Million Dollar Mindset: How To Make Your Success Inevitable

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Million Dollar Mindset #1 ¦ You Are Not Cut From A Different Cloth The number one reason why most rappers will never make it in this game is very simple: They don’t have the right beliefs and they don’t have the ability to take consistent action! In fact, anyone who’s really successful knows that success is an inner skill set. You don’t get successful by doing this or that. You bring success to whatever you’re doing. You are success, you don’t get success. The first thing that you have to realize is that you are not cut from a different cloth. What another human being can do, you can do. It’s that simple. We’re all born with the same human potential (unless you’re seriously genetically restricted). However, most people don’t know that. Or they might know it on an intellectual level, but they don’t believe it in their guts. Most people simply don’t get it. They don’t understand deep down in their guts that their favorite rappers and movie stars are simply normal dudes, just like they are. Guess what. If you’d hang out long enough with Bill Gates or Johnny Depp, you’d realize that they are just regular people like you. They are not cut from a different cloth. They don’t belong to some chosen tribe of “cool people”. They don’t have any superpowers, neither did they necessarily have better conditions when they started their career. In fact, most successful people had fucked up conditions… Master Consistency And Success Will Follow But still they’re doing something different than most other regular people in the world. They have a specific set of beliefs about themselves and the world and they take massive action towards their dreams on a daily basis. I really want to emphasize the “daily” in this whole process. Success is the result of consistent, daily action which slowly adds up to an amazing quality of life over a long period of time.

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Forget about getting put on by some record label or promoter. Fuck that! Don’t wait for other people to make something happen. NO one wants you to change yourself or have success. Not even your mum, because she’s afraid that you won’t call her. Not because all these people are intentionally being mean to you, but simply because they’re too busy with their own petite problems and limiting beliefs. Stop Avoiding Pain, Learn To Be Miserable Forget about launching “one big” promotion blast, project or campaign that will magically make you successful. Success simply doesn’t work that way. If success was that easy, everyone would have it. There’s a reason why only 1% of all people really master their craft and live their dreams on a day to day basis. The universe only rewards consistency and it ignores single actions. Success is a slow, painful and incremental process. Yes, it’s painful because you’ll have to change who you are. You’ll have to work your ass off every day, even on the days you don’t feel like working. You’ll have to get out of your comfort zone on a consistent basis and always lean in to your fears. You will want to quit. Your mind will give you a million reasons not to do what you ought to do in order to become successful. You will be lying in the dirt many times, with blood and sweat all over your body, and tears of surrender in your eyes. Every path to success involves massive pain. Success belongs to those who persevere that pain. No pain, no gain… Take Action Despite Of Your Emotions The reason why successful people are successful is because they’ve been beaten down over and over again, lying in the dirt, almost giving up hope, but they got up again and gave it another try. Successful people work incredibly hard and they do it despite of how they’re emotions. Amateurs take action whenever they feel good, they have to rely on good emotions to act. Successful people just do whatever is needed, because they know it’s the right thing to do. One day they might feel like total crap and on another day they may feel amazing. For the successful artist there’s no difference. He’s on his path of mastery, moving towards the direction of his dreams on a daily basis and that’s what gives him a deep feeling of contentment.

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I added the short motivational video of “J Cole” to this blog post to emphasize the principles I’m talking about here. What “J Cole” made happen, you can make happen. He worked a normal job. Instead of coming home and going to sleep, he went to the studio and worked on his music every day. He mastered consistency. He developed his personal power, his ability to take action every day despite of his emotions and the feedback he was getting from the outside world. There’s no excuse. What “J Cole” did, you can do. You’re both cut from the same cloth. Start working hard. Now. Get used to feeling miserable. Go out there and make it happen.

