Before I was a lawyer I was a music mogul.
OK, that might be a slight exaggeration. Despite my grandiose dreams I never did become the UK’s answer to Puff Daddy (as he then was) I aspired to be.
But I had a good run.
I spent 4 years making music, managing artists, and living a dual life of lavish industry parties and extreme brokeness.
Seriously, I made no money.
Anyway, a phrase you’d often hear in the business when an artist had their first taste of success was,,“The difficult second album.”
In this week's episode I talk about recreating success, and what to do when what got you here won't get you there.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
Before I was a lawyer I was a music mogul.
OK, that might be a slight exaggeration. Despite my grandiose dreams I never did become the UK’s answer to Puff Daddy (as he then was) I aspired to be.
But I had a good run.
I spent 4 years making music, managing artists, and living a dual life of lavish industry parties and extreme brokeness.
Seriously, I made no money.
Anyway, a phrase you’d often hear in the business when an artist had their first taste of success was,,“The difficult second album.”
In this week's episode I talk about recreating success, and what to do when what got you here won't get you there.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
When we've had a process that works, it can act like a kind of comfort blanket. We know we've been here before. We can do this again. We can just repeat whatever we have done previously. But when that's not working, you have to be prepared to adapt.
Ryan Spence:You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, use confidence, build courage so you can live life. Next I'm your host, ryan Spence, the big law dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, abacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now, with Brent, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lived. Hey, hey, welcome to episode 80 of the Triple C Project.
Ryan Spence:This is the second time I'm recording this episode of the podcast because for some reason, when I played back the first time, it recorded through some random mic somewhere and it just sounded like I was in an aircraft hangar. So, although perfection isn't my thing, as you know these podcasts are not meant to be perfect, but they're meant to give you the perfect message that I need to give you. At that time, I just thought I've got to record this again. So here I am. What doesn't help with recording again is I'm also struggling with allergies today. So my goal is to try to just record this episode without sneezing. Let's see if that happens. If I do sneeze, don't worry, I'll edit it out. There's no need to subject your ears to that. Anyway, if you listened to episode 79 last week, you'll know that I'm currently training for a 10K race my first race in around four years since I left Singapore and today my race number arrived, which is very exciting. Anyone who's done races will know it's all part of that build up. It all starts to build that excitement and the race is just over a week away. So, yeah, looking forward to that, although what isn't as exciting is that I haven't trained for about five days.
Ryan Spence:I actually went for a run this morning, but it's my first run in around five days, and the reason for that is my back. I've had issues with my back for years. It's just yeah, who knows what it is? And occasionally I'll get massages and get it stretched out and that kind of stuff. But I've never kind of got to the root cause of it.
Ryan Spence:Last weekend I was just out. I could barely move and it was my son's eighth birthday on Saturday, the weekend, so I had to kind of be out doing stuff, but it was. It was a real struggle and I was in some serious pain just getting in and out of my car. So I was like screw this time to get to the root of it, and I booked in with a chiropractor and it was fantastic. Immediately she knew what was going on, which matched what I already thought was going on through the sort of things I've learned about the anatomy in my yoga training. I had an idea and she kind of confirmed that for me and highlighted a couple of other areas as well. And also, I guess just as importantly, was like yeah, it's fine, we can work with this, we can solve it. So, yeah, that's kind of where we are.
Ryan Spence:But I managed to get out for a run today and recover around. It was cool. My back didn't give me too many issues. So I'm going to resume my schedule for the remaining days that I have pre-race and, yeah, for the race. Just get through it. That's the main thing. Enjoy it, get through it, no expectations.
Ryan Spence:So sharing that one to give you an update, but also because it leads into the subject of two days episode, because just because we've done something before, the process we followed before isn't necessarily going to get us the same success Now. I've run 10Ks before. I've run many different types of races before, but the process that I use to get me through those aren't necessarily going to get me through this process or get me to the same stage of this race, and that's it. I'm going to relate this to when I was in the music business. So if you've read my book, the Triple C Method, or you've listened to some of the earlier episodes of this podcast, you'll know that before becoming a lawyer, I was a music mogul. Well, music mogul is probably a little bit of a stretch, but that was my desire. That's my dream.
