This week I'm filling out Living Your Best Year Ever (Darren Hardy) for July 2025-June 2026 and I'm stuck between focusing on 3 things:
1. Pursuing a music career, which is what I've always wanted, for over 30 years now (but still haven't "made it"). I feel dulled by the routine of constantly playing to algorithms...YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok.
2. Pursuing a copywriting career, something I enjoy and am great at but feels like the "safe route". Surrender and stuck in my comfort zone.
3. My current day job which has been good to me but (and as much as I hate to say this) I think I might be irreparably stuck there. It may be time to move on. This is where I've surrendered, am dulled by routine, and remain in the comfort zone.
Just in the last two weeks, I re-read The Entrepreneur Rollercoaster (Darren Hardy), The E-Myth (Michael Gerber), and The Secret Code To Hidden Wealth (Doberman Dan). I started re-reading Feel-Good Productivity (Ali Abdal) yesterday and am halfway through already. Next, I will re-read The Compound Effect (Darren Hardy). When I'm out-and-about and have down time I don't scroll social media (I removed all the apps from my phone) and instead I re-read books like The Ad-Week Copywriting Handbook (Joseph Sugarman), This book will teach you how to write better (Neville Medhora), and (a dubiously obtained PDF of) Breakthrough Advertising (Eugene Schwartz). And of course I'm working through songwriting books, learning scales and chord progressions, and reading music theory on the daily.
But as Darren always says…I don't need more information. What I need is to take action.
Although Living Your Best Year Ever has the reader narrow down to 3 goals, I don't know if I have enough time to take action on all three things listed above while maintaining the day job, even if one is the day job.
I've already decided that the three goals should be working me out of the day job.
And I'll never stop making music. But several people, including my wife, have suggested I keep that as a hobby instead of a career (but I *want* the career!).
It seems like copywriting is the safest route to take to reach the level of financial success I want to achieve, even though in my heart of hearts I believe I could make it happen with music (not as a "rockstar" but as a diversified business in the music industry, including but not limited to writing and performing my own original music).
Living Your Best Year Ever asks "what would you do if you knew for certain you could not fail" and the answer is music.
But there's still that nagging thing in my mind that says, "that's unrealistic. Put down the guitar. Go write some copy."