# 2 ¦ Societys Quick Fix Mentality Everyone wants a quick fix for their problem: If they want to lose weight, they’re looking for the next miraculous diet pill. If they want more money they’ll buy scamy “become-a-millionaire-over-night” programs. If they want to get successful with women, they think that some magic pick up line will do the job. And musicians are always looking for a viral quick fix. Instead of slow and incremental growth, they want instant success without having to invest a lot of hard work. If only they had the right video, song or idea that will do the job for them. Having a perfect video, song or idea that will go viral is a nice little fairytale. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it’s a bit like winning the lottery. There’s no guarantee for success, in fact, odds are that you will not create the next viral hit and get successful over night. Focus On Transformation And Consistency If you want to make success inevitable, you have to approach things differently. You have to realize that we live in a quick fix society. Everyone is looking for instant gratification. Push a button and then get a result. Unfortunately this is not how the world works. This is not how winning is done. Instead, you have to realize that success is a continuous, slow and steady process of transformation. Success in any area of life comes from habits and consistency.

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Or as Will Smith puts it: “You don’t set out to build a wall, you lay down one brick as perfectly as you can every day… and soon you have a wall”. Most people want a finished house but they don’t want to put in the years of work to build that house. They don’t understand that you have to start with the foundation and then slowly build your way up to the roof top. Take this as a metaphor for going viral: Most artists instantly want a music video with a million views. They want the finished house before it has been built. They’re looking for a quick fix. But there is no quick fix. Be Smart And Put In The Hard Work In fact, the reason why most people are not successful is because they’re constantly looking for the next quick fix. But no magic pill on this world will ever give them the desired result. So eventually they give will up and rationalize why they failed. Or they will try to find the next quick fix, just to find out that this one didn’t work out either. So instead of getting caught up in societys quick fix mentality, start focusing on taking massive action and building habits. In one or two years you’ll be watching your one million views video on Youtube while others are still figuring out how to create the next viral hit and have less than one thousand views. Don’t fall for the viral lie. Put in the hard work.

#3 ¦ Quit Instant Gratification One of the main differences between humans and animals is the concept of delayed gratification. At least this is what recent studies in human psychology and neurosciences are telling us. You’re Not An Animal, Use Your Brain Animals act upon instinct, they don’t have the ability to reflect on what they’re doing. They don’t have a concept of time in a way that humans do. Animals don’t plan. An animal will always take the shortest route to reach gratification. An impulse, or in other words the possibility for instant gratification will always lead to an immediate reaction. The animal will instantly go for it. This has been tested many times.

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However, as a human being we have a unique potential. We’re able to go through a drought period and get delayed gratification. This ability is a great gift and it has lead many people to amazing results and success in their lives. As human beings we have the possibility to work hard for many months or even years, take decisive action and stay on our chosen path even though we might have no results whatsoever. Our human brains and our neurological system allows us to do what animals can’t do. And as soon as you’re aware of this, you can actually start using this amazing thing between your ears (yes, your brain dummy) and reach ultimate success. How To Get Real Long Term Results All you have to do is take on a long term perspective. It’s not easy. But it’s simply your own choice: Are you going to watch a movie or are you going to work on your new album? Are you going to surf the internet or are you going to practice freestyling? Are you going to smoke weed or are you going to do promotional work for your career as a rapper? Watching a movie, surfing the internet or smoking weed are forms of instant gratification. We get an instant boost of good emotions without having to do something for it. Most people don’t know how to use their brain, they simply haven’t cultivated enough willpower to choose delayed gratification instead of instant gratification. Let’s be real here: If you watch a movie every day, surf the internet for hours, check out Facebook every 5 minutes and smoke weed all day long, what kind of reward will you get in 4 years time? None. You’ll be a dumb screw up (don’t get offended) and instead of growing as a person and artist you’ll be getting a bit more miserable every year. Instant gratification leads to long term failure and being unhappy. Putting in work, pushing to your limits, being proactive and getting shit done will make you happy in the long term. You might not get that instant stimulation that a movie, drug or distraction is giving you. But in the long term you’ll get real results. By accepting and understanding delayed gratification, you’ll actually be able to live your dreams. Just imagine what would happen if you sat down and worked on your music every day instead of surfing the internet? Imagine how that would stack every day, every week, every month and every year. You’ll be a fucking beast. However, you may not see any results or any immediate payoff for a long time. It may take you months or even years until you get the payoff. But believe me, if you persevere and 6

