My way is to find a crazy new hobby! Discovering my inner artist helped me recover from burnout and beat learned helplessness. I tested whether I could sing and produce musical content, and through that, I realized how creativity helps me in business and how to get back to life after the learned helplessness syndrome. I'm writing today from a cool state of mind, but it wasn't like that a few months ago. As an empathetic person, it's hard for me to cope with what's been happening in the world lately. Sometimes I lack optimism! And as a young startup entrepreneur who always works with uncertainty, I felt my vulnerability in full force. After feeling this decadence, I decided that I needed to find a way to work with these states and convert this energy into something constructive. How? For me, it works to do some crazy stuff! There is so much sense in this, as I later found out. In creativity, it's much easier to set goals because there is more freedom in planning, fantasizing, and dreaming. There is no constriction, as I usually experience in business when I have to fit my goal into all the trendy frameworks and smart approaches. These are all working tools, but sometimes, I want freedom from frameworks. Or not even that... It was time to create my own new personal framework! The Blueprint for Rapid Idea Implementation I was bored, and the thought came to me that I should learn to sing to entertain myself, or at least try something new. I didn't like singing in my childhood, and I was so shy about singing that I even forbade my parents to do it. My mother recently told me this, and we laughed about it together. That's how negative my experience with singing was. Nevertheless, I decided to interact with my shyness and awkwardness. Decision Made. Needed a Teacher. I was afraid of finding a bad teacher who could damage my vocal cords and ultimately make me lose my voice. This fear arose from seeing cases in the media where some singers lost their voices and had to undergo surgeries on their vocal cords. I definitely didn't want that kind of outcome, so I was concerned about finding the right vocal technique and singing in an eco-friendly way. Therefore, I approached the search for a teacher with great responsibility. Using the test-and-learn method, I selected 5 teachers from various platforms, from whom I was willing to take a trial lesson. Since I knew absolutely nothing about singing and vocal techniques, I started to understand where there was logic and sense, and who would definitely ruin my voice by attending the trial lessons and gaining preliminary knowledge from the teachers. After my mini-research, I settled on Olga Key, with whom I immediately understood that she was the perfect fit for my goal. Olga explained to me why this Italian technique is worth singing in and how to properly master and apply it. And most importantly, with this technique, people do not lose their voices if everything is done correctly, but rather their voices strengthen and becomes more expressive over time. That's important to me! I set a goal – to record a song within 3 months of starting lessons. This would be my ideal showcase and indicator that I had mastered a new skill. So we got to work! I immediately received a personalized roadmap of what we needed to do and when to achieve the desired result. Beginning of Lessons. The Right Teacher Is the Foundation for Achieving Results I went to in-person lessons 2-3 times a week from October to December 2022. Initially, the lesson lasted 1.5 hours, but then we reduced it to 1 hour. But in reality, the time I devoted to vocal training was 3-3.5 hours because I had to ride a bike for an hour to Olga's studio and then an hour back. While I was riding my bike, I did breathing exercises and sang my favorite songs, trying to apply the knowledge I had gained up to that point. Therefore, we almost didn't do warm-up exercises together because I was already warmed up like a locomotive. That's how the next 3 months went. Ordering a Song. Briefing and Funnel of Performers – The Key to Success After the first two months of lessons, I began to search for material to order a song. I wrote a detailed briefing and spread the task across various freelance platforms. I approached finding the author of my future song in the same way as finding a teacher: I wrote to 20-30 people. I was able to communicate well with about 15 of them. Even fewer people seriously engaged with the material. In the end, I ordered a song from 2 people to compare and choose the best one. My song had to be in Spanish. The first performer was a guy from Venezuela. He quickly sent me the lyrics that fit my request and energy. Frankly, I was very afraid that I would receive some garbage that I would be ashamed to show to anyone, and I would experience Spanish shame already during the demo listening. But apparently, the power of my intention was such that all obstacles simply parted, and the guy sent me a really cool song that hooked me right away; I repeated it all the time. I immediately sent my music material to my teacher. And we started working on the song to record my vocals in the studio – we dedicated the third month to this. Recording. Get Yourself