Emerge Already Blog

Are you missing your usual dose of Emergence? Just because the blog is on hiatus doesn’t mean the emergence is! I invite you to join me in my daily attempts at world conquering AKA Stalking Superwoman, my new reality video blog. I’ll be practicing what I’ve been preaching here at Emerge Already! 2011 is a pivotal year for me as I’m aiming to expand the Jade Media brand and develop the various legs of my artistic pyramid. Me, you and everyone who reads EA are pretty serious overachievers so you’ll relate to my ambitions. With Stalking Superwoman you’ll see my struggles to maintain creative freedom and my artistic identity with my second album, the issues that come with transitioning to new forms of management and lobbying for tv and radio shows as well as trying to break ground with projects no other classical musician has attempted previously.

Usually, this is the behind the scenes stuff; the kind of planning and strategy artists and entrepreneurs usually keep to themselves. We toil away and when we break through people say “Wow, she’s an overnight success!” Well, I’m here to show you there’s no such thing or in the least, it’s been a very, very long night!

Watch me in the process of making things happen. I’ll be employing the tips I’ve been given through Emerge Already! Right now, I’m in St. Petersburg about to serve as one of the webcast hosts for the world famous Tchaikovsky competition. But even while I’m here I’m wheeling and dealing, mostly through Skype, ironing out important business deals stateside. I can’t always promise I’ll succeed but I can tell you I don’t have any plans for failure. So come ride the rollercoaster that is Stalking Superwoman!

Blogs, Videos, Pics going on right now at www.stalkingsuperwoman.com.

I can admit it. I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to life-risking activities like skydiving or bungee jumping. But When it comes to your career, especially if you’ve been in a rut, but alive a little more dangerously by being open to opportunities in their various forms. At some point, I can almost promise you I will do a blog about learning when and how to say “No”. But this isn’t that blog. Today, I’m daring you to say “Yes!” Put yourself in a season of “Yesses” where you answer affirmatively to every opportunity presented to you that even remotely relates to your passion.

If you’re a garrulous clarinetist and someone asks you to use your verbal chops to host a panel discussion. but you’ve never done anything like that before…say Yes. If you’re a fashionable violinist and the local paper asks you to write an article about art and fashion, but you’ve only kept a diary up until now…say Yes. The worst you can do is not be awesome and that’s not so bad because you’re already awesome at your MAIN gig. We’re talking now about finding ways for you to spread your wings and widen your range of artistic opportunity.

Some of us are still in Artistic High School, following the regimented college-prep game plan, taking all the right AP courses, studying for the SAT without giving any true thought to all that we actually can be, beyond that shiny 1600. This summer, Emerge Already! will be with you in spirit as you graduate and dare to explore all of your artistic options.

Our Guest Chatters last night, Brandee Younger and Lori Lewis, are both stellar examples of making themselves accessible. We’re talking about being accessible to alternative performance venues, accessible to new and different music (dance, art, products, etc.), to new and different ways of performing the music you love, and even making yourself accessible to working outside of what you thought would always be your element.

Keep your eyes peeled for signs that advertise an enticing fork in the road. Keep your ears open for that special “knock” that could hold a brand spanking new career path on the other side of the proverbial door. Fight when your urge is to flee, flee when you realize you’ve been fighting for the wrong reason. Make it a summer of change, not for change’s sake, but because you’ve been getting an inkling that it’s time for new, now or next. As Brandee commanded, get rid of “fallbacks” and make plans only to succeed. Remember that success doesn’t always mean winning or playing perfectly, but it does always mean growth.

Take this summer as a vacation from status quo and use it to plot your emergence! As always, I’ll be rooting for you.

Stay tuned for exciting announcements regarding Emerge Already! coming soon.

THIS Thursday at 730 est for our FINAL SHOW we’re keeping it Plain and Simple.

Between our harpist who dabbles in Hip-Hop and is named amongst the next generation of outstanding Jazz musicians and a singer turned budding online Media Mogul with her own 24-Hour Network, I think we’ll have our bases covered. Join us to talk about stretching our creativity, and therefore our options, to the limit! See our exciting Guest Chatters below.