understand the concept of delayed gratification, you will reach success. You will get the ultimate outcome. And you’ll be really happy. Not some fake, surface level happiness. Stop being some dumb animal. Start being a human being and use your unique potential. Go for the big things in life, even if they may come delayed. Fuck instant gratification.

#4 ¦ The Truth About Talent Most people just don’t get it. They think that success is a natural side product of talent. There’s people that have it and others that don’t. It’s almost like a huge glass wall is separating the successful people from the unsuccessful people. However, in reality it is not talent that breeds success but hard work and skills. Why Being Talented Is Often A Pitfall Talent is a natural gift, you can either have it or not. You may be talented for one thing but totally untalented for something else. You can’t influence your talent, it’s just been given to you. And it’s up to you to do something with it, to cultivate that talent and develop it into a skill through hard work and consistent action. However, you don’t need to have a talent to build a specific skill. In fact, a lot of people that suck really bad at something in the beginning, end up being the ones that really master it in the long term. The talented person is over confident, he thinks he has this great gift from god. That’s why talented people often aren’t used to working really hard. They never had to work hard in the first place, so why should they push themselves to the next level? A lot of talented people stagnate in life, they simply rely too much on their talent. They become “yes” men, flooded with positive feedback from the outside world and not really having to do something for it. This makes them very unfocussed and many get trapped by their own talent. They fall off the path of mastery.

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On the other hand, there’s the semi-talented or untalented artist. Most of them are hypnotized by social conditioning into believing that success is some god given thing, something that’s reserved only for the talented ones among us. However, there’s also the smart untalented artist. He knows the difference between success and skill. He knows that at the end of the day talent doesn’t mean shit in this world. He knows that he has to work really hard in order to achieve his goals. He knows that in 4 years time, if he puts in the work every day, he’ll be 1000 miles further on the path of mastery than the talented artist. How To Reach Ultimate Success Without Talent Which one of them are you? Even if you’re the most talented rapper on earth, talent only gets you so far. Success belongs to the ones that work hard every day and have a love and true passion for what they do. So instead of asking yourself if you are talented or not, start asking some better questions. Start asking yourself what would happen if you’d put in one hour of focused work and practice every day for 4 years. Ask yourself how much love and passion you really have for rap. Ask yourself what your ultimate dream is. And if you finally decide that you were put here to make rap music, then go out and make it happen regardless of talent. Choose your path and then walk the fucking path. Be a warrior. With a killer instinct. As long as you choose your path and commit to the journey, you’ll will reach ultimate success. You will be walking the path of mastery while all talented rappers around you are being little crybabies. And soon people around you will start telling you: “Man, you’re so talented”. Little do they know…

# 5 ¦ Become A Professional In his book “The War of Art” Steven Pressfield, world renowned author and screen writer, talks about how you can break through your internal blocks and win your inner creative battles as an artist. He himself had no success for many years, living in a

