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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Dream Life Club podcast where we share insights and inspiration for creatives and entrepreneurs. Chasing a dream. This is Sumi and if you don't know me, I built a 200 person company in D.C. and then decided to leave all of that behind and follow my dream of being a pop music artist in la. I know a little bit about what it takes to chase and build dreams and I'm doing this new dream out in public building with you guys, sharing how it's going and my lessons learned along the way. Today I want to talk to you about what it means to feel the progress that we're making and how for me personally, I don't think I've ever felt more aligned with my music career and with the progress that I'm making than I do right now. And I was like thinking about this a lot recently because, you know, I started releasing music three years ago and I was like so excited. There was so much to do. I was like, I did my first music video, I did all the like, marketing that I thought I was supposed to do and then I stopped. And then I was like, but I'm supposed to release every six to eight weeks. So I like tried to rev up again. And I did that for, you know, four or five months and then stopped and then got sidetracked and then stopped and then did music videos and then stopped and then posted content consistently and then stopped. And it was sort of like the reason why I kept starting and stopping is because it was so hard to see and feel the progress that I was making. And I continually was comparing myself to, yes, other people, of course, doing the same thing, but also just like where I wanted to be and realizing that like, I wasn't actually there yet and then getting down on myself for it. So I was thinking about, like, what's different now? Because I do feel like now with my current season of Where I Am, you know, I just released American Dream May 15th and it's part of a larger project. It's part of the EP that I'm most likely going to be calling American Tarot. There's a small chance it might the entire EP might also be called American Dream. But I have like four or five more songs ready to go that are in alignment with this project. I have a theme and a world that I'm actually building around this project. And I know that if you're in the music industry, if you're an indie artist listening, it's almost cliche at this point to talk about world building because like now, sudden, suddenly, like every marketer online and Instagram post, we get fed in our feeds is talking about how we need to be world building as artists and, and of course, so it's nothing new, right? And I mean I remember being told this like back in 2019, right? So it's not that like these are things that we don't know, I'm sure. Like we all know it's like that standard thing, we all know what to do, but like are we doing it or not? Is it always a different question? But also there's reasons why we may not be doing things the way we want to be. And I think a lot of those reasons have to do with, you know, the market we're in today has such upsides in terms of the ability we have to reach our fans directly right through, through social media and then through our own owned communities. Whether it's like a discord group or email community, a text link list, right. Like we, it's never been like until recently, until about 10, maybe 15 years ago, it's never been possible to reach fans directly unless you like literally went out in real life, right? Like now if we go viral, we could actually reach like millions and millions of people directly, right? But this, this is a new thing and now it's very possible to build a sustainable career online. So, so those are all the pluses of social media. But I think this is somebody, something that nobody talks about. One of the main downsides to social media is basically being bombarded with other people's ideas all the time. Nobody talks about this, you guys. Like we are bombarded with other people's ideas all the time. Not only other people's ideas in the other creatives content that we're watching, but then all of the marketers and all of the services that are trying to target us as their potential customers are bombarding us with their sales content, trying to get us to buy into their service, that their way of thinking is what we need to learn. And then I feel like I am a very smart, intelligent woman who thinks critically. Yet I over and over again find myself signing up for yet another course or service or freebie or 29.99 product or even like a very, very, very expensive one on one coaching program, which by the way I did last year and I beat myself up for it, you know, for a bit. Now I'm over that because that doesn't serve a good purpose. But there's so much advice and people come blasting in our like precious mental space 24,7 especially if we allow ourselves to, like, beyond social and scrolling, that we often, like, lose sight of, like, what our original thoughts are, it's. It's really that much harder to create the space to even have an original thought these days. So I was thinking about how does this all lead back to what I started saying about, like, why I feel so much better and more excited and like, I'm. I'm like, on a path moving forward now than I have in the past three years since I've been releasing music. And, and this is why. It's because I have really, really blocked out all of the noise coming in. I have focused on creating a cohesive project and I'm moving forward on that path. And here's the thing, you guys, like, this really applies if you're listening and you're a music artist, but also if you're any other creative. If you don't have, like, a fuller vision of what you're doing longer term than like, just the next song, then it's really going to be like panic inducing, anxiety inducing for you. I really, I truly believe that, like, all the advice that we hear that like, it's a singles game and you've got to just, like a lot of people