Music Entrepreneur News

"You're a loser if you don't build this business."

That's what I was told. In private coaching sessions. Shouted from stages at conferences.

I was young, ambitious, looking for freedom. So I bought it wholesale.

Following that advice for five years nearly cost me my identity.

The advice wasn't just about business tactics—it was about behavioral modification. In network marketing, I was told I had to fit a mold, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, only associate with winners, focus on duplication, not on questioning the system. I was told my independence—what makes me uniquely creative—was the weakness that would keep me broke.

If I wanted the homes, the cars, the watches, the suits? I had to sacrifice myself.

So I tried. I became the good soldier. I did what I was told. I even listened when they said I shouldn't sponsor certain people because they weren't at my level. I was told I was too high quality to waste time on the wrong recruits.

But it was inevitable. I started to feel miserable. My confidence didn't grow—it shrank. My business didn't explode—it stayed stagnant. I felt like a fraud.

Despite showing up and putting in the effort, I couldn't grow my business. I was building a model that made me a cog in the machine, but I was wired to be the architect of my life.

The turning point came when I realized: the people giving this advice didn't care about my freedom. They cared about their duplication. Their business. They weren't teaching me how to be an entrepreneur. They were teaching me how to become a high-performing follower.

If I tried to win their game, I would lose myself in the process. For an independent, that's the ultimate failure: losing yourself.

Here's the hard truth I learned: Expert advice is only useful if it aligns with your core values. If you have to modify your behavior, if you have to become something you aren't wired to be, they're not mentors. They're mechanics trying to replace a part in the engine.

I know what it means to be an independent. We're weird. We're unique. We're misfits. We need freedom and autonomy. But these aren't your bugs. They're your competitive advantage.

I finally stopped trying to fit in and dedicated myself to creating a strategy around my independence. That's when everything shifted. I didn't get rich overnight. But I got my soul back. And eventually, the money followed.

I'm not a loser for leaving that business. Why should I pay undue loyalty to things that don't serve me?

The world doesn't need more duplicate cogs. It needs more independents brave enough to go their own way and build their own systems.

In this post (and video), I share the expert advice I followed that nearly sent me in the wrong direction—and what happened when I finally stopped listening. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28067