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camper and trying to make it as a screen writer and author. He had no money, no fame. Now he’s a big fish, known all over the world. You might know him from “The Legend Of Beggar Vance”, the bestselling book that was made into a film. Will Smith and Matt Damon are part of the cast. But how did he get there? In “The War of Art”, a must read for every upcoming artist, he describes how to turn pro as an artist. The Difference Between Amateurs And Professionals Most artists, including upcoming rappers, are amateurs. They only work on their music when they’re feeling good, their album is finished 99% but they just can’t finish that project, they wait for the “muse” to come in order to sit down and write new songs. On the other hand, the professional works on his music every single day, no matter how he feels. The professional plays hurt, even if he’s sick, tired and exhausted he will sit down and stick with his commitment. The professional is aware of his internal resistance and can detach from it, which enables him to beat it and get the work done nevertheless. The professional loves the process, he’s aligned with his deepest purpose, and he doesn’t care too much about the fruits of his labor. And more than anything else, the professional knows how to be miserable. Being Professional Means Living In Hell And Surviving Here’s what Steven Pressfield has to say: “The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, selfdoubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like a marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.” This may sound pretty intense. But being a professional is intense. If you want extreme results in your life, you have to be willing to live an extreme life. You have to put in extreme amounts of hard work. And you have to push it to the limit, every single day. If you’ve been wondering why you’re not getting the results that you want and why you’re still an unknown artist, here’s the answer: You’re still an amateur. You haven’t turned pro yet. Your internal resistance is beating you down over and

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over again. However, if you want to win the war of art and really make it in the rap game, you have to step up and turn pro. How To Be Stronger Than Your Internal Resistance According to Pressfield it’s our internal resistance that’s holding us back as artists. But what is resistance? It’s the voice in our head that is trying to shove us away, distract us and prevent us from doing our work. It’s the enemy within that will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It’s fueled by fear. The fear of failure, rejection and more than anything else the fear of success. Yes, that’s right. Resistance gets stronger and stronger the nearer we get to reaching our goal and finishing a project. It will try to beat us down over and over again. The professional learns to detach from his internal resistance and push through his internal blocks by using his willpower. The only way to beat resistance is through willpower. As soon as you hear that negative voice in your head, give yourself a boost of willpower and just get the work done. Be stronger than resistance, but don’t try to get rid of it. It will always accompany you. Embrace it. The more resistance you feel for a specific task, the more important that task is for your growth as an artists. Where you break through resistance, there’s growth. I really want to encourage you to get your copy of Steven Pressfields “The War of Art”. If there’s anything near to a bible for artists, it’s definitively that book. Your productivity will go up 500-1’000 %, at least that’s what happened for me after I read the book. Really trust me on this one. You can buy a copy on Amazon. On that note, go out and win the war of art…

# 6 ¦ The Power Of Habits One of the most powerful things I learned from world renowned marketer Eben Pagen is this: “If it’s not a habit, you don’t have it.” When I heard this for the first time I was like “yeah, what ever”. It’s just a cute sounding personal development slogan. However, almost half a year later I have to 10

tell you that this is one of the most important things you have to learn as an upcoming rap artist. If you’re not successful as a rapper and you’re not getting any real results from what you’re doing, you’ve probably not implemented the right habits yet. The quality of your life and your success in the music business is a result of your daily thoughts and actions, which stack on top of each other and create the reality you’re living in right now. Think of it like this: If you smoke cigarettes 5 days a week, but on Monday and Tuesday you don’t smoke, you are still a smoker. Just cutting out the smokes for one or two days won’t change the fact that you’re addicted and breaking down your health. The same is true for success. Just because you stop being lazy once or twice a week and work on your album for some hours won’t make you a successful rapper. You’re still a lazy person and not a successful one. You’re still an amateur and not a professional. Why? Because if it’s not a habit, you don’t have it. The universe rewards consistency. So if you want to get real success, you have to master consistency. Mastering Consistency Through Habits In order to master consistency, you have to implement empowering habits into your life. So lets define consistency real quick: Consistency equals what you do on a daily basis. And what you do on a daily basis equals your habits. It’s that simple. So to ultimately get success in any area of your life, you have to take control of your habits. You have to break free from your old conditioned habits and replace them with new and empowering ones. Mastering your habits means taking control of your day to day actions. If you’re able to implement success bringing habits into your life, your success will be on auto-pilot. You’ll be taking massive action towards the direction of your dreams, it will just be normal. Instead of watching movies, smoking weed, surfing the internet, watching YouTube videos, hanging out on Facebook and so on, you’ll be working hard on your new projects. Here are some examples of empowering, success bringing habits for rappers: - Freestyle every day for 30 minutes, this one is huge - Work on new songs every day, write some verses, record some takes - Update your online artist profiles daily with new and valuable content

