Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

All right, so I'm super excited to be here today with my good friend and colleague Shane Heilman. Shane is an independent artist, producer, songwriter, vocalist, guitarist from Madison, South Dakota, and he operates under the name The Psalms Project. He's worked with over 70 musicians, including two Grammy nominees. He's sold thousands of albums worldwide and millions of streams. He personally is passionate about mentorship, fatherhood, coaching, and his wife, Emily. I'm so grateful and proud to have Shane on our Modern Musician team helping to coach and help mentor other artists to be able to find and live out their purpose.

Shane, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. 

Shane Heilman: Yeah. Thanks for having me on Michael. This is going to be fun. 

Michael Walker: Awesome. So maybe to kick things off, could you share a little bit about yourself and your personal journey, being very careful to avoid telling anyone about the deep, dark secret of mine in the process?

Shane Heilman: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I'm a South Dakotan born and raised. I was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and raised on the east side of South Dakota most of my life and always was into music. Always. I was really raised in a musician family. My grandfather actually played guitar at his 100th birthday party, which is really hardcore.

Actually his guitar is behind me. Not sure if you can see it. If I go this way, you can see that. Oh, you can see this beautiful red Gibson on the wall there. That's my grandfather's guitar. He passed a couple of years ago, but it was always in my family. People are always playing at holidays. The family would get around and my cousin Chad would play the oboe and my mom would play the piano and grandpa would play the guitar. So it was always around. I always knew that I'd be a musician to some degree and here I am. 

Michael Walker: Awesome! And I noticed you got your gold artist award in the background there too. I love that. I would love to zoom back towards the beginning of when you're getting started with your music and when you started considering doing it professionally, because a lot of us, especially as it relates to music, I think music is a big dream or it seems like a far fetched thing and sometimes not everyone is fully supportive and sometimes it's easy to have self doubt about it. I'm curious about you when you're starting out and when was like the moment that you really decided that this wasn't just something that was going to be a hobby for you, but it's actually something that you were more serious about. 

Shane Heilman: Yeah, I'd say it started around high school for some reason around high school, I got this compulsion that, okay, it's time. I've got to learn how to play guitar. I've got to learn how to play this thing. I was really inspired by nineties alt rock music. Where's my nineties alt rock music fans out there? I learned guitar from playing guitar books from bands like Pearl jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and all those nineties bands. I really got into it about then. I started a band about that time too with some friends of mine and actually the first song I wrote which is really wild it became like a mini hit locally around the area with my band. We had some success right away, so it was our life for a while. It was like that movie, that thing you do, we had this song and everybody knew it and was singing it. We were traveling around on a bus and I think it was that time, with the band, we were young, 19 years old, I know you can relate to this with your journey with Paradise Fears. We never got as big or as influential as Paradise Fears, but that was a moment where.

I really knew this is what I wanted to. I just knew like: this was, this is it. This is my calling. This is what I'm supposed to do with my life. When we had this young band, we were traveling around. We had fans. We're making money. We're playing shows. People are singing our songs back to us. It was just a local tour, Midwest kind of stuff in a cheap van, but I was just hooked. I was like: this is what I want to create. I want to do this for a living. That's really where my musical journey started was in that band. But eventually the lead singer and I decided we're going to go big time with this, we're going to move to Nashville.

The rest of the band didn't want to come, though, so that was when our band first broke up. So the lead singer and I moved to Nashville, just him and me, in 1999. I was 20 years old. I dropped out of college, packed up all my stuff in my car, said goodbye to my mom, and drove down to Nashville with my buddy and we're gonna make it in Nashville. 

The band broke up again in Nashville a few years later. The lead singer and I just, philosophically, musically, just went in different directions. I was left wondering what was next. I mean, I had this wild, three-year adventure playing, music, being in a band, going to Nashville, playing at Nashville gigs, things like that, showcases and it all ended, I ended up nowhere. And I was like: what's next for me? And that's when I decided to move back to South Dakota. That was when I was going to marry my wife. I met my wife and I said, you know what, it'd be good to be back in South Dakota because then I can marry her and start over, really.

I always knew though, that music was what I was supposed to do. Like I said, I just never gave up. Even though I really had nothing going for me. Everything I had built up was with the band and it was gone. So I started to write on my own, started to learn how to sing and started over essentially.

And that's when I got the idea to do the Psalms project, which is the musical iteration, the musical idea that really rebooted and relaunched my career. And that's where I am now. 

