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That I start my five year plan .

I've been doing TAXI part time for 3 years now. I have 3 publishing deals, about 125 songs licensed, and about 50-60 placements on cable TV, no major network or ad agency stuff yet. My 2010 royalty income bearly breaks into 4 digits. Not exactly enough to quit my day job yet t I've got a wife, 4 kids, 3 cars, 3 dogs, 2 cats and a fishing and duck-hunting habit to support. All in all I burn as much coin a month as a small 3rd world country just to 'keep the lights on'. It poses a challenge to making a career change, but I refuse to let that stop me. Barring a large cash windfall, or some quantum movement in my royalty checks, this is going to take some time; hence kicking off the 5 year plan today.

I got time. I'm 50 years young next month, and the best part is that I love what I'm doing. I can't wait to get home, kiss the wife and kids and head downstairs to work on music. I also love hangin' with the TAXI folks on this board, at rallies and via emails etc.

All for now. Just wanted to say this 'out loud' to folks who'd understand. Lunch break is over, time to put a button ending on it. See you all on the boards! May all your submissions go forward.

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Go Erich! I'd say you're off to a great start and I look forward taking the journey with you!

eo

Hey there Erich,

Your post is very timely for me, as I'm considering today the first day of my five year plan. It's kind of a silly thing for me to say that today is specifically day one, but I want to have a mile marker to call the 'first step'. I just wrote about the five year plan today (not the actual plan, but what led me up to deciding I need one), and am going to post updates on my website as I figure out the specifics:

http://timbehrens.com/what-is-a-five-year-plan/

Sounds like you've got a lot going for you already. My entire resume consists of one Taxi forward. Would love to hear more about what your five year plan might look like, what it even means to you to have one, and what your ultimate goal for five years from now would be. I'm hoping to become more of a regular here at the board, and will look forward to hearing about how things are going with it as well.
Cheers to you, and best of luck on your musical journey.

What a great post! It made me happy to read. I wish you lots of success!!!

Doing music at 50 must be great, Erich! You've already accomplished much. How cool is it to say to your kids that Dad was on MTV (regardless it's not a paid gig)! I took up music again after a long stretch a couple years ago, basicly because I want a fun hobby when I'm aging and the kids move away (I'm 40), and I need to play guitar. I would have to crack the Billboard charts to beat my day job, though, and in todays music industry, that's unlikely. At least not without gigging, but it's the writing and recording in my home studio I really enjoy. I'll keep on writing songs and producing tracks as serious fun, but the full time dream was called off for me long time ago. . I wish you all the best, Erich. I wish it was for me.. could've been, 20 years ago.. and I'm even younger than you!

Nice post Erich....and of course we're all walking the same road as you...some faster some slower......some further ahead, some further behind...but we're all on the same road.... Here's to a fun and successful five years..

Derek.

Go get em man!!

Gotta love your attitude! I'll point out that the communists in Russia had all sorts of five year plans, which didn't exactly work out. I'd go with a four year plan, to escape the kharma.
Ott

Thanks all for the replies. Tim, I read your link; good stuff. I have a rough outline of my five year plan. I'd love to see the specifics of yours as well. The difficulty is finding a good set of metrics to measure outcome by. Here are some I'm kicking around.

# of cues written and licensed
# of TAXI forwards; TAXI forward to return ratio
# of placements
# of deals
New styles, and or instruments mastered

Cheers all