say, like, release a new single, you know, it used to be six to every six to eight weeks, right? And I think that's still like, the prevailing wisdom. But then there's people who will advise you. Like this very expensive mentor that I hired that I really, really, really, truly regret, you know, because I spent way too much money to get really bad advice. And then I realized, you know, it was bad advice, she didn't actually care and she didn't actually know what to do to succeed. And like, that was the biggest thing of it all because we think that, like, some. It was again, going back to the whole, like, someone's coming to see save me conversation. Like when people say, like, no one's coming to save you, it's because that's why I think that some of us are so tempted to, like, sign up for these services and mentorships because we think that, like, okay, well, maybe they have the answer for us. They have the answer for us. This thing has the answer for us. If I could just get clear on this with this guy, then I'll be successful. If I could just get the advice and, like, the connections from this person, then. But it's like, no, no, actually. So this very expensive mentor that I hired for last year, she basically really wanted me. She really discouraged me from even creating a cohesive visual identity. On top of that, she wanted me to release a single every week. Okay? And I, I won't, I won't ever say who this person is to the public because that's just not the type of game I want to play. But, but if you ask me personally, I'll tell you. She wanted me to release a new single every week. She wanted me to post five times a day on social media without a cohesive like theme or brand or audience that I was talking to. It was almost like spaghetti being thrown at the wall to try to find my audience. And she wanted me to release a new song every week and quote, unquote, see what took off. Well, I'm here to tell you that that just doesn't work for the human brain. Okay? Unless you're, I don't know, maybe a 14 year old with ADHD who can just like run around with her head cut off and like constantly like drop a new track and then run around, do it again and just kind of, you know, like it is true like when you're, when you're super, super young, you, you have different powers that you don't, you don't have as an adult. And as an adult you actually sort of hone other skills like pattern recognition and wisdom and insight in depth and stuff that you don't have when you were younger. And it was so weird to me that like the advice that I was given was to basically try to be like a, for like what I might Recommend To a 14 year old for a strategy and like discouraged from doing what I'm doing now, which is what has led me to feel more clarity on my music career than I have ever felt since I started. And I didn't just start three years ago, you guys, six years ago I actually released my first EP under a different project called Sumi. It should still exist if you look it up on Apple Music or YouTube Music. I think it was taken down from Spotify because at the time I pitched through this service called Playlist Bookers thinking they were legit. Well, I guess they got bot streams on one of my songs and it got. The entire album got removed from Spotify. So. But the artist name was Sumi. Like not, not Sumi X, but it was just Sumi S U M I. And you can find it on like Apple Music and YouTube Music, I believe. And I released I think five songs on that EP that was six years ago, you know, and then I sort of like went down a different path and got really involved with the elections and Started like, doing political education and stuff like that until I came back and in 2023 released a new started releasing under my artist project called Sumi X. And by the way, it's Sumi Space X on all platforms. If you haven't checked out my music yet, please, please, please go follow sue me and then last name X. And make sure you put that space in between my first and last name, otherwise another band comes up. But the reason why it's working for me now is that I feel like, because remember, guys, the tortoise one, the tortoise wins, right? Like, being slow and steady and continually trying to chip away at the path that we're creating for ourselves is the way to go. Not to. Not to sort of, like, operate in. In a hurricane, you know, every once in a while sporadically, and, like, hope and pray that something sticks. Like, that's why her advice of, like, keep releasing every week until something sticks, you know, I think it's bad advice for many, many reasons. You know, one of which is what I mentioned. Like, it just doesn't give you any feeling of progress or control because you're basically just like. You're putting so much work and effort and creativity into making a song and releasing it, and then you're just, like, hoping and praying, right? Like what? Like, no, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna rely on an organic algorithm that nobody fucking understands for my career that I'm trying to build intentionally. Like, are you kidding me? That is the worst advice I've ever could ever think of giving someone, you know, and it saddens me to think that she might be giving this advice out to other people like me. And secondly, the reason why I think it doesn't work is because it puts you in this mode of fight or flight, right? Like, right now, I feel so calm. I have a plan. I have multiple songs lined up. I have deep promotion marketing concepts conceptually developed for each song. And more than that, each song means something to me. I'm not devaluing my creativity and my art by putting out, only talking about it five or seven times. Or I guess even if I posted five times a day about that same song every single day for a week. That's only 35 times that I've talked about that song. And then I'm on to the next, that is, and then not even trying to push that song with any paid promotion until it, like, sticks organically. Like, we know this is not how it works. The. At the big labels, they