents it, your mind resents it. And that's where the writer's block often stems from. That's where the messing up and doing work that's subpar stems from, it's just your art needs to be inspired by something. If you're not out there living, and you're not giving yourself time to process what you're seeing and what's inspiring you, then you're not able to get it out into a song.

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 slowly getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself, so they can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, let's try 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. So I'm stoked to be here with [Suez 00:01:11] Paulinski. Suzanne, I call you Suez. We're good friends at this point, but Suez is a mindset coach for musicians. She helps specifically artists to be three to five times more productive without feeling overwhelmed, to getting burnt out, which is really challenging. It's like the more busy you are, the more you have going on, the bigger opportunity to get. It's really easy to let it get out of hand. So Suez really helps to dial it in and to stay focused and to overcome anxiety. She's worked with clients, who've toured with artists like Halsey, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys.

Michael Walker:
And today, I figured it would be a good opportunity to... The current landscape right now at the time of us recording is there's a pandemic with Corona virus and a lot of stress and people going through uncertainty. It's perfectly fit for Suez and what she offers. It's a fear that we would help give people who watch this maybe some tips for staying productive and dealing with adversity and stress through times like this. I know that's a long-winded introduction, but Suez, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah, it was great. Thanks so much for having me.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. At this point, we've done a couple of these interviews before, so I already know who you are and I know you're awesome. But could you give a quick introduction and just share a little bit about your story and how you got started with Rock/Star Advocate?

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah, sure. Yes, as you said, my name is Suz. I'm the founder of The Rock/Star Advocate. And I started in the business more than 15 years ago. I started at Atlantic Records then went on to EMI, Astralwerks. I studied music business for my degree at school at Drexel when I was an undergrad. And I started in the sales departments right as Tower Records was closing, Virgin Megastores were closing, Sam Goody's, all of the major retail stores were shutting down. And it was a very interesting time to be at a label in the sales and distribution departments. I left after quitting my job five times and that had a big impact 15 years later when I decided to start the Rock/Star Advocate. I quit five times because I was always told by my boss, "Well, you'll never work again."

Suzanne Paulinski:
Or, "Who's going to hire you? Anyone would be dying to take your job." And I was like, I don't know if anybody would be dying to take this job. It was a really long hours, 16 hour, a day, sometimes, many times, very little pay, I could barely make ends meet. And I was constantly feeling like nothing was ever enough. I remembered wanting to take a day off one day to graduate because I got out of school early to take this job. And so six months later, my class was walking and my parents expected me to graduate. And my boss was like, "You're out of school. Why are you worrying about school? It's time to work." And just taking one day to go walk in my graduation was a huge issue. Everything felt like it had to be done and nothing else mattered, but this. And even after I quit, I attempted to build many other businesses before this with a business partner.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And we went into it with that mentality. It was like, even though I left that job, that mentality followed me. And for many, many years it was this burnout mentality, sleep when you're dead, nothing else matters. Don't hang out with your friends because you can't fall behind. And it really just didn't lead to anything. Nothing really got built. Progress really didn't get made. And by the end of my '20s, I had come down with Lyme disease, a very intense, bad case of it. And it is chronic. And there came a time where I couldn't work more than four hours, even that. So I hired a business coach and I was like, "Okay, something's got to give, because I'm trying to build business. But how do I do that if I can only work four hours a day?"

Suzanne Paulinski:
And she really opened my eyes to life outside of the music industry and what it means to work smarter, and what it means to have a work-life balance. I mean, it took a lot for me to trust that, but once I was able to trust that it was like, okay, wow, this is my business. This is what I have to teach other music professionals because we're doing it wrong guys. That's the story. That's really my why. And why I keep [Kay Borgen 00:05:37] in the music industry is to help people see that you don't have to run yourself into the ground.

Michael Walker:
Thank you for sharing that. Yes. I can understand how you, going through that yourself and literally to the point where it's hard, you could only work four hours a day. You're the perfect person to be able to share that message with musicians and be able to help them through it. I mean, it's one of those things where it never, never quite goes away, whether it's the Corona virus or it's other things or obstacles, or just internal blocks, people getting in their own way, especially in the music industry, right? There's so many self-limiting things of allowing yourself to be heard and be seen, and insecurity that comes up. I do think what you offer is so valuable. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see artist struggling with when it comes to mindset and dealing with adversity when they first start working with you?

