Hello to all those reading this. It's me... blogging again :)
In these times it's important to get things off your chest and it also gives YOU something to do when you're at home and bored. I hope you enjoy my stream of consciousness that follows 😁
So you would think by now I'd run out of things to say. Not me. That would be a first. Today I thought I'd share with you something that happened in my life this week.
I got a job! You are now looking at a Digital Music Marketing Executive. Fancy right?! In short this means 'marketing music digitally/online' but different jobs require different marketing so the role can differ from job to job. My job will be experimenting with what's working (and not working) in the music industry right now by putting out ads and collecting data. The end goal is to provide independent artists with this knowledge to help put their time, efforts and money into the most valuable and profitable places. The job is with a startup company called Marjo Music and I absolutely love and value their vision and goal. If you're interested, have any questions or want to know more, drop me a message - I'd love to explain further. But I really want to talk about the long old haul of finding my way into a career I am passionate about and why this job is so exciting for me.
After I finished university (studying Music) I was certain that it was going to open so many doors for me. You know how they say "once you have a degree it will make you more employable", I didn't quite feel this was the case for me. Now don't get me wrong, I am an advocate for university, I think even without having a degree, Uni gives you so many invaluable experiences. I learnt how to be independent, how to live away from home, how to food shop, how to budget my money, or how to not budget my money 👀, how to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them (like don't drink excessive amounts of wine 🍷 Troi, it's not a pretty ending) and so many other things. But alongside all of these experiences 'growing up', I got to live with my best-friends, share everything with them and cultivate friendships that will last a lifetime, friends that know you inside out, all your eating habits, your sleeping habits and who know your rawest and most authentic self. This is irreplaceable and it was extremely emotional having to finish this chapter in my life. It still makes me sad today that this time has passed and I wish I could go back in time for a day, just to experience it once more.
What I wasn't prepared for was the months after I graduated, looking and applying for jobs and realising my whole life I had been achieving grades and climbing this ladder but now there were no more steps to climb. BOOM, big smack in the face. Now I didn't have teachers or lecturers telling me what the next steps are, it's all me, I had to figure this out myself and make ends meet and make things happen if I wanted to continue improving, learning and growing. First I had to set my own goals and dreams outside of education which I like to re-evaluate fairly regularly and are ever changing.... but that's a whole other story 😁.
I remember lying in my garden that summer, after I had finished university, feeling pretty uncertain about my future and wondering if it was even possible to live a life doing something I love and have a career within music. I have always loved the idea of just trying lots of different avenues in music, to see what I like and not necessarily tying myself down to one dream; having multiple jobs that make me happy, keep me busy and fulfil me in some way. Whatever it is, it has to involve music 🎶 😃. All I could find was a receptionist role in London which was a super fun experience and I met some great friends in that job but it wasn't what I had hoped for after receiving a first class degree in music. Every journey into London and back (at ridiculous hours of the morning!) solidified my dream to continue pursuing music.
I found myself signing up for a seminar at Tileyard in London all about Music Marketing and it absolutely blew me away and at the end of the talk they said they were holding a Masters course on everything they had spoken about. Now, I had never wanted or planned to do a Masters, I wanted to get out of education and start working and gaining real life experience in music but it seemed that was not how life was panning out for me. Something about this course was screaming YES, JUST DO IT! So that night I said to my family at the dinner table "I think I might do a Masters". Fast forward a year (and what a year it has been, not the best to do a Masters in for sure), I have a Masters in International Music Marketing, I have learnt SO much and am so happy that I made that decision. I thought maybe now someone will hire me 😂.
It took a good few months of working on my own music and building my own portfolio as an artist before I got this job, I think COVID-19 probably didn't help either but it all seems worth it now and I am over the moon! I felt like I was trapped in this vicious cycle of having the right education but having no real life experience so no one would hire me, meaning I could never get my foot in the door to gain any real life experience, which meant no one would ever hire me and so on 😩. I have honestly had times where it's been difficult to have faith in my future; you’ll not be surprised to learn I’ve written a couple of songs about this 😀, Foresight and River Flow. They play with the idea that no matter how hard you look into the future and hope for the best, you really have no idea where it's going to take you and have to keep faith it will all work itself out. To be fair, that's the exciting thing about life - if we all knew what the future held we would never have any drive, hope or excitement and it would make life pretty boring. Anyway I can safely say for myself, continuing to hope for the best and trusting that in time you will get there, does work, and it does pay off and I hope that this is a lesson I can remind myself of next time I feel apprehensive about the future because I am now beyond excited to start this next chapter of my life!
Look forward to oversharing with you next time.... Enjoy your life 💚
Troi 💜 xoxo