Brandee Younger
Harpist Extraordinaire

A versatile musician who has been proven to defy genres and labels, this young harpist has created a unique niche in both traditional and non-traditional harp arenas. Best-known for her limitless drive, Ms. Younger remains in high demand and attracts the attention of today’s most well-known artists, producers and groups. A classically trained harpist, she has performed with an array of orchestras including the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Waterbury Symphony, Soulful Symphony, Ensemble Du Monde, Camerata New York and the Red Bull Artsehcro, a “non-conformist” orchestra. She has worked & recorded with a number of jazz luminaries including Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane, Wycliffe Gordon, Charlie Haden, Reggie Workman, Kenny Garrett, Rashied Ali, and Bill Lee, as well as a host of New York City’s top, young jazz musicians. In hip-hop, she has worked with several artists and producers, including Common, Ryan Leslie, Cassie, Talib Kweli and Drake. She effortlessly performs in many diverse genres, due to her proficiency as an artist and all around musician, not just as an instrumentalist.

Lori Lewis, Opera Singer 
Founder of Everyday Opera

Everyday Opera is the brainchild of Lori Lewis.  A prime time radio veteran of over 13 years and accomplished singer, Lewis used her love of opera to develop the Everyday Opera concept.  She called upon New York Metropolitan Opera star Janet Hopkins to contribute with her vast experience and engaging personality. Together, they morphed Everyday Opera into a vehicle with broad artistic and mainstream appeal. EverydayOpera.Com offers articles, videos, and a Live Streaming Audio Network. Podcasts on demand are available for download. Interviews and feature pieces cover an appealing range of topics from opera to wine & food to travel as well as beauty & fashion. 

I talk about irony a lot, it fascinates me. Here’s one for the ages:

This is good for t-shirts, but not for real life.

Overachievers always think they’re underachieving and Underachievers rarely realize they’re barely passing muster.

I talk about overachievers a lot and I wear the title like a badge of honor, when really what we’re doing is not “over” achieving at all. Instead, we’re living life at Full Potential and not letting a new level become a permanent plateau. Status Quo is the great enemy of Emerge Already! and it’s the great road block in many a career as far as upward mobility is concerned. In fact, I believe that most of us will live and die without coming close to fulfilling our personal potential. Most of us will live as Closet Underachievers. What will inevitably get in the way of our ultimate success are two things:

1. Failure to have a Grand Vision- which can mean literally not having a vision at all or not having one backed up by a strategy. Or it could be as insidious as ignoring or belittling our seedling of a vision. This deficit could also manifest as the fear of looking lofty and ridiculous for daring to have game-changing plans. There’s a reason there are so few Mega-People (Oprah, Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Old Tiger Woods, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, etc). They are all game changers. It’s not because they are born better than the rest of us but because they have this one thing in common: They believed in the possibility of becoming legendary.

2. Failure to Put in the Work- This is the second ingredient all of the legends above have in common. Oprah works endless days while her compatriots at The View are in at 10:30am and out by noon. Bill Gates might have dropped out of college but he was no slacker, he just wanted to put the hours in where he saw fit. Michael Jordan and Tiger practice their game on a level that others couldn’t fathom. Michael Jackson spent hours on every detail of choreography and production when it came to his live shows and Warren Buffet has been studying money and its processes since childhood.

Our #1 Guest Chatter Tip came from James Newman who told us again last night in our Top 10 show that success takes hardwork and it takes moxy. It takes the commitment to honing your strengths and to fixing your weaknesses. Most of all, achieving to your potential means you have to not only put in the time, but you’ve got to get in the game…over and over again.

1. New Opportunities that stretch your current boundaries come your way and you run and hide. Running from chances to push your talents and diversify you artistic product could be critical to your pocketbook.

2. When your project fails (low attendance, no publicity for it, didn’t reach financial goals, etc), you tell yourself it’s because people didn’t “get it”, not because your efforts or your energy were misguided or simply weren’t enough. Failing to look failure in the eye and assess it properly almost guarantees future, very similar failures.

3. You’re constantly busy but nothing is really getting accomplished. Being busy with the wrong project or utilizing your energy without being focused on the real goal just equals buckets of wasted time and chronic fatigue.

4. You believe only in letting the “Universe” bring things your way. Hard, gritty work that requires you to come out of the practice room and pound the pavement is for the birds! Learning when to let go is great, but doing nothing to steer your career is ludicrous.

5. You have been doing exactly the same thing for more than 3-10 years and you’re doing just fine, thank you very much. Remember, people and institutions don’t realize their antiquated until they’ve been replaced in the market. Then it’s too late.

6. Other people in the world seem to be picking your brain and bringing to reality plans you had for yourself years ago. Remember, a good idea is a girlfriend to one man only for a limited time before it runs off and marries the person that will actually bring it into fruition!

If you suffer from any of these ailments you just may have been practicing Career Emergence Prevention! Call 1-800-EmergeAlready now or… just read more of these blogs and watch the vids

Happy Friday.

Speaking of picking brains, Check it out: Businessweek Article about Underachieving

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