Suzanne Paulinski:
Sure. Yeah. Great question. So there's two main things. Two main mindset shifts that I see needing to happen all the time. And one of it is scarcity mindset, which is usually surrounding money. That there's none out there for me. I have to struggle to make any, I'm never going to be more than a struggling musician. I better just get used to it. And it's this acceptance of not valuing their art and there's so many counterintuitive things about that. And so I totally understand that mindset, I've lived that mindset for many years. But in order to really get out of any negative mindset shift, often it's counterintuitive things that we wouldn't normally think need to happen, or that we need to believe that can happen in order to make those shifts.

Suzanne Paulinski:
The other mindset shift that really needs to happen is that, if I'm not working on my work all the time, then that I'm lazy, or that I don't want it badly enough. We don't really realize that things need time to grow and we need time to process things. If you're constantly just working, especially with anything in the arts, your art needs to be inspired by something. If you're not out there living, and you're not giving yourself time to process what you're seeing, and what's inspiring you, then you're not able to get it out into a song or to get it out and produce somebody else's song or even manage somebody else, no matter what area of the industry you're in.

Suzanne Paulinski:
We are motivated by inspiration. If you're always burnt out, if you're always neglecting time for yourself and cutting yourself off from things, your body resents it, your mind resents it. And that's where the writer's block often stems from. That's where messing up and doing work that subpar stems from, it's just always getting in our way. It's those two things, the money scarcity and the constant working.

Michael Walker:
That's so, so good. I feel like there's a lot to unpack with both of those. Starting with the scarcity mindset, it's such a deep rooted issue, especially within the music industry, too. And I think interestingly, when you described your story, sometimes it's almost like we need to learn these lessons from other industries to bring back into the music industry and be like, "Hey guys, there's another way of doing this." And then to be able to heal the music industry from the inside out. So in terms of scarcity block of self-worth and self-value, and undervaluing ourselves, it is interesting, isn't it? It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I remember early on in our career, and I don't want to hijack this and talk too much here because there's so much I want to ask you.

Michael Walker:
I remember offering to record songs for our fans for like $20 per song. It was cool. And I did 20 of them and I burnt out doing these songs for $20. In retrospect, $20, that's a great example of just undervaluing the worth of music. But in terms of the scarcity mindset, it sounds like the root issue is that artists, maybe they don't think that they deserve to be making money or maybe they think it's wrong to be making money as an artist. What do you see people specifically struggling with when it comes to scarcity mindset?

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah. So I think it stems from a lot of different things. Number one, I think the industry has always positioned artists to feel less than. You're the talent just shut up and do the talent and leave it to somebody else to do the business. Well, then a turn of the century, it shifted. And then we had to be doing, I say, we, I'm not a musician, but musicians had to start doing the business themselves, but it was already ingrained that leave it to the experts. Even though they knew they had to carry this themselves now without the help of a label, it was like, "Well, what do I know? I'm just a musician." And so I think that, that's always been a story that many have gone to especially just like the respect we show musicians, it's the industry elite and then it's the talent.

Suzanne Paulinski:
When really the talent is what keeps us all employed. And so I think that's one thing. The other thing is with Napster, it completely devalued music in the eyes of the fans and the fans didn't do that intentionally. But if you had something you loved and somebody told you, you could get it for free, why not? And so then musicians in the industry as a whole, just let that dictate. It was like, oh, I guess there's something we can do about it. But then it took a few decades for us to realize like, "Oh wait, no, I actually can do something about it. I can educate my fans and explain to them like, listen, I know that you might be thinking, "Oh great. I could just download it for free.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And now it's like, I can just stream it. And Spotify is a billion dollar company. So of course musicians are making money. They don't know what we know. They don't know that you're only making fractions of a penny per stream and that it's really not a viable income stream for you. And in order to make it one, you have to get on these bigger playlists and you need to be... And what does that take? And stuff like that. Just little things now to educate our fans, to educate the layman out there saying, "Listen, I know you think you're supporting me by streaming it, it would do me so much better if you paid the $0.99 or if you bought it off my band camp, or if you shared it with somebody, even if you don't have money, just sharing it or adding it to your playlist and asking your friends to edit to their playlist." That goes so much further for me than you just streaming it and here's why.

Suzanne Paulinski:
You don't have to go into like an hour long lesson about it, but just letting them know, having that conversation, making that conversation a part of your social media presence and your newsletters, and how you talk to your fans. Just educating them will allow you to then get that money that you're asking for, because it's not unreasonable and it's not crazy, but fans just assume you're getting money elsewhere because you're putting it out. You must be getting elsewhere. And it's like, "Yeah, no, I'm getting it from lots of credit card debt and from other ways that are making me really have to struggle. I haven't eaten more than ramen noodles in a week. And that's how I'm making this happen."