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- Contact a record label, promoter or producer every day and build a network - Go on the streets, talk to strangers and try to sell 1 copy of your album per day - Read books about the music industry, auto biographies of successful rappers and so on every day Can you imagine the amount of success you’ll have when you execute these tasks on a daily basis. Even if you just do some of these things for one or two month, you’ll be absolutely amazed by the results you’re going to get. As soon as you start implementing the right kind of habits into your daily routine, your life will change on a profound level. You’ll build so much macro momentum and become such a productive person, that success will inevitably follow. Stack Your Habits On Top Of Each Other It’s a good idea to focus on implementing only one new habit per month. If you’re going for more, you’ll easily get overwhelmed and you might quit. So use all of your willpower and focus to implement one new habit every month. You could start practicing freestyle rap every day for 30 minutes. Just do it every single day for one month. After about 30 days it will just be normal. It’ll be easier to keep doing it than to quit. That’s when you know it has become a habit. Now just keep doing it every day the next month, and the next month, and the next month and so on. Every month, implement a new habit while keeping up the old habits. If you keep doing this, you’ll start stacking empowering habits on top of each other. This is when your life really starts to change. This is when you become a professional. And success will haunt you in ways that you’ve never anticipated. Whenever you’re focusing on a new habit, make sure to execute it as early as possible in the day. If you can do it right after getting up in the morning, do it. Or do it right after getting back from work. Literally force yourself to do it every day, no matter how you feel. No matter how tired and exhausted you are, burn that last reserve tank of energy. Just get it done. It’s also a good idea to give yourself cues and little helpers: If you want to freestyle every day, you could put your microphone in front of your computer screen. So every time you come home after working, you’ll immediately see that mic on your desk. It will remind you of your commitment and

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stop you from jumping right in front of the computer and surfing the internet or some other reactive bullshit. Set up little cues that remind you of your dreams and goals. This will make it easier to push through even if you feel shitty. When implementing new habits into your daily routine, I want you to focus on the most success bringing ones first. Start with your strengths, with the habits that have the most long term payoff. Take some seconds to think about which activity will bring you the most success, if you execute it every single day for the rest of your life. As soon as you’ve got it, you know what your highest leverage habit is. This is your most powerful and important habit and you should start to implement this one. For example: Working on your music every single day is probably a higher leverage habit than reading books about success and personal development. After you’ve implemented the most potent habit, move on to the next one and to the next one. You can keep expanding and improving the quality of your life this way. So go out and start implementing one new habit tomorrow. No excuses. Figure out what it is. And do it every day. For a month.

#7 ¦ Embrace Pain Lately I’m very fascinated by the concept of pain. In modern society pain is perceived as something negative, it’s something you should avoid. However, this mindset is one of the biggest success killers there is. The only way we can grow as a person and as an artist is by getting out of our comfort zone. Whenever we’re inside our comfort zone, we’re doing what we’ve always done. And if we do what we’ve always done, we have to expect to get what we’ve always gotten. However, when we leave our little safe space and tap into the world of the unknown, we’re confronted with fear, resistance and a feeling of uncertainty. In other words, we feel pain.