Together and Do It! The recording process also went smoothly as well. It turned out that sound work is a hobby of my friends, and they have all the necessary equipment for it. Before Christmas, we picked a time and recorded the sound. At first, I was very embarrassed to sing in front of anyone except my teacher. But I had no choice but to gather myself and make a recording. In the end, I got a studio recording of my vocals. All that remained was to do the final arrangement, create a music video, release the song and try out marketing mechanics. Final Arrangement. The Diamond of This Project Is the Team. I planned to spend January, February, and March in Latin America, and that's when I left the arrangement tasks. I made a funnel of those who were capable of handling the task. Out of about 10 arrangers, I chose the one who had experience creating tracks for Bebe, a Spanish singer. We discussed the terms, signed the contract, and I made the advance payment, and the work began. Within a few days, I received the first working version. I made a couple of edits, and after a couple of days, I received the final version. I didn't believe it until the last moment and was surprised that I produced such a high-quality musical product on the first try. My relationship with academic music is as follows: I watch videos of "What is music? for dummies" and don't even understand that. I was delighted that my first experience turned out to be so positive. Otherwise, who knows how disappointed I would have been and would have given up on this idea if I received some cringe material. Although I did receive it – the second song was exactly like that! 😄 Music Video. Working With Talented People Is a Separate Kind of Pleasure. A month after the final arrangement, we already shot a music video in Buenos Aires. It happened spontaneously, and I accidentally found a talented camera operator just in BA. I had to use the morning to prepare because there was nothing fatal in my hiking bag. I was worried that I would look ridiculous on camera, and that I would also look ridiculous on the street, where I would have to sing and dance to my song under a speaker. These were all my assumptions. In reality, everything turned out to be fantastic. From the first few seconds, I relaxed and started improvising with the camera operator. We made a lot of doubles in different locations over six hours. We were exhausted, but satisfied. It took a week to edit, and now the music video is in my cloud. Next up is the release and marketing. I can't believe how far I've come. 🤪 Release Preparation For the release, I chose the TuneCore platform. Their interface is a bit outdated, but everything is clear. I set the release date for my song and the upload of my music video on YouTube for April 5th. Honestly, I shouldn't have waited so long, I should have released it on March 8th because the vibe and energy of the song were perfect for International Women's Day. But that thought passed me by, and the release took place on April 5th. Release Day. My New Birthday I am writing this note at 9:28 PM on April 5th, 2023. My head is buzzing from the overload of emotions. Today was the start of something new, possibly my solo career. I lived this day much cooler than many of my birthdays. I received so many congratulations from like-minded people and even from more distant acquaintances. I haven't had such a festive mood in a while. I sincerely wish everyone to experience such a state and emotions. I had nothing ready for the release, although a huge amount of marketing activities were planned. I will gather part 2 of this case about the marketing block after the release and also publish it as soon as I finish all the experiments. But I was not upset and did not blame myself for this imperfection. I remained very happy and satisfied with this day. My subjective experiences were associated with experiencing how some clearly new patterns of behavior, decision-making, and life perception are formed in my brain and its neural network. Some completely new and high-quality render! What I Specifically Took for Myself From This Case in My Business Projects That you can dive into any unfamiliar topic and get results there. Your failure is not guaranteed! The diamond of the project is a team of talented people. All members of the team were much more talented than me in the musical field, but my talent manifested itself in this case not so much as a vocalist talent, but more as a manager who was able to find and gather competent people around the project and organize the space so that the team could deliver results. Through business, I would probably have come to this, but through creativity, it became much more visual and faster for me. Meanwhile, Here Are Links to My Song and Music Video Music video on YouTube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music Thank you for reading to the end and experiencing this with me! See you in the second part of the article, where I will talk about marketing experiments with a musical product.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

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Yana Fufolli

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