Michael Walker: So awesome. Maybe you could share really quickly, the Psalms project. It's such a great idea and I'd love for you to hear you talk a little bit about the genesis of that idea and what that's really done for you. 

Shane Heilman: Yeah the idea really came to me just out of nowhere. I was actually on a mission trip at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in White River, South Dakota. We were building some buildings there for a church there and I just had this idea all of a sudden: Wouldn't it be cool if somebody I was reading a Psalm at the time, Psalm 1, I think someone if people don't know what the Psalms are, they're in the Bible. It's the longest book of the Bible. It's 150 poems, basically, and they actually used to be songs. Literally, they're songs. We just don't know what they originally sounded like. So they're ancient Hebrew poems. And I thought: Wouldn't it be a cool musical idea/experiment to put these poems to modern music? Fully produced music, great vocalists, awesome instrumentation, and just go through the poem, beginning to end, don't edit anything, don't censor anything, but just tell the entire story of the entire song, go through all the emotions and support that with music so people really get it, really understand it, but also in a modern context. I thought: that sounds really cool. So I started working on it that day and I liked the song and I liked how it really broke me out of the songwriter rut, like you gotta have a verse, then a pre-chorus, then a chorus. It got me out of that because a lot of the songs that I was writing… there was like no chorus, right? It was just like I was just letting the lyrics take the music where it was gonna go. Okay, singing about this now, I guess that's the next part of the song. So, how's this gonna sound? And it really got me out of that songwriter rut. I was really being like the most creative I'd ever been with music before. The songs, you know, a lot of them at the beginning, especially weren't catchy. They definitely weren't radio. I mean, some of them are seven, eight, ten minutes long. But I really liked them and they were fun. You just didn't know what's going to happen next. That's what I liked about it. You'd be singing about this part, then it would switch to an entirely different section! They're in movements like classical music too, but it had some alt-pop elements. So I was just like: this is a blast. I'm just having a blast with this. It was really fun so that's how it all got started 

Michael Walker: Super cool. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I think the thing that hopefully all of us can you take away from that is inspiration. Just how, you had an idea for something unique. It was like, you could have just done the exact same thing as thousands or tens of thousands of other people, but you had this idea to, to do something unique using that familiar plus unique formula that we talk about sometimes, like the viral formula: Taking this idea of something that people are familiar with, nd be able to create something unique around it and add your own flavor and make it modern again. So much wisdom in that. And just a cool thing to be able to share and express with people. To take this and to reimagine this in a different way.

So let's fast forward a little bit. Maybe you could talk a little bit about when you discovered Modern Musician, you came into our community. How long ago was that now, and why did you join us for the first time? 

Shane Heilman: Yeah, man, that was a wild ride. So anyway let me go back to like the eight years I was making this Psalms project music before I even had an inkling of doing it full-time. I was just doing it as like a side hustle side project. Just a fun diversion from my Clark Kent life as a high school educator.

I had a 15 year career in public education and I was making music the whole time.

Michael Walker: I'll go ahead and real quick. We can probably share the deep dark secret with everyone that we've been alluding to.

Shane Heilman: Oh wow! I thought we were waiting for that for the end. But yeah, the deep dark secret is that Michael Walker and I grew up two hours apart two hours away from each other in Eastern South Dakota. Mike is from Vermillion. Is that right? 

Michael Walker: That's right. It’s funny because we were backstage and you asked me, you're like: Hey, like Mike is it okay if I mention that you're from South Dakota? I'm not sure are you like embarrassed? I'm like, yeah, don't tell anyone that I'm from South Dakota, that would ruin everything. So please don't judge me. I hope this doesn't change our relationship. 

Shane Heilman: I think it's awesome. A couple of Eastern South Dakotans here on the Modern Musician podcast. This is awesome!

Michael Walker: Totally! It's super awesome. But I love the fact that there was a point, if I remember right, where it was very possible that you could have been my principal or that the school that I was going to, we might've known each other just from the education side.

Shane Heilman: Yeah, absolutely. I think I actually applied for a job at Vermillion High School when you would have been a student, so if I would have gotten that job, I would have been like your freshman English teacher, which is just wild to me. But anyway, that just didn't pan out.

So I was at this point in my career where, I think it was a couple things that brought it on, when I really wanted to start it to market my music because I was just putting it out there. Whoever hears it. But it was definitely showing proof of concept because it's a niche thing and there are a lot of people looking for that. The way I like to put it is that the Psalms are the most popular part of the most popular book ever written. There's a lot of people who are big fans of the Psalms. Of course we probably all know Psalm 23, all heard that. Psalm 91: very famous passages of literature. And so some people are, and a lot of people know that they are actually songs or meant to be songs. So a lot of people out there will just Google: Psalms to music and they would come across my stuff and they'd listen to the samples and they would buy it.

