Making the Most of Every Opportunity As a Musician | Shift Your Mindset, Build Connections, Understand Your Why

In every opportunity, how much we put into it correlates with how much we get out of it. Here is how you can get the most out of your opportunities as a musician.

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Transcript

Welcome And Host Story

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Confident Musitioning Podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland. Literally my dream school. And it took me a long way to get there. I applied and auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries. It was a lot of hard work. But oh my gosh, so worth it. I want you to have the confidence to work hard in achieving your goals. So come with me as we go on this journey together. So sit down, pull up a chair, take a seat, or if you're on the go, welcome to the Confident Musitioning Podcast.

The Question About Low Standard Work

SPEAKER_00 0:44

So I recently put a little question box on my Instagram stories asking, what kind of topics do you want to see on the podcast? Because you know this podcast is for you, and so I really, really, really want it to relate to you as much as possible. So I asked this question, and one of the answers really stuck out to me. And the answer was making the most of lower standard opportunities. This really stood out to me because I was like, what is a lower standard opportunity? Like what does like what does that mean? I feel like to someone, maybe an opportunity is lower standard, but the same opportunity to someone else could be the same, like could be a really exciting opportunity. And so I was thinking about this and I was like, okay, I really want to talk about this because it's really, really important to not only kind of change our thoughts about the idea of lower standard opportunities versus high standard opportunities, and also how we can make the most out of opportunities in general. So thank you so, so, so much for this question for this topic because it's gonna be really good to get into. So let's dive right into it. So basically, how do we make the most out of our opportunities? Whether we consider

Shift From Scarcity To Abundance

SPEAKER_00 2:07

them kind of lower standard, higher standard, whatever, whatever we consider them, how can we make the most out of our opportunities? The first thing is changing your mindset from what is this opportunity now to what could it be. Okay, so changing your mindset between what is it right now versus what could it be. The idea of a lower standard opportunity, personally, I think of it as like that's kind of a scarcity mindset. We can have two different mindsets. We can have a scarcity mindset where we kind of look at everything through a view of like, what don't I have from this, right? What like, oh, I only get this much or this much or this much. Or we can look at it through an abundance mindset, which is like I get to do this and this, and I wonder what it'll turn into. And yes, this opportunity on paper might not seem like the most exciting thing, but what can I turn it into? So our goal is to change from like a scarcity mindset of oh, what am I not getting out of this, to what can I create from this? What can I create from this? So maybe for instance, it is a youth orchestra rehearsal, and maybe you're looking at it and maybe you're you you're not really excited about the youth orchestra, or maybe you're like, eh, it's okay. But what can you turn this youth orchestra rehearsal into? Maybe it's a gateway to more youth orchestra rehearsals, rehearsals like it. Maybe it is experience that you can put on your CV for later. Maybe it's just something that you can like have under your belt, where you have maybe met someone or like met some other like-minded musicians. All of these things are very valuable. I have been in situations where I've had opportunities that maybe they haven't kind of turned into something that I was hoping for them to be, or maybe that I was like, uh, I'm not too excited, I'm not too um hopeful for this to become something, but I look at it and I'm like, okay, well, what can I make it? What can it be for me? Okay, that's really, really important. So changing your mindset from scarcity, from what am I not getting from this, to what can I get from this? What can I take from this? What is it offering? And how can that help me on my journey? Maybe it's the experiences that you need to achieve your next goals or to achieve that opportunity that you really, really want. Maybe it is, maybe it's the thing that helps you, maybe it's the thing that equips you with the tools that you need so that you can walk into opportunities that really excite you with a better understanding and better tools. I remember when I was in youth orchestras, like I was in um when I was like really kind of this this is talking like a ways way back. I was like in middle school, so I was like maybe 12, 13, and I was part of some youth orchestras, and I at the time I was playing the viola, and I had some friends who were in kind of higher ranked youth orchestras, and at the time I would look at my the youth orchestra I was in, and I was like, eh, like I was comparing it to the other people around me and what what opportunities they were in. But the thing is, I look back on that and I'm like, yes, I was comparing it, which we can get into that as a whole nother video, that's a whole nother podcast episode, um, why we should not compare and why we're all on our different separate journeys. But I look back on that and I'm like, yes, maybe I was comparing myself to my friends who had maybe were in better, more advanced youth orchestras, but at that point I was learning how to be an orchestral musician. I was learning what that meant. I was learning, you know, the order of tuning, you know, how like the oboe tunes and then the woodwinds tune and then the brass tunes and then, you know, the strings tune. I was learning those types of things. I was learning how to rehearse in a youth orchestra so that when I auditioned for those more exciting, to me at least, more exciting, uh, more advanced, higher opportunity youth orchestras, I knew what to do. I knew how to audition for them. I knew when I was sat in that first rehearsal, I knew what was going to happen. Yes, the music was harder, but I already had the experience that I needed. So every single opportunity that comes your way that you have, there is something you can take from it. Okay. That is so important to remember. What what let's like try to keep an abundance mindset? What can I get from this opportunity? Okay. Next thing.