Suzanne Paulinski:
But we don't want to show that. I think the days of trying to be this really cool, expensive rockstar life doesn't serve musicians as much as telling them, "Hey, listen, I'm building this business, I'd love for you to be a part of it. Here's how you can help. Here's what one little action can really impact." I even remember Patreon. I like to give to artists Patreon pages, and one of them, I wanted to be able to give five and I was already giving to so many other pages. And I was like, I can't give five. I could really just give one right now, but that feels so... I'm giving five to the others, but I gave one. Because I was like, "Well, it's better than nothing." And they said to me, thank you so much. Your dollar actually put me in the next category.

Suzanne Paulinski:
It unlocks some threshold that they were able to do on Patreon. Now they got more things that they could offer their community. And I was like, I didn't even know that's how that worked. Knowing that my dollar now can make a difference. I don't shy away from offering a dollar because I didn't know that until they told me. That whole thing also has to do with money. Scarcity mindset is that you're not seeing the money. You figure it's not out there, it's out there if you start having the conversation.

Michael Walker:
Amazing. So it sounds like two big blocks that are coming up around scarcity is one, around the way that the industry is... Especially in the past function, it was really not very fair to artists. In fact, they got the short end of the stick in terms of the business people saying, "No, you can just be creative. You just do your thing." Trust me, you don't need to know this. We're just going to handle all the business side of it. Definitely there are pieces of that, that still exist nowadays. Holds a lot of people back, thinking like, I need a manager before I can be successful." Or, I need someone else to come... Record label to come swoop up and it's just magically going to solve anything other than taking responsibility and building a business.

Michael Walker:
It sounds like that's one big scarcity block. And then like another one that comes out is, not being transparent with your fans about the way that your business functions, the way that your music career functions, that a lot of fans, they don't know better. They think if they stream your songs and you keep releasing music that things are working out and cool. They don't realize you're racking up all this credit card debt and that it's not sustainable. Really what's necessary is for you to allow yourself... It can be scary, I think for musicians. Right? To be transparent about the fact that everything isn't good, that they do have money issues and that they're in debt.

Michael Walker:
I know for me, there's a point in my life where I was about like $35,000 in debt at its peak. It was a big weight, it was something I felt like it was a secret, and I felt ashamed of it and I wasn't transparent about it. And it wasn't until I started being more transparent about it and accepting, and being honest about it, that it started turning around. It sounds like what you're recommending is for artists that have started to build an audience, or even just at the very beginning, being transparent and saying, look... Educating their fans on how they can actually support them and realizing that people actually do want to support them, that it's not like they're asking too much or they're being spammy. There's a right way to do it. But being transparent is okay.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And also believing it starts with you and you had touched up on this earlier. It starts with you believing that you're worth it and that your art is valuable. If you always walk around, Gandhi has that quote, I'm just going to paraphrase, but it's like, your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words and eventually leads into your actions and those become your destiny. It all permeates. If you're sitting there in the back of your mind, like, "Well, I don't know, this isn't really good, or I'm not really great yet, or I should be practicing or within first of all, then practice more." And every song you write should be a song you're releasing, work on your craft, get it better.

Suzanne Paulinski:
But if you're releasing something that you're not really proud of, don't release it for the sake of releasing it, because then you've now surrounded in this energy of like, I'm not really excited about it, but you'll pay for it. People will pick up on it. Even if you're not saying that, then it's going to permeate everything that you're doing and you're going to waste money, time and energy promoting it, and it's going to fall flat. When you have something that you're excited about and you believe in, be brave enough to own that and say, "No, this is exciting. This is valuable. I'm excited about it. And here it is, and I'm selling T-shirts for it, or I'm doing this about it, or I'm going to perform it live and do a concert. And I've either got a virtual tip jar out there or at point now where I feel like selling tickets." And all that stuff, and you've got to be able to take those steps because otherwise, like the example from Napster, if people can get it for free, they will.

Suzanne Paulinski:
But if you stand firm and say "No, this is the price and this is what my service is worth." As another example, I say, musicpreneurs in general, if you're in this industry, maybe not as a musician, as a service-based business, or as a manager, you have to be able to say, "No, this is my price." And stick to it, all these pick my brain sessions and let me do this. And can't you just give me this for free. And you say to yourself, "Well, I really want them as a client." One of the things I learned in a very hard way, but it has to be learned that the more discounts you give and the cheaper you make your prices, you're going to attract worst clients.