put so much a sickening amount of money into paying for a promotion in the beginning and then seeing what sticks. Because it's only when you have enough at bats, you can even see whether something's gonna work or not. If 10 people saw your thing, right, how are you gonna get enough data to know if it's quote unquote sticking or not? You're not. And so anyways, the thing is that it's not devaluing my art anymore and it's giving me something to look forward to. I get to test and play and be a creative and come up with cool creative concepts and for a full six to eight weeks. I'm currently promoting American Dream and we're working on a music video that I'm so excited about. And we're partnering and collab with other brands and organizations that are in alignment with my music and the message and like the, the message of this music means so much to me. Again, I am not 14 and I'm not 22 and I'm not 29 making these songs, right? I have life experience and a story and things to share. And I think my voice means something. And I want your voice to mean something. I want you to know that your voice means something and it actually means something no matter how old you are. But my point is, I'm not writing sugary pop with no depth, right? I am writing songs that I want people to feel moved by. I want people to think after listening to my music. And it deserves so much more time and attention than just seven days of frantic promotion and then disappointment all over again. Like the singles game. You guys, to me, in my experience, tell me if you have a different experience or thought or opinion on this, but it's basically like playing the fucking lottery. You're playing the lottery every week. That is what, that is what I was doing. And when you're playing the lottery, you're back to zero every time you don't win, right? So how disillusioning is that? How, how, how, how demeaning is that to your self confidence, right? Like, how could any creative keep that up for very long, Max? A year or two, right? What if nothing happens to quote unquote, stick in a year or two? You think any human being is going to have the energy to keep going and going and going on that same strategy when you're not making progress, you're actually just back to the starting line every single week or two weeks. So what I'm doing now, and I'm noticing the shift in me is that I'm building a world I'm building a message. I'm building relationships with partners. Every single time I post something, it seems to either appealed to another audience or brought out another side of me or, you know, or moved forward in some way. Whether it's to a new audience, whether it's more visibility to my same audience, whether it's brought me in collaboration to someone else in the industry, whether it's so in some way, shape or form, I'm moving forward all the time, and everything is aligned with my vision now in terms of aesthetically and visually. And why is that so important? Because to me, it's actually just more important for myself. Like, I look at what I'm leaving and creating, and I'm like, oh, wow, I'm proud of this. I am so proud to go shout my song from the rooftops. I'm so proud to share it with people. I have no qualms telling people to check it out. Why? Because I'm proud of it. If I was releasing a song every week, you think I'd be proud of every one of those? Hell no. And why do we want to make stuff and put it out there and try to push it on people when we're not even proud of it? Right. Like, we know that's not gonna work. It's a waste of freaking time. Such a waste of time. So this whole episode is about how so many musicians find themselves and indie artists particularly find themselves in this comparison trap and in this lottery, in this game that they're playing, which is basically playing the lottery. If you're trying to play the singles game and your singles are not connected to a greater, you're doomed. I really. I don't. I don't. I mean, I don't want to put that on you. If it's working for you, then, like, you have something that I don't have. But in my experience, it's so much wiser and so much more fulfilling to create. You can drop your songs as singles. Nobody's saying, you know, you have to drop them all at once. You can promote each song as a single. But I think it's so much better to have times of creation and times of marketing. And this is me, you know, with my business experience on. Because as an indie artist today, you are operating as an entrepreneur. We are building small businesses. We are the product and we are the CEOs. Right? We are the product, and we are the CEOs. We have to create the product, and we have to think about building the business. We have to think about the marketing. We have to think about the production, we have to think about the creative vision, we have to think about the finance, we have to think about the sales. And so it's not unlike any other small business that an entrepreneur is starting up as an indie artist. We are entrepreneurs. And so because of that, we need to have. We can't be playing the lottery because of that. We need to have a vision. And so I guess I'm just. Just recording this entire episode for all the other indie artists out there that may have been convinced into going on the singles game without a cohesive vision or, like, feeling that they were getting conflicting advice. Like, there's so much advice out there that tells you to build a world, and then there's so much advice that says that doesn't matter. All you need is to go viral, right? Like. Like you scroll. And we see all sorts of different things all the time. And I. I guess I'm just adding my voice to that whole landscape, which is that from my experience, because I've tried it both ways, right? And I'm in the middle of it. I'm sharing my lessons, like, along my journey, just raw with you guys. And I know that, like, when I was trying for the singles game, I was comparing myself. I was down on myself. You kind of never win because if something doesn't stick in a matter