Introduce Yourself And Build Connections

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Introduce yourself to everyone or anyone you can, okay? Make connections. So this is along the same lines. So maybe you're going into an opportunity and you're feeling like, oh my gosh, it's something, it's like okay, but like I wish I had a better opportunity. This is uh, okay. Which by the way, we don't want to have that mindset. We just talked about that, but let's say we do. Um, and maybe it's, I mean, it would be so easy in that situation to take a look at that opportunity, be like, ugh, and then also not want to introduce yourself to anyone because you're like, oh my gosh, maybe the other people here, maybe they're probably like, maybe they're also kind of feeling the similar thing to me, like, uh, you know, but you don't know that. You don't know that, and you don't know who these people are, okay? You don't know who they are going to become. Okay, that's that's a big thing. That's a big thing to remember. So introducing yourself to as many people as you possibly can is honestly so crucial because every single famous musician that if you saw in real life, you would squeal with excitement and want to meet them so quickly. Every famous musician was in a room at one point where they weren't famous, where they were just another instrumentalist in the orchestra, where they were just, you know, a kid learning or whatever it is, and I'm not saying that like it's not important, it is so important. I personally think I believe this, that um education and music is so extremely important, and youth orchestras are so important, and every single opportunity that you have is so important to your journey. But my point is the people that we idolize, the people that we look up to, they had similar experiences that we are having now that we might be thinking are low-value experiences. Do you know what I mean? So everybody has had this, and you do not know who in that room is going to become the next big famous musician that you're gonna look up to and be like, oh my gosh, you know, I knew them when. You know what I mean? So it is so, so, so important going back to that like abundance mindset of not only what can I make of this, what can this be for me, but who can I meet? Who are these people and who are they going to be? You know what I mean? Like, who are they going to be? So, like, introduce yourself. Introduce yourself to people, introduce yourself to as many people as you can, talk to people, get people's names, create the connections, create the connections of the people who are organizing the event, all of these things, create these connections because it is so extremely important. You never know what they are going to lead to. And if you take a look in a at blah, if you take a look at an event and you see something that's kind of like low, like, I don't know, just like not as exciting to you, then you're probably gonna cut yourself off from possibilities of meeting important like meeting people, okay, whether they are going to be um really, really important to you in the future or not, you're still cutting yourself off from those people. So it's really important that you you network and you make connections because every single opportunity can become something for you. Do you know what I mean? So if you are already saying this opportunity is not all that great, is not all that important, blah, blah, blah, you're already doing yourself a disservice because you don't know that. You might get there and you might meet someone that you're like, oh my gosh, I really want to make this connection, or oh, I didn't realize I was gonna learn this thing, or do this thing, or all of these things. That is really important to remember, okay? And the last thing actually ties into the other things.

Define Your Personal Win

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I feel like I've taken three points from a very kind of cohesive idea. But the last thing, now that we've taken our mindset from a scarcity mindset of, oh, this isn't all that much, to an abundance mindset of what could it be, we've decided to meet people and make connections. And now we have to decide what is this to me? What is this opportunity to me? Because you a lower standard opportunity means that the meaning of it was already defined, the purpose, the value of it is already defined, and you have kind of given that control away to the opportunity. What you need to do is you need to take the control and you need to be like, what does this opportunity mean for me? What can I do with this opportunity? I remember, well, I do this all the time. Whenever I have an audition or a performance or an exam, I always create a um, I always create a goal specifically for me. So I recently um did an audition and in the audition, the you know, the goal for the audition was get into the orchestra, but the goal for me was a whole week before I had a sinus infection and I could not play the oboe. And literally this was the first time in a week that I was actually playing the oboe in full. And I was a little nervous about that because it was an audition, right? But I was like, I'm gonna take this opportunity as a celebration. This is my comeback. I've been ill for a week, but this is my comeback, and I focused on that during the audition, and I had a really good audition. I ended up getting into the orchestra, so that's exciting. Um, but I I like it was so important for me to focus on me celebrating the fact that I'm coming back to Myobo after a week of being ill, and that really made me play better, which helped, you know, the whole idea of me wanting to get into this youth orchestra. So that's really, really important to note, but we can also take that idea and put it into what this is. So, whatever this opportunity is, what is it for you? Maybe the opportunity is an orchestra rehearsal, and you know, the point of it is to rehearse, but what is the point of it for you? Maybe it's to meet new two new people, maybe it is to um make a few mistakes. Maybe, maybe the fact that this like opportunity, maybe it's a low-stakes opportunity and you're seeing that and you're thinking, oh my gosh, it's not all that valuable. But maybe it is really valuable because it's an opportunity for you to make mistakes, for you to try something new. And if you make a mistake, so what? You know what I mean? There are some opportunities where if you make a mistake when playing, it's a little bit of a bigger issue than if you know in a different opportunity where it might not be much of an issue. So, like that is also important. Maybe it is to make mistakes, maybe it is to get more comfortable um having people hear you play. Okay, define that for you. It is so, so, so important. No opportunity is something that you can't get anything out of. Okay, we can all get something out of every single thing we do. With that being said, of course, it is important to say yes to some things and to say no to other things. If we like can tangibly see that it is not worth our time, our energy, or if it is not worth our money, then that is another thing. Um, and it is so important to say no to things that maybe you can't do or you shouldn't do. But if you've said yes to it and you're thinking, oh my gosh, it's not all that important, it is so important. Okay, let's let's change the narrative. This is something that you can get something out of, okay? It's for you to decide whether it is important to you or not. But if you are doing something, or if you if you are doing it, then you can get something out of it, okay?

Choosing When To Say No

SPEAKER_00 14:20

All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode and watching this episode. I'm so grateful that you are here. Thank you so much um to the person who asked this question. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. It is so lovely of you to ask this question. Um, and yeah, I will if you enjoyed this episode, please

Thanks And How To Support

SPEAKER_00 14:40

do like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, share it with like all of your musician friends who you think would need this. And I will see you in the next episode. All right, take care. Bye bye.