I realized when I was sixteen that this was a sales job—that I was the brand, and my music was the product. I dove in like a fish that had been out of water her entire life, first cursing the waves for rocking me, then laughing when I realized this was simply the environment.

My time in the water has been filled with mistakes. I’ve walked into meetings overconfident and underconfident. I’ve thought too big and too small. I’ve involved people in my journey out of a desire to be kind, instead of being more selective about who I share ideas with. I’ve placed my worth in social media numbers and let the riptide take hold when the album I spent $20k on was released to near silence.

Read on, and share your story, through An Artist’s Blog on Substack.