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Telling the lizard brain to be quiet. Seth Godin explains that fear, rage and reproductive drive are all characteristics of the lizard brain. It's predominant fear factor hates change, forward movement and the unknown which of course if a very bad thing if your trying to move forward as a musician. The lizard brain holds you back and keeps you from being successful. Seth's advice? The lizard brain will accompany us in our time on earth, but we can tell it to be quiet, we are listening to something else right now.

The Greatful Dead knew a thing or two about business. "A group of stoners who somehow got more things right than the suits running the record industry, radio and even some high powered new media businesses." Some great business lessons that could be learned from this group are sprinkled through an article on indisdemusicmedia comparing their biz model to that of the Radio Industry's. Some of these points should be laser sketched into your brain (if you simply can't remember). According to the Atlantic Magazine article your fans are key to your ultimate success. But not all your fans. As with every musician you have different levels of fans, cater to only your most loyalist fans because their the ones that are going to purchase your music. Get a team together consisting of the band the road crew and and other organization members and periodically rotate the final decision makers. Your not the only one with good ideas on how to run things. Give it away until they buy it. Some things in life are uncontrollable (death, natural disasters and file sharing fall into this category) Don't try to fight against it. Rather embrace it and exploit it for your own benefit. The greatful dead exemplified this by not having an hernia upon the realization that their fans were taping their shows. Instead they used it to increase demand and drive the sales of other revenue streams. The same way that humanity doesn't fight against death but instead uses it to make the quality of life better the same way a musician should approach the death of the CD. Just because the CD has to die, doesn't mean that your career has to go to.

Practice is something that all great musicians submerge themselves in. Its not looked at as chore but as a necessity for sharpening ones strengths and talents. What better way to sharpen your skills than a fun exercise. Homegirl from the howtopractice blog challenges you to a game of opposites attract, that forces your brain to go against the conventional to strengthen the conventional.