Ryan Spence:I wanted to be the UK's answer to Puff Daddy, as he was then known, diddy Pee-Ditty, now known as Love, I believe. But then he was Puff Daddy and he was the cool guy in New York signing fantastic acts, having hit records, starting them being in the videos, and that's what I wanted to do. That's what I wanted to live and so I found myself working at this small record label in London and I loved it. You know what I mean. I was in that world and I had a good run. I spent four years. I was making music, writing music, managing bands, living this dual life of lavish industry, parties of free alcohol and celebrities One of the things I'm going home at the night bus and basically being broke on fairly regular basis. So I made no money but I loved it. I loved the life that I had.
Ryan Spence:But anyway, the reason I'm talking about the music business is in the business there's a phrase that comes up when talking about artists who've had some success, and the phrase is the difficult second album. So what typically happens is an artist will be working away for years and years and years. Then they'll have a hit hit single, maybe, maybe another couple of singles, and then we'll release an album, have a hit album, and then they'll go out and they'll promote that album for maybe a year, 18 months or so, and then within that period there's sort of a tensions of the record company turned to the second album. We've got to capitalize on that success. So we've got to get that second album out quickly, and it's called the difficult second album because it's bloody difficult.
Ryan Spence:And the reason it's difficult is because the first album, the first project, encompasses years of ideas, of stories and of experiences. You've written it at a time when you didn't have any success, you didn't have the life that you have now, and so it just comes from a different place and many of this is almost written by a completely different person. And then you're expected to replicate the success of that first album in a fraction of the time, being a completely different person in a completely different space. And so your brain is like, what the fuck? Like what am I gonna write about? How do I do this? Because the process that got you to this success, this huge first album, isn't going to get you to the same success as the second time around, because you're a different person, in a different time and a different space.
Ryan Spence:Now, not to compare myself to multi-million-selling artists by an expression of imagination, but I kind of wanted to bring this down to Earth in a bit because I'm experiencing this as I'm now in the process of writing my second book. You may have heard me talk about that. So writing the first book again, although it wasn't necessarily years of ideas, there was a lot of sort of experiences, that kind of fed into the creation of that book. And now with the second, it's not that I don't have ideas, it's just that the process I followed for writing the first one isn't necessarily working this time around. So I have to be adaptable because my life has changed. I've changed, things around me have changed, and if I was to do the same thing I did last time, it just wouldn't work and I would just be more and more miserable at my failure to progress in the way that I wished to. So I have to be prepared to change course. I have to abandon expectations of what went before and adapt to the process, manage my mind, and I have to just treat this like a brand new gig, a brand new project. Even though it's a second book, it's a brand new book with its own lifespan, its own life, its own birth, its own evolution. So I'm sharing this because often, when we have had a level of success, we feel that if we keep doing the same thing we've always been doing, that will get us to the next level or get us to the next goal, whatever that is, and it can be discouraging and disheartening when that doesn't happen, but because this is the way we did things before, you can feel that you just have to keep plodding away, and there's a very fine line between persistence and between letting go when things just aren't working and adapting to the situation that you're in, because the process that got you to where you are now, the success you are now, that's a different process.
Ryan Spence:You are a different person. I was speaking to a client recently who was frustrated at just the way that things used to be and the fact that they're not that way now. They were looking back at life which used to be a lot simpler, a lot easier. They used to feel that they had a lot more time, a lot more help, and they don't have that in this place. They are now and, as I said to them, you're a new person in a new place, in a new time, and so harping back to what we were is not serving you in the here and now.
Ryan Spence:So how can you create a situation in the here and now? How can you adapt to who you are now, to where you are now? And that's what we have to be prepared to do. We can get so set in our ways that we don't want to let go and look, I get it.