Even before I even marketed my music, there were people buying the albums online buying them from iTunes, just totally organic traffic, strangers buying it. So I was already bringing in a few hundred bucks a month, just doing nothing basically. I knew it had proof of concept and I always had it in the back of my mind: you know what, if I actually marketed this, it might actually be a thing. It might actually go. But I think what actually made me start to market it was a couple of things. When we released, I think it was like our fourth album back in 2019, I think there was something in me that was just sick of nobody hearing my music. The idea you talk about is that I didn't want my best music to die inside of me or no one to hear it. And I was like, how long am I going to keep on putting in all this work for, to have a few hundred fans online? You know that, when I released the new album, like there were like 20 fans out there that bought it right away. You know what I mean? Like, how long am I do this? I'm just sick of this. And I also met a friend of mine who's a YouTuber. His name is Matt Whitman. He has a YouTube channel, about 200, 000 subscribers. He moved to our town and joined our homeschool co-op and he was making a living online, just doing YouTube stuff, just making videos.

So I was picking his brain, like, how are you doing that? And he was just supported on Patreon. So he just made videos on YouTube and he had a few hundred Patreon supporters and he was making a living and. Like making a lot more money than I was just doing internet stuff. I'm like, how do you do that? A lot of people think that, how do you make money just making content on the internet? Like, how does that happen? He showed me how it happens. So that kind of showed me there was a pathway. So that was one initial thing that really showed me that this could work. Matt was telling me like, Oh yeah, like your thing could work. He was like: your music's good. You just need to start doing X, Y, and Z and you'll start seeing movement.

And then another thing was COVID, of course that was a big change for all of us. It really slowed down my educational career as a high school principal. I had very little time to pour into my music, very little energy to pour into my music and my marketing outside of my career, but COVID really slowed things down.

I started listening to some music marketing podcasts like the Modern Musician podcast and Chris Greenwood's podcast and Rick Barker's podcast. The pathway became clear. I was starting to see: Oh, like you can make money online from your music and here's how, and here's some techniques. And a really big breakthrough was a Chris Greenwood taught about the free CD offer. He just put out this ad: free CD, just pay the shipping. And I saw his page when I saw his ad across Facebook. I like screenshotted it. I just basically copied his offer. And one day, I had a whole weekend to myself, my family was out of town. This was the weekend that changed everything. It was in September of 2020 and I thought: this weekend I'm going to do two things. I had two things on my list for a long time that I was putting off. It was: build a free CD funnel, and start an email list. Like those are literally the two things. So I did those two things that weekend and built the free CD offer. It took me like 10 hours to set the whole funnel up. But I patterned after Chris Greenwood's page and everything. And then I had a few thousand emails from do you remember noise trade? There was like this website back in the day where people could basically download your album for a free will offering or something like that in exchange for their email address?

I put my music up on noise trade and got like 5,000 emails that way. So I had 5,000 emails just sitting around. So I made this funnel, tested it, and I sent an email to 5,000 people. Just say, Hey, free CD, just pay the shipping. And I think I made like a thousand dollars that day, just like that. I was like: Oh! I think I've figured something out here. Great offer, putting it in front of thousands of interested people at once. Okay, let's look more into this. And then I started running the ad on Facebook and the ad was making more money than I was spending. So I was like: okay, maybe I don't need my job. So by the time I was near the end of my last year as a high school principal, I was making enough money from my ads and from my email list that was growing and I was learning all the time.

I was just like, so obsessed with the music marketing stuff. I mean, I was not paying enough attention to my job as much as I should have been. Cause I was like, really having fun. And I knew that I was like, okay, I'm close, but like one more year. One more year as a principal and then I'll go full-time. 

Then some stuff went down at my job. Long story short something happened at my school. Then my boss overreacted to it. I got put on leave in my last semester as a high school principal. Got reinstated because nothing happened. But basically, it was a really unfortunate incident that really pushed me over the edge thinking: I do not want to come back next year. My boss was not supportive. I was trying to make a lot of positive changes. It was just time. It was like: okay, I'm making enough money to go full time. I don't see a path forward to do what I want to do in my career. So you just know it's time, sometimes. You just know my career was not going well at the same time my music career was going well, and it's time to make the leap. 

