Business wisdom from.... Carly Simon !

I found an interesting article online.... It's called "How Lyrics Work" by Carly Simon. Carly Simon is a well-known singer-songwriter - her best known song is probably "You're So Vain". She also sang "Nobody Does It Better" (for the James Bond film, "The Spy Who Loved Me".)

One of the things she says about writing lyrics is:

I am continually asking myself, "Who is my audience?" If I am writing only to please myself, then why bother to record a song and then try to sell the recording? I think there needs to be a balance between writer and audience. A kind of compromise, a complicity, a nod and a wink. My best songs have an inherent, tacit understanding of this compromise–like the yellow line down the middle of a country road: you don’t watch it, but you know it’s there.

When I read that, I thought.... wow, business is like that.

If you're in business just to please yourself, your chances of being successful are slim.

It's true that some people do run businesses purely to please themselves. A few of them even succeed - but many of those who run businesses just to please themselves end up failing.

On the other hand, if you're not interested and enjoying what you're doing, your chances of being successful can be reduced too. That's because you won't have the passion to put in the energy required to succeed!

The best place is probably the "middle ground" - like Carly Simon says about lyrics. Some place in the middle - where you are pleasing your "audience", which means your customers, and you are pleasing yourself too!

Well.... That's a thought that struck me, when I read Carly Simon's words.

Maybe it's not a coincidence.... After all, successful singer-songwriters are essentially self-employed businesspeople too!

- Dien Rice


"How Lyrics Work" by Carly Simon