Ideal timelines are a hoax

“I heard this song and thought of you.” 💘

Not because I’m in love with you (although I very platonically AM).

Or because I love Taylor Swift and Keith Urban (although I most certainly DO).

But because I distinctly remember seeing Taylor Swift as the opening act FOR Keith Urban in 2009. 

If you hadn’t seen it happen, you’d be like, “whaaat Taylor Swift was EVER an OPENING ACT?”

Seems like she was born selling out stadiums, but we know better.

It’s important to note that Taylor opening for Keith was normal for the time. She was right on pace for the natural progression of a standard music career.

Hit single ➡️ small venues playing short sets ➡️ maybe another single or 2 ➡️ become an opening act for someone bigger ➡️ lots of other little things and years before you eventually can headline your own tour…

And that’s if everything goes right.

Perfect!

I wish I had a photo of me and my mom at the concert in Atlanta, but I’m sure it lives with dozens of others from the night imported directly from a digital camera into a MySpace album that was undoubtedly titled “I WaNNA lOVe sOMBOdy LiKE U'“

Anyways the part that really made me think of you is Taylor’s career timeline.

It reminded me that time matters…. And it doesn’t. 

What matters a lot more than time is intensity. 

It’s common and beautiful when a once-opening-act becomes equally as popular as the star they opened for back in the day. But you don’t often see the opener reach that level of popularity and then blow past it and keep scaling until they are lightyears ahead of virtually everyone.

Had Taylor stayed on pace for a “standard music career,” she would have had a couple great tours and rode off into the sunset only to be seen as a guest on The Voice or the occasional red carpet 15 years later.

I’m really glad she didn’t. I’m really glad her music career passed “standard” about 6 albums, 4 tours and billions of dollars ago.

I don’t know who told her that she should keep her blinders on and keep going. Maybe she almost slowed down when she saw that she had been in the game 10 years and was hitting “industry standard” numbers for that amount of time. I don’t know who hid the statistics from her that show how difficult it is to release a second album that is even half as good as your first. Shoutout to whoever kept hiding them so we could enjoy 8 more platinum records after the first 2.

I want you to look at other people’s journeys and be inspired, but knowing that it’s nothing but a suggestion. An account of how someone else did it. Someone who isn’t you.

Reaching $20 million in your business, your podcast being top 10 on the charts, changing your body composition, hitting 1M subscribers on your newsletter, getting the promotion… 

All of them could take you awhile. AND they might not take you as long as you think.

You can still “earn your stripes” and arrive ahead of schedule. 

The questions you have to ask yourself are:

How quickly am I willing to fail?

How often am I willing to learn potentially hard lessons?

If you answer “fast” and “often” and really mean it - there is no ideal timeline you need to concern yourself with.

You’re already not inDUStry StaNDarD. Don’t go as far as you think you’re supposed to go. Go as far as you can.

I would say the sky is the limit but how do we even know that?

Xo, The Salesgirls