We all want our recognition. You create something that you are proud of and no one is even commenting or give feedback, really nothing. Then two weeks later the whole feed explodes by someone doing half what you did and get all the spotlight.

Of course, you feel enraged. Why the spotlight on this? You get angry and really want to tell the world that what you did is even bigger and better.

My whole career has been that way. I can create the biggest showcase on the biggest festival in the world and they expose some indie label that does bad DIY experiment in the next town. I placed music in the biggest commercials and movie for over five years, then they spotlight that one indie label got one placement in one reality soap in Denmark.

Then they had a panel about how to get on showcase festivals. Since I have done most showcase festivals, even been speaker and VIP guest on most of them and every year gives over 50 artists the chance to go aboard, wouldn’t be interesting to have me on that panel. Hell no, instead they take five people that just place some bands on the Swedish showcase festival that got bankruptcy last year.

Or the speech about getting on to the radio. I had the most played indie song that year. They took a label that had a song on rotation for two weeks to speak.

In the beginning, I was really angry around this. The whole industry was more or less ignoring what I was doing. But I let my frustration going on to more creative stuff. I started to get on to bigger things, bigger meetings. Now when they still are on that low level it doesn’t become me that much and I have created something that is bigger than life in many eyes.

I guess the recognition will come, but I guess by then I don’t need it. the question if I’m strong enough to just say no when they ask me to get there?

This is what every artist will also get through in their career. I get so many parallels around it and it’s part of it. You will never be big in your own eyes, and when you get that recognition it really doesn’t matter. But one advice is to channel the frustration to do greater things.