Suzanne Paulinski:
If you're a manager out there saying like, "Well, I want, I need my first artist to only take 5%." You're going to get the desperate artist who is desperate for everything and wants the lowest hanging fruit there. They're going to expect even more from you. You think if I give a discount or if I sell things at a lower price, then more people will want it. But again, counterintuitive, that's not how most people are. And most people, when they see a low value, they think it's low value. Then it's like, you get what you pay for. My clients, every time I ran a super low discount, I would get clients who were so demanding, wanted everything under the sun.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And they weren't the easy going clients, the easy going clients and the fun ones that I love to work with, when I raise my prices and say, "No, this is what I'm worth." I get the ones that are willing to put in the work, pay me what I'm worth, and we have the best times together. It's counterintuitive, but you've got to be the one putting value on what you're offering so that you attract people who respect that value and who wants to celebrate that value and be in your in your world.

Michael Walker:
What's up guys? So 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 normally reserve for our $5,000 clients that we have personally. This is a presentation called six steps to explode your fan base, make a profit with your music online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel. It's going to lie to grow your fan base online. And the system is 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 say what's working best right now for musicians. I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you.

Michael Walker:
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. And 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 podcast 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 do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right. Let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
I love the way you just put that. Sometimes it's counterintuitive because you're charging more... You feel like it would make it less valuable. And especially if you are coming from, you have some self-worth issues, then it can feel like natural to be like, Oh, I just want to give this away for free, but then it tends to not work out as well. What that reminds me of is, with Paradise Fears, I remember when we first started, one of the most... And I think one other thing to speak to what you just brought up is that, really value is such a huge part of your success with your business, is understanding what is value and what do you offer that's valuable?

Michael Walker:
And what does that mean to... Value means different things to different people and a value of something to one of your super fans might be different than the value to someone who hasn't heard of you before. For example, one of the things that we found that we just stumbled upon that was super valuable were these private house concerts that we would play for our fans. And when we first started out, I remember someone asked us if we could do it for them, there's six of us in the band. And we're like, "Yeah, we'll do it for whatever you want to do for it." They're like, " Is $400 okay? We're like, "Whoa, $400, yeah, absolutely." We did it and it was super valuable. They got a ton out of it.

Michael Walker:
We really built a strong connection and they became a fan and a friend for life. But what we realized was that those are so, so valuable. And six years later, the most expensive house concert we ever did was like $6,000 for a single house concert. The value of a house concert that could be whatever you decide it is. And it's to a certain extent, because if we didn't have that level of self-worth, if we didn't respect the time and the investment we had put into our craft, and into what we had built and the connection we made with our fans, then we could do something like that for free. But when we show up to a free house concert, how much of the people are really going to be paying attention to the songs when you're performing them?

Michael Walker:
How much are they really going to care about it? Or they can be distracted or talking with their... Are they really going to care compared to the people who invest 5,000 or $6,000? Every single word you say, they're listening and they get so much more value out of it because of the investment. And it is interesting how that works and how the exact same thing in terms of positioning, the value can change dramatically. The exact same thing, you position it differently. For example, the house concert, if you think of your favorite artists of all time, and you think about what if they were going to say, they're going to come to your house and they're going to perform your favorite songs for you and your friends and your family.

Michael Walker:
And just going to hang out with you and you're going to get to know them. You're going to be able to connect and take pictures and just get to know each other on a personal level. For you, that would probably almost feel priceless. It would probably feel like one of the most incredible experiences in the world. For someone else, like one of your friends, maybe that's never heard of the band, it's not going to be that valuable at all, because they don't really know the artists, they haven't really connected with them. I think sometimes what people forget when they're starting out, they think, they can charge $10,000 or something like that because they're established and they're famous or whatever.

Michael Walker:
But really, even if you're starting out and you're new, and you start building a fan base of you have like two or 300 people, then if you have someone who you're their favorite band, you're their favorite artists. And they've connected with your music that deeply then it's really the same thing for you with your favorite artists, the experience of having them come to your house and perform for you, how it feels like that's priceless, it's the same thing. It doesn't matter that you're not U2, or that you're not Coldplay. So it really is a shift in how you position it and you could charge 5,000, $6,000 and it would be worth it for the right person.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Right. Yeah. I think ultimately, I mean, I'm not a finance expert, so I don't want to get too much into income and stuff like that. But ultimately, the most important thing to remember when you're building a career is that everything is about relationships. And the fact of the matter is, as you said, some fans are going to pay top dollar for anything you do. And some fans you're going to have... You have colder audiences and warmer audiences and it is very much like a pyramid. Your larger base might not pay top dollar for something, but your fans who have been with you from day one, or just really connect with your music will. As an entrepreneur, which we all are, a large part of this is being okay with experimentation, being okay with trying new things and part of those trying new things is raising your prices or raising your value, or even if it has nothing to do with money, just raising how you hold yourself and the respect you give your music and your shows.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And the care in which you give the content that you put out there, because that's going to, again, permeate, people are going to feel it on the other end, even though it is through a computer, but people can tell by the words you use in your captions or the energy you bring to a Facebook live or an Instagram live, or anything like that, you can't really fake it. And your fans are going to know so. And really your consistency with it. Really when you're building a business, the thing that really allows you to grow is your consistency now. Whether it's how consistent you are with social media or how consistent you are with showing up for your fans or your clients in a private community or whether it's how consistent you are with putting out music or content like a podcast or something like that, you can't be consistent across the board with everything because a lot.