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Where There’s Pain, There’s Growth I’m a big believer in pain. I think pain is a huge opportunity and learning to deal with pain and sticking it out is the only way to long term success in any area of life. Most people have a frightening small comfort zone, because they’re trying to avoid pain all day long. They don’t want to attack their fears, they are not able to push to the next level and enter the realm of the unknown. However, if you want to become really successful as a rapper you have to learn to push beyond your comfort zone over and over again. You have to be willing to go through massive pain. No pain, no gain. Where there’s pain, there’s growth. Think of it like going to the gym. You work out really hard and push through those last reps, you want to give up, you can’t take it anymore. Sweat is pouring down your body, your heart is pounding. You feel pain, baby. But it doesn’t stop there. The real pain comes after the work out when you feel those aching muscles. However, the only reason you’re feeling that pain is because your muscles have been challenged and pushed beyond their limit. They’re growing bigger and stronger in order to have more power next time. So pain is simply an indicator of growth. The same thing is true for any area of success. You have to challenge yourself, you have to go beyond what you thought was possible. You have to get out of your comfort zone over and over again. And whenever you’re pushing beyond the limits of your old self, you’ll feel that sensation of pain. You’ll feel miserable. That means you’re on the path to success. Real Life Challenges Involve Pain And Discomfort Whenever you’re feeling pain, you know you’re on the right path. You’re doing the right thing. The amount of pain something is giving you can be seen as an indicator for how important something is for your growth as a person and as an artist. It’s a very simple equation: The more you get out of your comfort zone, the more pain you’ll experience, the more growth will take place. As a rapper you’ll have tons of situations where you have to get out of your comfort zone. Here are just a few of them:

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- Getting in front of hundreds or even thousands of people and doing live performances - Consistently calling and contacting record labels, promoters and other industry interns - Working hard every single day on your music and promotion, I mean literally every day - Releasing that album although the voice in your head is saying: “This is not good enough” - Investing money for expensive music videos, not knowing if it’ll be a total flop or if it will get views at all If you’re a serious artist you know about the challenges I’m talking about here. If I would ask you if you could work on your music every single day for one month, what would you say? Most people will answer with a simple “of course”. However, most people talk a big game but when it comes to taking action they don’t follow through. Honestly, try working on your music for an hour every single day for one month. Not just figuratively, I mean actually sit down every fucking day and work one hour on your music. Don’t leave out one single day. Work, even if you have no time and feel miserable. You’ll be astonished how hard it actually is. Go Beyond What You’re Capable Of Every Single Day Pushing it really hard as an artist, going beyond what you’re capable of every single day, involves a lot of pain. That’s simply because your emotional muscle is being stretched and attacked, just like your physical muscles in the gym. If you’re used to sleeping 8 hours a day and decide to only sleep 6 hours a day for a month, you’ll feel a lot of pain. You’re going beyond your comfort zone, you’re being stretched as a person. But after a month, this will be your new comfort zone. It will be normal. Your body and thoughts have adjusted. However, while the stretching is happening, you’ll feel miserable. If you decide to work on your music every day for one hour and you’re not used to working that hard, you’ll feel a lot of resistance and pain. You’ll want to give up after a week or two. Your energy is drained. You feel like you can’t take it anymore. But if you push through and actually stick out the pain, you’ll reach a new level of success.

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Instead of avoiding pain, I want you to embrace pain. Whenever you feel like you can’t do something, I want you to step up and do it. Be aware of the pain and feel it. But don’t give it too much attention. Let it be there just like a pebble in your shoes. It’s kind of annoying, but after a while you just start accepting it. And suddenly you realize that you’re walking the path to success. Realizing that you’re walking the path of mastery and going after your dreams will result in a profound feeling of happiness and contentment. Pain will stay there, but it will be outshined by the brightness of faith and purpose. On that note, whenever you feel pain, you know you’re on the right path. You know that you’re pushing it hard and that you’re growing. Make feeling uncomfortable your new comfort zone.

#8 ¦ Take Earned Breaks I’ve pointed out the importance of working hard and taking consistent action in order to achieve your goals. However, it’s also important to take earned breaks every now and then. As soon as you’ve reached your very last energy reserve, you know it’s time to lean back and take some time off. Push Through Your Last Energy Reserves And Then Chill Sometimes you work so hard that your energy gets massively drained, you’re sleep deprived and you start feeling sick. That’s when you’ve reached your last energy tank. Usually you can push it even further when you’ve reached that point, but if your body starts feeling sick and really exhausted you should take it as a sign to chill and lean back for a while. Now I’m not saying that you should push yourself to the point where you get physically and emotionally sick from doing to much work. But when you get sick, when you catch a cold, when you’re really exhausted, you know you’ve been working hard and it’s time for a break. Take some time for yourself, watch some movies, eat some great food and lean back. Take it easy and resign from beast mode for a while. You’ve earned it.

