If you haven’t heard of Pub Choir or Astrid Jorgensen, you need to check her out. Pub Choir become a worldwide phenomenon and is all the brain child of Astrid, who spent her formative years in New Zealand, before moving to Australia aged eight (we can still claim her, right?).
Check her out here on America’s Got Talent:
Astrid is a smart cookie, entrepreneur, creative genius, and incredibly funny. Here she shares “10 average-at-best business lessons I’ve learned in difficult circumstances that might be applicable in other situations”:
I run a business. And it seems to be going quite well, which is a surprise, most of all to me. People ask me to share the secret of how I started with nothing and ended up with a globally successful show, but I assure you, it wasn’t because I’m a cutthroat negotiator and visionary strategist. If anything, I’ve been too easy going, extremely confrontation-avoidant, and I didn’t confidently know the difference between ‘net’ and ‘gross’ profit for more years than I’m willing to admit. (Fine, it was five years.)
All my business output happens because I’m afraid of the consequences if I don’t follow through. I worried my way to the top. That’s the secret! Spread the word at your next networking event! I feel calm and secure about my musical abilities onstage, but what makes me try so hard offstage is my fear of public shame and upsetting people. If there is a problem back of house, I won’t sleep until I’m sure I’ve found a way to move on. It’s not pretty and it’s not restful, but it’s true.
If you’re interested in running a business and being your own boss (congratulations and commiserations in advance), please don’t let me deter you. I’m extraordinarily uninterested in gatekeeping the corporate world. I desperately want more people to create things and share their ideas – I just wouldn’t want you going in blind. I’m not comfortable offering serious advice to anybody, but I am trying to get better at honesty offstage. In the spirit of that, I’ll admit that, besides ‘worrying a lot’, I’ve collected a few more bits of intel about running a business over the last eight years. So here you go:
10 average-at-best business lessons I’ve learned in difficult circumstances that might be applicable in other situations
1. Keep records. Even half-arsed ones will do. Write in a journal whenever you can be bothered (I do this most days). Send emails or texts after you meet other people – even just to say thanks. It’ll only take 20 seconds! Find any way to keep track of what you’re doing. Not necessarily for the legal reasons (wouldn’t hurt, though), but to keep a record of your work for you. When you’re slogging over an idea every day, it’s difficult to see the big picture. What a treat to give yourself: the gift of tracking your own progress. You’d be surprised how all the tiny things add up in the end!
2. When you don’t communicate difficult workplace messages because you want to avoid resentment, resentment will breed regardless. It’s better to tell the truth, I promise. You’re not allowed to feel too bitter about a problem if you haven’t mentioned it to anyone else. Turns out, nobody can read your mind. You just have to say the difficult thing out loud, otherwise wires will get crossed and people will get cross. I would know. Please note: before you launch into your difficult conversation, maybe re-read the first point about keeping records.
3. You need support from others. But here’s the kicker: if you ask the wrong people for support, it will make your life much harder. The trick is finding the right people. I’ve learned that you can’t go horribly wrong working with anybody who regularly and comfortably uses all these four phrases: Thank you, I’m sorry, How can I help? and I need help. It works best if you also use those phrases.
4. Do not ‘reply all’ by default. Down with professional group chats! Those 28 people don’t need their day interrupted with you responding ‘okay’ to the email thread. Now we’ve all got to open nineteen email tabs and wade back through idiotic ‘haha’ replies, looking for the skerrick of actual information we need. This is troll behaviour! If you need to say something, direct it to whoever needs to hear it, and leave everybody else alone! Nobody wants to build a business with a timewaster.
5. Following on from the previous point, ask yourself: could this online meeting/phone call/catch-up be replaced with a succinct email? Or are you thinking out loud and making other people watch? This is nobody’s kink. I think it’s marvellously respectful to give others the opportunity to digest important information in their own time so they can respond thoughtfully.
6. ‘Difficult’ and ‘impossible’ are two different things.
7. Pay people generously for their time. Time is the most finite resource in anyone’s life. You can probably find more money. But you definitely can’t find more time. I didn’t take a regular wage for the first five years of Pub Choir and saved most of what I earned to be confident I could pay everybody else generously for their time. I’m sure the amount of effort most people put into their work reflects how much they feel their time has been valued (see points 3 to 5).
8. Controversial: exposure is not a currency – until it is. Mostly, people who ask me to work for free end up treating me as though I’m worthless, which I can’t really complain about because the signs were there. However, very rarely the right exposure can change your life. Choose your moments wisely.
9. If you’re the boss of anything, or anyone, be prepared to claim responsibility for everything that goes wrong. Even if it wasn’t your fault – it was. Apologise. It will be okay. Ultimately, if you said you were in charge, everything comes back to you. This doesn’t mean everybody can get away with bad behaviour; it just means you must also suffer the consequences. Are you ready to grovel for forgiveness for something that was out of your control? (Apparently, this doesn’t apply to political leaders, but I think it should apply to them most of all.)
10. You are good enough to make something. Sorry to get weirdly earnest, but I mean it. I don’t know if you’re good enough to make a ‘great’ something, but everybody is capable of starting something. Time will pass by regardless, so you might as well give your idea a crack. I’ve been trying my best for eight years and, over time, it’s worked out more often than it hasn’t. And I can be a real idiot sometimes! Just try your best, even if your best is a bit rubbish. You won’t ever get closer to your destination if you don’t start at all.
So that’s it! My ten underwhelming pieces of corporate advice. And if none of that advice helps, give worrying another go.
As for me, I’m determined to keep my head above the business waters.
All the anxiety I channel into managing everything I loathe doing lets me do the one thing I should be doing: standing onstage, convincing people to feel marginally less ashamed of their voice. I’m sure I’m supposed to be planting a seed of musical desire and creativity in others. And I tell you what: I’d drink another bottle of cream if it helped me do it. And I’m lactose intolerant.
Edited extract from Average at Best, by Astrid Jorgensen, $41.99 RRP Simon & Schuster, available now. See www.pubchoir.com.au for tickets to Astrid’s upcoming New Zealand shows.