Suzanne Paulinski:
But when you choose, where you put your focus is where you're going to see your growth. If you're looking to grow your social media, find a way and understand especially in these times, and maybe your focus has to be split on 50 million different things. If you're going to be focusing on social media, don't say to yourself, I'm going to do 20 posts a week, and I'm going to show up and do three Facebook lives and did... because it's not sustainable. So the first thing that you always want to do when you're testing a new platform, or putting focus into a new area of your business, is to really not. And this is the other kind of mindset shifts, is to really not be so concerned with what everybody else is doing, because we don't know anybody else's situation.

Suzanne Paulinski:
You might look over and see somebody else's doing daily Facebook lives. And you're like, "Oh, why aren't I doing that? I guess that's what I need to be doing, or I should be doing." I always say, when you hear that word, should, it's a four-letter word. It is a word you don't want in your vocabulary. When you start hearing that, that's when the bells and whistles go off saying, okay, let me take a look at this. If that person's doing a Facebook live every single day, why do I feel like I need to be doing that? Because I know that in my current situation, I can't do that. I'm going to set myself up for failure by committing to that, to my audience, and then missing them and not doing them and not staying consistent. Then you're breaking trust with your audience.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And the reason I bring up trust is because that is a key thing that you need in order for people to invest in you, whether it's monetarily or sharing it with other people and telling people about how amazing you are, that's all based on trust. You're not breaking trust simply by not doing something somebody else is doing. That's not breaking trust. You break trust the minute you say, "Hey, I'm going to do this thing. Please give me your time and attention." And then you don't do it. That's breaking trust. Before you jump on a bandwagon and say, well, that person's doing that, and they're finding success with it, so I have to go do that. No, you have to say to yourself, okay, that's how they're building trust with their audience. What can I do realistically and consistently so that I can build trust with my audience.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Maybe you're not in a position, especially with self-isolation and being home bound right now. There are so many things we all deal with behind closed doors that maybe you don't want to be transparent about, or maybe you don't want people to see. Maybe you can't be on video every day while things are going on at home, in the background. Okay? But maybe you can write more newsletters or more blog posts, or maybe it's just one a week, but it's consistent. And you're giving such value and so much of your time and attention and focus when you craft these pieces of content that people can feel that on the other side, and then they will stick with you and you will build it. But small, consistent action is going to be the thing that builds your network and your network is going to build your net worth.

Suzanne Paulinski:
We've talked about before, your network is your net worth. That's what has to happen and it's not going to happen overnight. And so to sit there, not taking any action, trying to find that next thing that's going to go viral or write that next song that's going to make it to billboard or do what... It's like just let that come. Right now, focus on the consistent action and showing up for your audience. And when that's meant to happen, that will happen. That song will come to you and you'll write it. And it will be magnificent, but not taking any action or not interacting with anybody while you cocoon yourself in a studio and not come out till you have the next best thing, that's not going to happen.

Suzanne Paulinski:
It pains me to see these memes out there on social media, during the pandemic, or it's like... During the plague of 1400, so-and-so created the masterpiece that inspired a revolution and a renaissance. Okay, first of all, maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. But life was certainly different back then. We weren't homeschooling our kids. Not being able to go into a grocery store, don't compare the 1400s to what you're doing right now. To see all those memes where this pandemic is going to be your incubator for being your most productive self yet. You don't know what this pandemic is going to be for you. It could be lots of things, but it doesn't have to be the only point in your career where it's this renaissance. It could be growth in other ways.