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Don’t Reward Yourself For Outcome, But For Taking Right Action But it’s also important to reward yourself while you’re working hard. Punish yourself for being a pussy and a lazy idiot, but also reward yourself when you’re pushing it hard and taking right action. Whenever you’ve really pushed through your fears and went through massive emotional or physical pain to reach the next level, reward yourself for it. Take some time to breathe and enjoy the feeling of successfully pushing through obstacles. Eat some good food, watch a cool movie or get some relaxing sleep. Just pick something that’s relaxing. I personally love to reward myself with good music, it’s my main reward system. Whenever I’ve really pushed myself beyond my limits and taken massive action, I lean back and listen to my absolute favorite music. I do that on purpose. I’ve set it up that I’m only allowed to listen to my two favorite bands when I’ve earned it. You can’t believe how sweet the feeling of achievement is when you do this: Imagine yourself walking down a hallway, your energy is drained from working hard and taking action like a maniac, but you’re happier than you could ever imagine. You know you took right action, you’ve beaten your internal resistance. You’ve pushed yourself. You took an important step towards achieving your goals. In your IPod your favorite band or artist starts to play, you’ve not listened to the song in a week or more. You’ve intentionally starved yourself. But now you listen to that awesome, incredible music. The feeling of achievement mixed with the reward of listening to your favorite band or artist will make you feel amazing. You’ll feel like god in that moment. The Simplest Reward: Lean Back And Do Nothing If you don’t like the idea of using your favorite music as a reward for your hard work, find something else. It can be food, watching a movie, sleeping longer than usually or anything else. Just make sure it’s something that doesn’t ruin your health or finances. It should be sustainable over long periods of time, you’ll want to reward yourself over and over again for taking the right actions in life. But as I already said in the beginning of this article: The simplest form of rewarding yourself is to lean back and take an earned break. It can be as simple as that. Just say to yourself: “For the rest of the day I’m going to do nothing.” Reload your batteries and loosen the grip of self discipline. And really enjoy it.

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Because tomorrow it’s time to work again, baby.

#9 ¦ Fuck Perfectionism A lot of people, especially artist and musicians, are perfectionists. But worse than that, they believe that this is something good. In my opinion this is a huge misconception. Perfectionism may look like a positive quality on the surface. But a perfectionist is mainly a person with a lot of fear. Perfectionism is the fear of failure and rejection, the fear of not being enough. The perfectionist can’t accept to fail. He needs to get validation from the outside world and he thinks he will achieve this by doing a perfect job. The perfectionist only thinks in terms of all or nothing. He’s an all-or-nothing person. Either he gets the job done 100% perfectly or he failed. There’s nothing in between. Doing a job 60%, 70%, 80% or 90% is a failure. His criteria for success is set so high and absolute that he can’t appreciate slow and incremental improvement or small victories. The perfectionist wants everything to go down smooth. He want’s to do his job so perfectly that it’s rejection free. He either gets it all or he gets nothing. The Destructive Symptoms Of Perfectionism What are some symptoms of perfectionism? Well first of all, most perfectionists have a hard time taking massive action. They can’t take action if they believe the result will only be 60%, 70% or 80% of the standard that they have set up for themselves. They’re always looking for absolute validation in the outside world. They also have a hard time viewing themselves positively, because they have set up a game for themselves that they can’t win. If you have standards that you can’t live up to, you have no standards at all. So being perfect is the worst standard you can have. Nothing is perfect. In fact, if there’s anything near perfection, it’s the art of not being perfect and accepting your failures and imperfections without judging them or having an ego around them.

