If you have started a business you know how much work and effort it takes. For example to start a restaurant you have to be there and work for years before you get profit and get it rolling so much that you can take time off and let other people work for you.

This effort is mainly the reason it’s a certain kind of people that are fit to do this. Many are having a good life going to work get paid and have their time off. And that is okay, but as an artist, you have to expect to throw in, even more, effort than the usual company owner.

How much work that is are hard to grasp. Literally, it means that you have to take your work before everything else. You are gonna miss out your best friends birthday. That family reunion that you do every year, just forget it. Even miss your grandmothers funeral. It’s really hard and unforgiven.

Having a relationship is really hard, you have to have a partner that is very understanding. There is a reason why people get together in bands even though the labels don’t like it since it can be problems if you separate and still have to work with each other. Just this week I heard stories about how people had to choose between the partner and the career.

The thing I noticed is though that people get this information they still think they can compromise. Sure you need your day job to survive before the career takes off. And if you have a sucky job that is usually not a problem to discard before a gig. The problem I see is when the artist has another job like backgrounds singer, musician for hire, working on a music related job like on a PRO, but try to get a solo career. Many times they pick the paid job before the dream, mainly because they like the job but still is not satisfied.

I usually say that the career is over when you start saying no to shows or development.