Suzanne Paulinski:
You could fail a bunch of times during this pandemic, but it'll teach you your biggest lessons you've ever learned. And then it's going to catapult you to your next period next year, who knows? But to put this pressure on it, that there's one certain way to do things, I think is another mindset that is not healthy for us, that we have to get out of and I'll get off my soap box on that but really it's... I think again, the shift to easing up on ourselves with the pressure and being productive when we feel that juice to be productive, great, then double down on that and get in that zone. But when you're not feeling it, don't force it, that's wasting time. Sitting on a couch, watching Netflix for two hours isn't wasting time if sitting at your desk is pointless because you're grieving or you're in a really bad state of mind, or you're battling something else.

Suzanne Paulinski:
If watching Netflix is going to allow you to escape and heal, do that, because once you're healed, you can come back and be super focused and super productive and serve your community the way you're meant to serve them. And I think a lot of this is just what I've learned over the years is to work more intuitively and allow ourselves to have all these different parts of ourselves. We're going to be angry. We're going to be sad, we're going to be super productive. We're going to bring our A game. And sometimes those don't always happen simultaneously. Give yourself space to have all of the feelings. You don't have to suppress certain things because, "Oh, I have to be successful. Let me now pretend that I'm having a meltdown right now. I'm just going to power through it." All right, have your pity party, have the moment, let it pass.

Suzanne Paulinski:
I was given this great opportunity and I'm so thankful, knock on wood, our tech is working right now. A couple of days ago, I had another amazing opportunity as well to give a talk, and the tech was awful. I was so embarrassed and so ashamed, not like I could control it, but I was just like, "Oh my goodness. It means I'm worthless." I called my coach and she was like, "You got to sit in it. I could tell you till the cows come home, that it's not your fault. But if this is really what you're feeling, just get it out, let it pass so that you can let it go, be Elsa and throw that crap into the wild and then move along."

Michael Walker:
I love it. That's awesome. It sounds really like the root of what you're saying is that one of the biggest challenges that musicians and probably humans in general struggle with, is this feeling like we need to be perfect and we need to have everything. We can't allow ourselves to just feel the way that we're feeling right now, and then we need to put up a front and we need to pretend. And especially with social media, probably, that's one thing where everyone's always having the best day ever. And then those things that you see that stick out as being that ring true, that are authentic, that really resonate. It sounds like what you're recommending is that, if you're feeling like you're going through a really rough time right now, and you're struggling and you're anxious, that's okay, you don't need to not do that.

Michael Walker:
It's really important to process that and to allow it, to sit with it, to be with it and ultimately to... You don't have to be perfect. It's okay to put something out and for it to not be perfect and to be raw and learning anything. You're going to try stuff and it's going to fail, but it's going to be how you learn. When it comes to anyone that feels that anxiety or that sense of depression or feels like they should be doing more than they are, how do they process that? How do they let it go? How do they let it come up? You meditate or... What kind of processes do you recommend?

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah. There's lots of different things that you can do. And I think really have to try a couple of different things and see what resonates best for you. I could sit there and say, "Well, whatever you do for self care, do it." And there will be people out there like, "I've never put myself first. I don't practice self-care. I'm a struggling musician who practices burnout lifestyle. What is self-care?" If you don't know what your go tos are to recharge, certainly meditation is helpful. But I also know, and I think this has come up for us in the past, where there was somebody that was asking about meditation. I remember had ADD. And they said, I find it difficult to sit still. I find it difficult to really just allow my brain to shut off.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And there's many different things. Whether you have high anxiety, or ADD, or ADHD or any affliction. I also forgot to mention the beginning, so people do know I have some idea of what I'm talking about. During that time in the industry, I also went back and got my master's in psychology, which helped me form this company. I just wanted to put that out there though, I've done my research on this, and that's why I bring this up is that, if you do suffer from any of those things, it can be very difficult to sit there and quiet your mind even for a few seconds. If meditation isn't working for you, one of the things that I do recommend is tapping or EFT, you might've heard of. You could just Google it. Tapping Solutions is a great free app.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Headspace is a great app for meditation. And they also have a YouTube channel as tapping on different acupuncture points. And it is a form of meditation, but what I like about it, as myself, I have trouble sitting still and quieting my mind. I use that as my meditative exercise, because you are moving your fingers, your hands are doing something and you're talking, which is clearly something I love to do. And during tapping, you verbalize what is tripping you up. What's holding you back. If you're not sure what to say, something like the Tapping Solutions app will give you a script you can lean on, and you go through this whole thing and get all the negative stuff out. Then you do the whole cycle again with a more positive affirmation. Things like that, journaling, with my group consulting, I like to run 30-minute free writing calls where we just get it out.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Not write a blog post, not write a newsletter, just take out your journal, put a classical or focus playlist on, and just write for 10 minutes for 20 minutes for a half hour, whatever it might be for five minutes and just write whatever has to come out. It could be words, phrases, doodles, it doesn't matter. But putting a pen or pencil to paper and purging, can really help get you out of a crappy mindset, talking to somebody, whether it's a friend, or a therapist, or your dog, just again, verbalizing and getting it out. Taking a hot shower, literally just washing it off of you. Going for a walk nowadays in a safe way. Going for just a walk around the block, get your body moving, because you want to just get that negative energy out.