Ryan Spence:When we've had a process that works, it can act like a kind of comfort blanket. We know we've been here before. We can do this again. We can just repeat whatever we have done previously. But when that's not working, you have to be prepared to adapt and it starts with just being curious why is this not working? What's different this time and likely what you'll find is what's different is you. You're not the same person you were the first time around. You think different, you feel different and you act different. I mean, think about it. Imagine that you were in a team at work and suddenly you're being promoted to be the leader of that team and you've done that for a while. You're happy with that. That's a good element of success for you, and now you're looking at the next ring on the ladder and thinking that you want to get there. Now, the person who is trying to get from where you are now to the next one on the ladder is not the same person who got taken out of the team and given that leadership role at the time.
Ryan Spence:There's things which will have happened in the intervening period to change you, to change your outlook, to change your desires, to change your aspirations and therefore you will need to adapt the process, adapt what you do to make it fit who you are now and how you want to be now, how you want to show up now. And sometimes this may be minor tweaks and sometimes it's going to be a full blown transformation of the process. But it's about being open to that, being adaptable, being curious about the process, because if you can be open and adaptable and curious and make those tweaks along the way or those full blown transformations as needed, you're always going to be evolving, you're always going to be growing. It's going to allow you to see things in a different light, to see things through different eyes. So I'm seeing that with my second book.
Ryan Spence:Now I took a bit of a break. I'm still writing, but not kind of thinking about writing for the book, and within that process, ideas have come to me which I'm like that's actually a really good idea that could go in the book. I've had to let go of getting up at 5.30 am and committing to writing like I did for the first one, because it just doesn't work with the current external pressures that I have going on and I've had to just commit to writing each day and looking at where that writing will fit in to any given day and write differently as well. But in being prepared to be open and curious and adaptable, it's taken some of that pressure off. It doesn't mean that I'm not moving forward towards my goal. It just means that I've released some of that pressure because I know from having done it before that I can get there. So all I need to do this time is figure out the process I want to follow to get there the second time around.
Ryan Spence:And this is the thing about experience and about having that evidence. Once you know that you can achieve, once you know you can do hard things, then the next time it comes to doing a hard thing, it isn't necessarily about convincing yourself or building the confidence to believe that you can do that, because you have the evidence for that. It's about adapting the process to make it work for you as you are now and where you are now. So whether you are in corporate and you're looking for that next promotion, whether you're potentially looking to switch to a new job in a new company, whether you're looking to achieve a big goal like writing a book like running a race, whatever it may be. Look at what you've done before and what you've achieved before and use that as evidence and use that to I forgot my word Use that to bolster your confidence that, yeah, I can do this. But also be prepared to detach from the process you followed before and adapt it in a way that works for where you are and who you are right now. Don't beat yourself up for not doing the same thing that you did before and look.
Ryan Spence:Coming back to the idea of a difficult second album, your second album doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, your second album can be better than your first album, and for me, you just have to look at the likes of Michael Jackson. He released Off the Wall Banging Album, then went on to release Thriller, the best-selling album of all time still. Or Drake big fan of Drake, me released Thank Me. Later, his next album was Take Care, again bigger album, launched onto a global stage. So your second album can be better than the first. The difficult second album is a phrase that's there and if you buy into that phrase, it will be difficult, but if you allow yourself to take the pressure off, to be curious and to be open to adapting the process that got you the success that you currently have. You can make the second time around, the third time, the fourth time, even better than the times before.
Ryan Spence:Hope this week has been helpful to you. If you're struggling to achieve a goal and you've taken some insights from this, then I've kind of helped you to think differently about that. Let me know, always love to hear from you. It makes this a conversation, and that's what I'm about Creating conversations, getting you to think differently and bringing people together. You can shoot me an email hey. At imrinespencecom. Or find me on the socials Instagram, at im underscore Ryan Spence, or LinkedIn, ryan Spence. You can find me over there and tell me. Come over and say hey, tell me you found me on the podcast and let's start a conversation going. Let's see what works for you. Okay, I've managed to get through the second recording of this. I've also managed to do it without sneezing, so that's a win. I'm all about celebrating the small wins. That's a small win that you can celebrate today. Thank you for listening. I thank you for being here and, until next week, stop living a life of lethargy and go ahead. Start living life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project.
Ryan Spence:In the spirit of the Triple C, there's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcastcom. Slash tripleC or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share. Share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three head to imrinespencecom. Get on the main list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week, stop living a life of refugee. Start living life late.