Destination Workbook for Your Guitar-Related Business or Career – Chapter One

Your Vision for the Next Level (Free)

Jun 17, 2024

ENJOY THIS FREE CHAPTER. Additional chapters are available now and released regularly until completed. For paid subscribers only.

The Destination Workbook is a compilation of threaded chapters on a range of topics developed over the years. You’ll also find some of this same material in The Value Shot podcast, which you can listen to right here on GBW. These two vehicles support each other, but you may find one more useful than the other. Keep in mind… everything is connected here.

Vision

I’m sure that most, if not all of you at one point or another, have seriously thought about taking your guitar-related business or career to the so-called Next Level. You may not have used those exact words but I’m guessing you know what I mean. And for sure, there are lots of folks out there willing to tell you how to accomplish that goal utilizing at least as many different methods and plans for success. Many of those efforts are likely to be thick and detailed. So, I would like to offer you my first bit of advice right out of the gate: Don’t make a decision based on thickness (or details).

Keep in mind, much of what I’m about to tell you I’ve learned myself over the years from others, and in many cases, I’ve integrated it with my own thoughtful components. So, let’s dig right in.

The first thing that needs to be present when initiating a move to the next level is Vision (no yawns just yet please). And keep in mind, it’s a personal thing. You can listen to others and their ideas or vision, but in the end, it must come from your own thinking. It must be your vision if you are leading the way (and you should be). You’ll need to see yourself in the vision, living the vision, operating in the vision as though it is already happening. That should be your starting point.

A key element in this process is clarity. The vision must be clear to you. But here’s a word of caution: It doesn’t have to be exact in terms of all the things that need to happen for the vision to come to fruition. The vision itself may change and evolve over time. And, so we must see it as part of something even bigger – something I often refer to as the Destination.

You may not be as limited as you think, but the fact that you believe in your limitations is, of course, limiting.

Let’s take a simple example to illustrate this. And again, keep in mind that this example may not relate to something you are currently doing but you can just make the appropriate substitutions.

I’ll just pick something out of the blue, like guitar building for example. And let’s say, for the moment, you are running a one-person shop. It could be 5 or 10 or more, but let’s keep it simple!

Now, in your unique case, you may be feeling limited. You can only do so much with your time. You want to produce more. You want to make a better living. You want to build something unique and different, but you can’t do it under your perceived limitation. Notice I said perceived. You may not be as limited as you think, but the fact that you believe in your limitations is, of course, limiting. So, you’re going to have to work at losing that notion to get past it. And I know, easier said than done, but just keep it in mind.

So, first things first. Start visualizing the circumstances, the setting, and the activity that’s going on at your next level. Maybe it’s an expanded shop, additional people working with you, possibly a partner or affiliation. Or maybe it’s having more capital to work with. That can make a big difference if it’s used productively.

Also, I would suggest making regular notes about your vision. That takes discipline, but I can tell you that if you document your thoughts on a regular basis in whatever way works for you, you’ll be grateful when you discover you’ve forgotten that critical idea or thought you had a while back. Again, this is easier said, but worthy of repeating. And I’ll tell you why in a moment.

As I said, the next level for you, as you envision it, may turn out to be something completely different in the end. It’s part of the bigger Destination that is always defined in a more general way. Sometimes it’s about attaining a lifestyle, financial security, market position, or whatever. Getting to the next level is usually an important, but incremental part of that bigger journey. So, as we are looking at our vision for the next level, it’s a good idea to make sure it will play a positive role on the path to your larger Destination. That’s a critical check box.

From my own experience over many years, there seems to be a common desire, maybe human nature, to want to know in advance how things are going to work out. That’s tough to do, but in business, you’ll find that lenders, investors and other potential stakeholders want to know this. And they often want detailed business plans, projections, and more to give them confidence in the intended result.

In a talk I did a while back, I spoke about the Perils of the Expectation Game. I explained the difference between Primary (or operational) Expectations and Secondary (or variable) Expectations. Most business plans, formal or not, fall into the Secondary category. The outcomes are almost (if not always) variable. If we become too invested in narrowly defined expectations, we set ourselves up for all kinds of things that don’t end well. I’ll talk more about this later.

So, by having a good sense of our larger Destination, whatever that is for each of us, we can move deliberately forward to our next level with a clear vision, always keeping all our options open on how it’s going to unfold. The important thing is to keep moving in the direction of the vision. And you do that by keeping the vision in mind, documenting it as you go and by not getting in the way when the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place, as they will one way or another if you follow the basic ideas presented here.

Chapter One Actionables

Our Actionables are simply designed to reinforce and help you retain these ideas, many of which are repeated or integrated with new information in future chapters.

Quiz

The first thing that needs to be present when initiating a move to the next level is:
1. Collaboration
2. Stamina
3. Vision
4. Companionship
Your Vision must be clear to you, but it doesn’t have to be:
1. Marginal
2. Exact
3. Segmented
4. Frequent
As you are developing your Vision, it is important to:
1. Read many books on the subject
2. Discuss it with yourself in front of a mirror
3. Create a podcast about it
4. Document your thoughts
We must see the vision as part of something even bigger, which is the:
1. Marquee
2. Overview
3. Destination
4. Panorama

(Answers: 1=C, 2=B, 3=D, 4=C)

Activities

Try engaging in these simple exercises and keep them handy in a file (or whatever) for easy reference. Refer to them often and adjust or modify as needed.

Think about and describe what you believe to be your most important Destination as far as your career or business is concerned (in one sentence or less) as defined in Chapter One.
Describe in a simple (not very detailed) manner how you see things in general operating at your next level as if it were already happening.
State what you think to be the irrevocable first step you need to take to initiate your move to the next level.

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