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Learn To Embrace Failures And Mistakes Perfectionists have to understand that it’s enough to be ok. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing it poorly. This is very counter intuitive but every successful person knows this profound secret. I don’t care what you’re doing in your life but you will always make mistakes. So instead of setting up a standard that you can’t reach, just decide what you want to do in life and then go for it. Accept that it won’t be perfect and that it’s a bumpy road. You will make mistakes and fail over and over again, it’s a part of every journey. Don’t judge yourself. It’s not you who wants to be perfect, it’s your ego. And your ego is fueled by the fear of rejection and failure. In order to compensate for your fears and protect your self image, it creates this unreal standard called perfectionism. How To Cure Yourself From Perfectionism The reason why perfectionism is so dangurous is because it’s basically fear disguised as a positive quality. As an artist or musician you have to be aware of this. So what’s the cure for perfectionism? Basically you have to expose yourself to your fear of failure and rejection over and over again. Whenever you feel like something has to be perfect, be aware that your fear of failure and rejection is communicating with you. This is a great opportunity. Perfectionism points us to our fears. And our fears point us to what is most important for the growth of our souls. The more fear you have around something, the more important it is for your soul. Start allowing yourself to be ok. Most people, especially perfectionists, are expecting more of themselves than others are expecting from them. Most people don’t expect much of you at all. So stop trying to be perfect and just follow your path. Make as many mistakes as possible. Fail as much as you can. Every failure is a building brick for you success. So in the end, being imperfect is the foundation of success.

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#10 ¦ Be Outcome Detached The vision of you reaching your goal will get you started. But the vision of the kind of person that reaching this goal will make out of you is what’s going to make you follow through. In other words, the why is much more important than actually reaching the goal. Anthony Robbins used to say: “Making a million dollars only motivates you so much, but becoming the kind of person that can make and keep a million dollars is something totally different”. The same is true for any other area of your life. You have to realize that there is no ultimate prize out there. Just like the old buddhist wisdom teaches: The journey is the goal. Why There Is No Ultimate Prize Out There If you want to become successful as a rapper, you have to drop the idea that there is an ultimate prize out there. External results and outcomes will only motivate you so much. I believe that life, more than anything else, is a journey. A journey with many opportunities. You can choose which path you want to walk. If you’re really serious about becoming successful as a rapper, then choose it as your path. If you decide that this is what you’ve been put here for, go for it and walk the fucking path of mastery. Don’t do it for some external result or outcome. Do it because it’s the call of your soul. Do it because of the kind of person this journey will make out of you. A person that can stand on a stage in front of hundreds and thousands of fans. A person that can create music from within and share it with thousands or even millions of people in the world. A person that can deal with all the emotional ups and downs, all the love and hate, all the envy and talking behind your back. That’s the true prize. A deep feeling of knowing who your are and what you’re capable of. You’ll reach a profound level of happiness. Let Go Of The Outcome And It Will Start Chasing You All the external rewards will just be toys for you. They will come and they will go, but you won’t be emotionally attached to them. You will stay on your path in the good as

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well as in the bad times. That’s what mastery is all about. No amount of fans, hot chicks, money, cars or respect will ever make you truly happy. It’s just a pleasant bonus. Walking the path of mastery in itself is what is going to make you happy. It’s what grows your soul. The paradoxical thing is: The more you let go of the outcome and focus on the process, the faster and the more outcome you will experience. However, this is not a guarantee. But it’s a well known tendency in psychology. By focusing on the process and not the results, you’ll surrender to something greater. You’ll align yourself with your purpose and give yourself in the hands of your journey. By humbly walking the path of mastery, working hard every day and finding the joy in the process rather than in the outcome, something magical will happen. Your identity will change on a deep level. You will become what is called a successful person. And results will chase you. So always remember: “Process over outcome”. Become a true master at this profound art called rap. Start enjoying every part of your journey. The ups and the downs. It’s all part of the roller coaster ride.

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