Mike Monday

Inspiration on Demand

  • Coaching Programs
  • About
  • Contact

2010 – My Year in Review

Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Email this to someone
email

Uber overlord of the blogosphere Seth Godin just published all he’s shipped in 2010, and asked us to publish a list of what we’ve got out the door this year:

“This might be a useful exercise. Doesn’t matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you (and a lot of what follows did) is the entire point.”

Along with half the internet, I view Seth Godin as my personal guru; even though his blog is read my many thousands (maybe millions) of people, he has an uncanny ability to talk directly to me and inspires me multiple times per week.

So when he asks me to do something I do it. Here goes…

  • This website. I started working on version 1 of mikemonday.com in October 2009. That iteration didn’t do much that was useful, had an appalling design and hit the web in late January 2010. Since then I’ve done two major redesigns and numerous tweaks. I like it now.
  • 10 tracks 10 weeks. This was the ultimate exercise in “shipping”. And I did it. I wrote my third album one track a week for ten weeks. I rarely had time to “make sure” and try out much more than my first ideas. This scared me senseless. But doing this made me physically experience what I’d suspected. It’s way more important to get it done than make it perfect.
  • My favourite blog posts. It often takes me longer to press publish than to write a blog post. That’s because I’m scared. Sometimes I’ll wait for days after writing a piece; the longest was about three weeks. But almost without exception, the posts where I felt most fear became my favourite.
  • The Music Success In Nine Weeks blogging challenge. This blog series vanished from this site when I transferred my blog to another service and I haven’t got off my ass and put them back up. Suffice to say that I read and implemented the steps in Ariel Hyatt’s book and blogged about the experience. For someone used to only writing and performing music, marketing myself was hard but talking about it in public was much harder.
  • Other music. 2010 was the year where I moved from from releasing music on record labels to doing it myself, and there were some bits and pieces that went out through traditional labels. Looking back, there are some advantages to someone else releasing my music, but these are completely negated by how disconnected I am from my audience.
  • My first YouTube video. I meant to do more of these but only managed one. I *hate* watching and hearing myself speak but I’ll just have to get over it. I need to work on my delivery because video is the ideal way for me to talk about and play my music to you. Expect much more of it in 2011.
  • You lot. Until recently this site has been largely about me broadcasting and releasing my shizzle. But I’m shifting my focus to your shizzle. After I got over my internal resistance to writing it, I finally sent out my first mailout yesterday and got an overwhelming response. I’m in the middle of answering all your wonderful emails and they’re still arriving (keep them coming). So far I’ve received replies from UK, Iraq, Kazakhstan, all over the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Russia, Portugal and Spain. And after just one mailout, this is the part of my business that excites me the most. I now have a much clearer idea of what you need and want me to do. I just wish I’d overcome my fear earlier and got on with it.
  • The birth of Harry. Not a work thing, but my review of 2010 wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the little dude. Although it’s more accurate to say that Mrs. Monday did the “shipping” on this one (I guess I “shipped” 9 months earlier in 2009 – ahem), becoming a Dad is easily the most scary and wonderful event of my life.

So that’s me more or less done with 2010. If I was to sum it up in a word? Transition.

How was yours? What did you ship this year?

Oh and have a very Happy New Year…

Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Email this to someone
email

Comments

comments

Filed Under: Featured Post Tagged With: 10 Tracks 10 Weeks, happy new year, mike monday, music success in nine weeks, the gang

How can I help you?

Claude VonStroke (Dirty Bird, USA)

Mike Monday’s process has helped me enormously. I have two record labels, a heavy touring schedule, a wife and two children, and a music production career all running in tandem. There are times when it seems unmanageable and i get lost in a downward spiral that limits my effectiveness as a leader and my ability to be creative in the studio.

Whenever i have a session with Mike we talk it all out and a sense of calm comes over me. i get back to basics and work out all the things in my head that need to get worked out. His process is both calming and therapeutic.

I would also like to add that the additional fact that Mike is a music producer himself and a veteran DJ lends itself to an extra level of trust. I don’t think i would take advice or listen to someone in the same way who was from outside the music industry. In an nutshell I find Mike Monday’s process to be an extremely valuable way to organize and free my chaotic brain to do what it is supposed to be doing.

Johnson Peterson (Yolanda Be Cool)

“I found the time with Mike to be extremely beneficial. His process opened me up to ideas that, even where obvious, I had overlooked or forgotten and I am looking forward to taking them with me to the studio. It was definitely worth it.”

Janelle Palmer (Tutukaka Coast, New Zealand)

“What your course has done for me has been remarkable and I really feel so grateful to you…

Radical is a good word for it! The most unexpected thing I’ve found about the course is the impact it has had on other areas of my life – I was quite surprised about that…

These are definitely transferable skills we are learning here!”

– Janelle Palmer (Tutukaka Coast, New Zealand)

Brett Adams (Los Angeles, California)

“I already think this is one of the greatest decisions I’ve made, and we haven’t even started the curriculum yet.”

Vernon McCarthy (Wellington, New Zealand)

“I just felt inspired to send you a really quick message to say hello and let you know that I am going great guns at the moment.

Managing to get a average of two hours every day producing. This is a huge turn around for me and am loving it. It hasn’t been easy though but I have kept at it.

And much of it has been due to the help and inspiration from yourself, the group and me now actually putting in the work. The online community is such a good thing. Everytime I have gone to have a look I have found something relevant to my thoughts and that has helped me.”

Joe Roberts (London, UK)

“Mike has helped me to start living the truism that it’s not what you use to make music, it’s your ideas.

Those ideas only mean anything when you start putting them down though and that’s what this course has already helped me to start do regularly.

I’ve made more headway in two weeks than I’d managed in a couple of years on my own starting projects, then giving up and starting something new but never seeing them through till completion.”

Read more
  • Coaching Programs
  • One To One Coaching
  • Free Cheat Sheet
  • What People Are Saying

Terms of Service · Refund Policy

Copyright © 2022 Mike Monday · Log in ·

Privacy Policy