After about a week of talking about it with my wife, we finally decided to make the leap. So here I am, like my first month, no job, no paycheck coming in, just depending on Facebook ads and emails to feed my family. And I got four kids and a wife. My wife stays home and homeschools, so it was a lot on my shoulders. And we barely made enough to cover the budget my first month. But then I was like really hustling hard. And I got this email from Chris Greenwood, inviting me to a masterclass with Michael Walker.

So I listened to your masterclass, Michael, and you were describing a lot of what I was already doing, but you were also describing things that I hadn't even thought of yet. Hadn't even gotten to yet. So I was really intrigued by what you said, especially the high ticket offers. I was like, Oh, that's something I need to add to my arsenal as well. And talking about the subscription offer and all that. So this was like the second time I think I applied for Modern Musician, but this time, I had all the time in the world to implement the program.

So I went on the strategy call and Ari was like: Oh yeah, this is definitely going to work. And then I got on the momentum call with Stephen and he's like: Oh yeah, this is definitely going to work. So I went for it and. Modern Musician helped me go from like barely making enough to feed my family to like, just took it to an entirely new level. I mean, so many ideas, so many additions to my funnel, so many strategies I hadn't even thought of. And so it was a big leap of faith, not only to quit my job, but also to invest a big amount of money for a program when I was like freshly out of a job, but believing that I would multiply it, but that's absolutely what happened and it absolutely changed my life. So that's how I got involved with Modern Musician. That was Fall of 2021. So that was a long story, a long way of getting to: that's how I joined Modern Musician was: I need to accelerate this thing. And I think these guys know how to do it. And so I'm going to trust them and go all in.

I think it's when artists go all in that they really, something clicks. You know what I mean? Something just really lights on fire and you figure it out cause you have to. 

Michael Walker: So good. And a huge props to you. I mean, it's so easy to take the easy path to take the path that's been carved for us. You know, in fact Jeff Walker, one of my mentors shared this and articulated it so well at our last mastermind meeting. He was telling the story about how on his hill that he drives up in Colorado. There's this winding road, this winding path that goes up the hill. And when he's driving at night, the headlights shine just enough light, ahead of him that often what happens there's a bunny that'll hop in front of the car, and he'll slow down, and the bunny will just run ahead of him, and he'll just keep running up the path in the light. And, at any point, the bunny could just move to the right or move to the left and get into the forest and kind of get safe or get out, but it just keeps following the light: the part that it can see. And so it stays in front of the car the whole time. And he used that as this analogy to describe how often, in our lives, we follow the path that we can see, the path that's lit in front of us, and going off the path, in many cases, it creates more freedom, or it creates more passion, or something that, makes you more fulfilled, greater impact, but that light, that the social norms and the path that's been left for us can be so much easier to follow.

So I just want to give props to you for taking that other path and going your own way and seeing that you had something to offer.

Maybe you can talk a little bit more about: you made this decision. You went all in and. And now you've, in addition to, achieving the gold artist award, which is amazing, but also continuing to grow your music career, you've also joined our team and, you're helping other artists who are ready to take this plunge or take this next step and go all in. I'm curious as it relates to that idea of making the decision and going all in and taking the leap: How would you recommend people think about the mindset around doing that, because, I mean, the tendency, I think, is to dip one toe in the water and maybe to go partially in.

What's been your experience, having personally gone all in yourself in your own music career and kind of seeing and working with other artists who've made that decision. What would you say to someone who is feeling like they've been on the fence for a while or they've been waiting for the right time and wondering about their music and is this really something that they can do? Do they really have what it takes? Yeah, what would your advice be for them? 

Shane Heilman: Yeah, a couple things. Great question. So the first thing I would say is: I do think it's wise when you quit your job and go all in, and this is something that I did right away, it's a good idea to secure some kind of flexi job.

The way I call it, a job where you can work as much as you want to or need to in order to make some extra money on the side, but you can also like easily scale that back. So I was actually talking to a YouTuber. Actually, it's Destin Sandlin from the YouTube channel Smarter Every Day. Not sure if anyone knows who he is, but I had a chance to talk to him because he visited my hometown. He's friends with my friend, Matt. And I was talking to him about quitting my job and that was his advice. If there’s some way you can scale back your job gradually, to the point where you can, dipping your toe, but like also, is there a way you can scale back to like work as much as you want to. If you want to work zero if the music is going, and you want to work zero, you can work zero, but if you need to work, put in five hours a week, you can put in five hours a week, something flexy like that.