Suzanne Paulinski:
It doesn't have to be an hour or two hours, it could be five minutes. It could be 10 minutes, just to shake it out. If you're really having a hard time, but you've also got deadlines coming up, I always say, set a timer for 15 minutes, allow yourself whether it's to journal, meditate, cry it out, scream into a pillow, whatever it needs to be. You deserve 15 minutes to just let yourself feel your first world problem is the worst thing in the world. And that's how it might feel. And that's okay. But then, okay, if you've got deadlines, now it's time to get back to work. You've had that time and now sit down and do your work. I would say, even though we are working at home, most of us wherever you're going to do your self-care or have your pity party or journal, try to have it be a separate space than where you're working, because it really does cue up visually and energetically how you're able to focus. Try to keep those spaces separate if you can.

Michael Walker:
Beautiful. Man, there's so many good ideas that just came out there. It sounds like what you're saying is that, it's different for different people and there's different modalities and it's great to try out some different things and see what vibes with you, or what resonates. And so for some people, maybe it's meditation. And I do want to clarify too, just because my own experience in meditation, and I think everyone that starts to meditate, it never feels like you're doing it right at the beginning. It's always like everything starts coming up, but it's like, I'm dealing with it wrong. And my thoughts kick in with a lot of things. It's about finding the groove. But there's different modalities that are going to connect and resonate with different people.

Michael Walker:
And sometimes it's about finding what is it for you that really helps you to let go and to process, and to experience what you're feeling and allow yourself to let it go. A couple ideas that you brought up were like EFT. And actually, maybe you can walk us through, because that's something I feel like I've heard about it before, but I haven't done it myself. I'd be interested in maybe you walking us through it and doing something like that. But just while I'm thinking about it too, so EFT is a great one, journaling, and just like setting a timer for 15 minutes, just letting it all out purging for 15 minutes under the journal can be really great. Going for a walk, I definitely want to echo that one too. That one's been massive for me. In a way, I wouldn't necessarily expect just going for a five-minute, 10-minute walk has literally shifted how I was feeling in such a short amount of time. It's awesome. So, yeah, let's do the tapping method.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah, sure. There's nine points and there's really... Again, there's no wrong thing to say or right thing to say. You can repeat yourself, you can talk it out in full sentences. You can do whatever it is, but you start with your, they say the karate point on your hands. You just start tapping into two fingers or four fingers or whatever feels good. And you just start tapping and just start doing it and relax your shoulders and just think about stuff that's coming up for you. Usually it's right here, it's what is sitting here that needs to come out. It might be something like, I'm about to perform a concert on Facebook live. And I'm just really nervous. I'm going to mess it up or that nobody's going to show up. Right? Whatever you're doing right now that is giving you stress, whatever it is.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And there's no judgment on it. There's no like, well, who am I? Look at everything that's going out in the world, why would I even complain about that? No, that's not what this is about. It's bothering you, what is it? So it could be, I'm worried about the tech around my Facebook live, or I'm about to release my new single, and I'm worried nobody's going to download it or stream it or anything like that. Then you're going to move to here. It's right by the cross of your eyebrows. And you're going to use two fingers on each side and you're going to either repeat it or just keep extrapolating on it. Last time I did a Facebook live, the tech wasn't working at all and I was so embarrassed and I'm just really afraid it's going to happen again.

Suzanne Paulinski:
And then you're going to move to the side of your temples. I know I don't need to be feeling this way. I can't predict the future, but this is how I feel. And I'm just worried that people are going to think I'm a loser or they're going to make fun of me or write nasty comments. Then you're going to go under your eyes, it's a little hard on my glasses, but you're going to just go right under your eyeballs socket, and you're going to tap and you're going to say, "Yeah, I mean, it feels really stressful. I wish I could just play music and that's all I had to do, but there's so much to manage and it just feels like I can never get it right." Then you're going to take one of them and go right under your nose. And then you're going to say something like, "I really want this career and I'm really dedicated to it. But when I have to do things that I'm not an expert in, it makes me feel really vulnerable. And that's really scary."