of seven days, you're on to the next. Even 14 days, or however long your singles window is, you're on to the next and it's depressing. And then you feel like you're wasting time, and then what do you do? You stop. And I didn't just see it in me. I see it in so many artists out there. We cannot keep going if we don't have any fuel moving us forward. And what is the fuel? The fuel is the evidence of progress. The fuel is the evidence of progress. So creating a cohesive project with a vision and something you want to see, say, and then making that music first and taking the time off from promotion to focus on making that music and making that project, then putting your focus into the promotion of that project and making it cohesive, then you can drop it as singles, right? Then you can do the whole thing. Play the algorithm, play the games that you need to play, but don't do it at the expense of creating evidence of progress for yourself. Once you create a visual style and you create a world around what you're trying to say, it doesn't even have to be that deep. You guys just make a couple key decisions and stick to it. Like, for me deciding on a color palette, okay, I'm playing with this concept of American Dream, American Tarot. Let's go with this color palette of, like, red, white, and blue, but, like, not spot on, right? So it's like, kind of this, like, burgundy. Burgundy maroon. For the red, it's the. This champagne cream for the white, and it's this light blue that was in the sky of our desert photo shoot for the blue. And we play with, like. We play with that in and out. We have a lot of, like, desert landscapes, mountain landscapes, America with those, like, you know, wide open spaces and the open road and that kind of imagery. And we're going in the music video for this kind of, like, middle America scene in a. In a. Like, a Midwestern house and. And a little bit of a vintage throwback styling vibe in my hair. And I suddenly, you know, just a few decisions, and suddenly my entire Instagram looks like a world away of what it looked like before, because everything is kind of in that theme. Okay? So it actually. It does not. Does not have to be so difficult, and it doesn't have to be permanent, and you don't have to feel like, well, I can't decide because I like so many things, because this is the chatter in my head for so long, you guys. I could never decide because I like so many things, and this was my excuse. Excuse to never figure it out and never get specific. And it's like, just. Just make some decisions for now. It can be this year. It can be the next six months. Then recreate when you want to do your next thing. It doesn't have to be forever, but just know that you're working on something for now. Okay? The other thing that I'm doing right now that I'm so, so, so, so, so, so, so excited about is this concept of playing American Dream and American Tarot, which is basically all my songs represent some different. Different aspect of what it feels like to live in America today. Especially from. Well, obviously from my perspective, because I'm the one that's writing these and sharing this music, but from my perspective as the daughter of immigrants and what America did represent and what it represents now and how it feels to be living in this. How what I think is a very chaotic time in this country. And, you know, so all the songs are various elements of that idea. And it's just exciting because then it's like they always say, you're most creative when you have constraints. You're most creative when you have a box to play in. If you have the entire world at your fingertips. It's gonna be too hard to be creative because you have no constraints. It's counterintuitive when a lot of people start off in a creative journey. You think, no constraints will constrict my creativity. But no, every creative knows that constraints are actually what increases creativity, because then you know what tools you're playing with and how big your playpen is. Right? And so, similarly, now I'm. I know that I'm now playing in this visual desert Americana landscape, along with this commentary about what it feels like to be a daughter of immigrants in America today and what it looks like and my thoughts on it and my emotions around it and all of the different energies and archetypes embodied in it. And so that's my. That's my sandbox. And, like, so just create, you know, instead of even thinking about it, like, world building. And your artist project has to be a whole nother universe that you're inviting people to, like. Why don't you just think of it in this way? If you're having trouble with this, think of it in the way of just creating a sandbox for yourself for the next year. What sandbox are you playing in for the next year? That's it. That's it. You can change it. It can evolve. Right? And it will evolve, and it should evolve. So I just wanted to share this because, again, I've never felt better about the progress that I'm making. And do I think everything's perfect about what I just released? No, of course not. Do I sometimes listen back and think, oh, I wish I had sung this differently, and I wish I had thought about doing that and made that creative choice instead? Yes, that's always going to be there, but at least I see evidence of progress. And what is that evidence of progress? It is our fuel, and so that fuel will keep us going. So create a creative timeline and sandbox for yourself where you can see evidence of progress and let that evidence of progress keep you going. Do not, I beg you, if you're struggling, do not keep playing the singles game. Do not keep taking in every single person's advice from the Instagram ads that are fed to you on the. On the hour, every hour or less than, right? And instead, create your own sandbox. Tune everything out, and then playing it, post in it, and be a creator and not a consumer. With that, I'm gonna let you go. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you next week for another interview. Love you guys. Bye,