Why Chasing Numbers Keeps Musicians Stuck, and What to Measure Instead

What would you say if I told you my smallest playlist is kicking my biggest playlist's a$$?

My Country playlist has 1,800 followers, and my Indie playlist has 27,000. Right now the Country one gets more daily listeners than the Indie one.

And the content I made last year, back when I had 10k followers on Instagram, still gets me more comments every day than the content I make now with 27k.

The numbers on the outside were never telling me the full story.

The agencies where every client goes viral

It works the same way with the agencies that post screenshots of every single client going viral. A lot of them are simply buying views with ads, which is cheap when you know what you're doing.

The moment they stop working with that artist, the views fall off a cliff, so the artist stays dependent on them to keep the show running.

I know this because I got burnt by it, and I was blinded by the numbers too.

Why we chase the numbers

A while ago Jon Gilman asked me on his podcast why I think people chase the numbers, the streams, all of it.

My answer was simple. People want to feel important, and numbers are the easiest way to show other people that they are.

That, right there, is what keeps a lot of entrepreneurs, and musicians especially, stuck in the mud for years. They keep chasing the feeling of being important.

It's in our nature, together with the desire to reproduce, and almost every action we take is pulling us toward one of those two things without us noticing it.

Being aware of that is the first step.

The second step is choosing the tasks that move you toward your north star instead of the tasks that make you look important to other people.

What is your north star?

Your north star is the big thing you want your music to give you.

Even a full arena singing your songs can be the same trap, because that is you wanting to feel important again.

Maybe what you want is freedom. Maybe you want to change something. Maybe you want to make a living from what you love and give your kids a good life.

Wanting to be famous, wanting to feel important, that is what an 11 year old wants.

What to measure instead

The numbers are a tool, or a side effect of growth that already happened.

Growth starts when you have something other than numbers to measure yourself by, like:

• New people messaging you every day
• New relationships with people in the industry
• Hiring your first assistant
• Booking your first sold out show

That's progress, and that's what More Than Streams is about.

You can hear the whole conversation with Jon on the podcast. And if you want help finding your own north star and the tasks that move you toward it, that's the kind of thing we go through together on a coaching call.