How to become more emotionally intelligent as a producer

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Written by:

Emotional intelligence is something that is one of the most important traits that somebody in the music industry can have in order to improve their chances of success. Being able to manage emotions, and use empathy effectively is something that the most talented of people are able to use to their advantage. By understanding human psychology, it can be used as a great tool for understanding how your consumer thinks, and how to sell music products directly to them. Therefore during this article, we’re going to be discussing how you can be more emotionally intelligent within the music industry so you can advance your career, and ultimately become a lot more successful. 

Before you go around the industry trying to understand thousands of other people, it’s a good starting point to understand yourself, and how you are wired. After all, it will give you the necessary knowledge to reverse engineer the ambitions of others in an effective manner.

Firstly, you need to understand how your communication style affects the mood and thoughts of others. Are you extroverted? Are you introverted? Do you believe that everyone else is responsible for your failures? Having this knowledge of your own psychology will easily allow you to create effective solutions for solving other people’s problems. 

Also, understanding your strengths and weaknesses is absolutely essential to success. Of course, you need to know what you’re good at within the music industry. If you happen to be extremely talented at production, you don’t need to worry about fixing it. However, if you are bad at something else (such as social media marketing), you either need to learn the solution yourself or outsource the problem to somebody else. After all, your weaknesses are what could potentially be the downfall of your music career.

Another great tactic is using the so-called “3-second rule” to evaluate whether what you say is useful to somebody else. Instead of saying something meaningless, having a profound impact on the recipient within the conversation will ultimately allow you to seem extremely emotionally intelligent towards the other person. Let’s create a scenario in which you’re in a business meeting with a record label executive. If you are particularly extroverted, you should be asking yourself “does this need to be said by me?” And also “when is the best time to convey a piece of information?” Likewise, introverted people may be asking if they would regret not speaking up about a certain topic within a conversion. By deploying this strategy within your daily life, you’ll be able to manage your emotional intelligence capabilities and increase the happiness within your daily life due to a lack of regret.

In many situations, (particularly arguments), we often have a feeling of hindsight and create a list of things which we should have said during the moment. Despite this being an inherent human trait, it’s one of the best things that you can possibly do in order to become more emotionally intelligent over the course of several days, weeks, or months. If a record label meeting goes bad, ask yourself what you should have said. If a song doesn’t perform well, ask yourself what you’d do next time. By reflecting on these times of struggle and difficulty, it allows you to adjust your mental thinking for whenever it happens next within life.

When receiving feedback on music from other producers & even listeners, some producers get egotistical when people complain that they don’t like the song. Instead of arguing with them as to why it’s the best song on the planet, discuss their opinion, and what can be potentially done to make the track a lot better. Even if you don’t agree with their opinion, it will give you a great understanding of the market and how others may listen to your artist project.

In contrast to criticism, learning from positive feedback is a great way to understand what you are doing well, and thus allow you to continue focusing your energy more on that. If people regularly commend you on your ability to create incredible melodies, perhaps create a totally new melody and send it as a collaboration demo to your favourite producer or vocalist. If your music is truly good enough, there is a chance that they may accept. 

Practising empathy is a great way to connect with others on an emotional level which will ultimately increase the strength of your relationship with other people. If a person is going through a difficult time, listen to their thoughts, and try to understand how they are feeling. Instead of changing the subject or interrupting with your own experiences, create the mental context so you’re able to provide an effective solution to whatever problems they may have.

Finally, being honest with everybody within the music industry is one of the best things that you can possibly do in order to gain respect from your peers and colleagues. If you don’t have the time to talk to somebody, tell them. If you don’t want to talk to someone, tell them instead of getting their hopes up. If somebody emails you and you’re unable to fulfil the request, explain why. Although it may be difficult to accomplish at scale, making an effort to be honest with those you interact with can make a fundamental difference in how you are perceived – as people will consider you truly authentic instead of pandering to the opinions & expectations of others.

Emotional intelligence is one of the best skills that can be deployed in order to gain success within the music industry. If you are able to improve the trait to a truly exceptional level, your relationships will become a lot more prosperous with every single person whom you interact with.