Suzanne Paulinski:
And then under your chin and then say, "I know my fans love me and I know that they'll show up for me. And I've got friends who are going to come watch, but I don't know if that's enough. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough or I'm not enough. I'm not great enough at this stuff. And other people are greater at their Facebook lives and maybe I don't even deserve to ask for tips." And then you're going to take both hands again into your collarbone. And again, you can repeat it. "I'm just really nervous about this tech situation. And I just hope I can do this and get through it and put on a good show for everybody. But I'm just really nervous about it." And then it's under your arm. And so it was right under your armpit and it was a little stinky, but you're just going to raise your arm and take one arm, choose one side.

Suzanne Paulinski:
It doesn't matter which side. And just say, "Yeah, this is a struggle for me. And maybe I'm overthinking it, but it's giving me a lot of anxiety and I'd really like to let it go. And then you're going to end with the top of your head. And you're going to say, "I know I can't control this and I know I need to let it go. But right now, it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders." Okay? And then you're going to shake it out a little bit and start back at the hand. Now you're going to talk to that person that just came through and you're going to say, "You know what, I don't have control over the tech, but I can review my checklist and I can review the steps that are involved. And really, I can just forgive myself if mistakes happen, because I don't have control over that." And then you go through this again and say, you do have control over or say that you can forgive yourself that you don't have control over that. You're not a robot and remind yourself that you're...

Suzanne Paulinski:
Now you go through the whole cycle again, forgiving yourself, changing it into a positive affirmation, pointing out things that you do, do right. All of that stuff. I don't know if you feel, but I already feel tingling sensations through my body because you're hitting certain acupuncture points that are able to really connect to the emotion that you're feeling. Literally what you're doing is rewiring certain synapse in your brain that are right now going on negative thoughts and you're reprogramming them and releasing them to be more positive thoughts. Yeah, so it can be done in like five minutes, 10 minutes, and you can go through the cycle as much as you need, usually by the third time, or by the second time, you usually feel some sort of... They ask you to rate your anxiety at the beginning, or rate your negative feelings in the beginning from a scale of one to 10, and then at the end...You'll usually feel a significant drop from there.

Michael Walker:
That was awesome. Thank you for sharing that and demonstrating. Everyone else probably couldn't see me, but I was doing it with her and I definitely felt. Yeah, I felt the energy shift as we're going through it and we didn't even complete the whole thing. That's awesome.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Right. And we can even pick something that you and I are particularly going through, but it was just an example of that's what it could look like. Yeah. This is great from... I was doing it a lot with money mindset, feeling like I didn't deserve to get myself a raise or I didn't deserve more clients and what do I know? And redoing that. So anytime that fraud talk comes in or that imposter syndrome, it's a great time to just sit and do some tapping.

Michael Walker:
I love it. I love hearing different healing modalities because you're right. There's so many different ways of doing it. And it just seemed like at the roots of all of them, it starts with what you talked about, about just feeling what you're feeling and allowing it to be there and embracing it and getting honest, acknowledging it for being what it is without feeling like it needs to be different. And then-

Suzanne Paulinski:
And some people are going to find a cardio class, or being on the elliptical, or doing something, or running is going to be the thing that clears their head. And that's fine, too. I'm not one of those people. You're not going to see me at a kickboxing class or even doing one virtually in my home. It's just not for me. But I know so many people find that just as cathartic. Whatever it is for you, do it.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Another obvious example for people who are watching this right now is like your music, right? Your music, you've probably had this experience of sitting down and it really is about just sitting down and just singing what's here, what's present and then just letting it out. A lot of the best songs that were ever written were written from that place of just honesty and just sitting in this brokenness and pain coming out, and it's cathartic. No matter what way you do it, this is really, really important. It's the foundation of having enjoyable, fulfilling experience in life. Because if you're not allowing that out, if you're just holding it in, and you're closed off, then literally it's like you're blocking the flow. You're blocking the energy of life itself.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Right. Yep. Exactly.

Michael Walker:
Amazing. So Suz, thank you so much for coming on again. I always love our conversations and it's rare that I get to talk and go deep into the mindset stuff and some of these healing modalities. I really appreciate you being on here today.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Yeah, my pleasure. And I thank you for your time and I'm happy to offer, I got plenty of free resources. If you're stuck on anything, feel free to ask me at any time and happy to send those along.

Michael Walker:
Cool. All right, Suz, you're awesome. Thanks again.

Suzanne Paulinski:
Thanks for having me, take care.

Michael Walker:
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. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media 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 their 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.