I was like: I'm a high school principal. I can't really scale that back. You’re either doing that job or you are not doing that job. So that wasn't an option. Could you do consulting or something like that? I'm like, I'm at this job or I'm not. So what he did is he hired me to just do some data summary for his podcast. So that was like a job where here's a project, it's going to take a few hundred hours, but work on it, like at your pace and make some extra money if you need to. So that was really nice to have, just like peace of mind. Okay, if I'm having a low month, I can put in a few 10 hour days at this job and make the extra money I need to. So I think that's a wise thing to have in your back pocket, but make sure it's not a part time job where you have to work 10 hours a week or have to work 20 hours a week. So that's really, I think, a wise thing. And also, it's good to make sure that there's a path. If you see the path, if you can see the proof of concept, if you can see: if I just did more of X, then more income would come in, that's a really good sign that you should just go all in for a period of time.

And here's a really important principle that my wife and I talked about a lot before I quit, was... 

Michael Walker: No pun intended. 

Shane Heilman: Sorry, what was the pun?

Michael Walker: You said it's a principle. 

Shane Heilman: Oh, a principal. Yes. Nice one. A really good principle to consider when you're considering going all in with your dream is: what's the worst that could happen? What is the worst case scenario? My wife and I talked about this a lot. What's the worst case scenario?

Michael Walker: Yeah. 

Shane Heilman: And we thought about it, and the worst case scenario is: I go get a job again. That's not a bad worst case scenario, you know what I mean? We had some money saved up. We probably had a few months worth of, if we really made no money, which I didn't think was going to happen. We had a few months cushion in place. So it really, I mean, at the time, yes, it felt crazy. I mean, I was freaking out the couple months before I did it. Oh my gosh am I really going to do this? Cause you're right, there's that inertia or there's that social pressure or there's that: you can't make a living without a job. Those voices were definitely there. And I think, my wife and I's parents, they really instilled in us what a lot of that generation did was, this is how you do it. You graduate high school, you get a job, you work really hard at it for 50 years, and then maybe you have some money you can enjoy. That's how you make it. That's how you live. So the idea of the online entrepreneur thing, like they just didn't get it at all. And again, not any fault of theirs. It's just there wasn't a lot of encouragement or support there.

In fact, this is a funny story. So when Emily texted her mom and sisters, when I quit my job, she's like: Shane did it, he quit his job. Emily's mom's response via text was: Best wishes. She was like: good luck with that. So and it's and again it's not like, it's not like a lack of belief. It's more like: that's an interesting path. That's how people feel is like: that's just not the way to success. And once you step into that world, once you step into the world of entrepreneurship and, you know, being your own boss and all that, this is like a really cliche comparison, but it's really stepping into the matrix. Like you can't unsee it once you see it. You step into it and you're like: Whoa, it's like a whole new world. All these opportunities opened up for me that I was just closing myself off of really just out of fear. And again, fear of what? Fear that I'd fail and have to get a new job? That's not really bad. It's not like the risk is death or torture or you know anything like that. It's just, I would try something and maybe it wouldn't go and I'd have to get another job and you know, kind of reboot that's the worst that can happen. What's the worst that can happen?

I think it was Malcolm Forbes who said: you die when you stop dreaming. And so for anybody out there who stopped dreaming or you feel like you're stuck where you're at, there's a reason why you feel that, the best way I would describe it, is you feel a little bit dead inside. You feel a little bit like you can't really let yourself out to do the things you feel like you were born to do. And so I think it had been brewing for a long time too, because all those years as a high school teacher and principal, I always had a goal, I always wanted to do music full time. I mean, I've been wanting to do that since I was 19. You know, that was always there. So it always was in the back of my mind. And then when I started to see the stars align or everything fall into place, it was like I just knew. So yeah I that was a rambling answer, but my best advice would be to get a flexi job where you can work as much as you want to or need to, and also my question would be, what's the worst that could happen?

The worst that can happen is: you try it for a few months, have a ton of fun and then  get another job, or learn from the experience and reboot. But you know what, I think the chances are, again, if you're seeing proof of concept, you can get fans, you can get buyers, that your music has proof of concept and that it would grow if you just invested in it. If you just invested in yourself, that would happen. 

I think the worst that, I don't even know what the worst, I mean, I think you'd figure it out. You'd figure it out. You really would. And even if you didn't, you would at least die knowing that you took your shot. I thought about that when I moved to Nashville. I was like, you know what, even if this didn't work out, and it didn't, my Nashville thing did not work out. It wasn't as good of a marketing strategy as what I'm using now, let's just put it that way. The Nashville strategy was go to Nashville, play a lot, and hope. That's the strategy. Not a good marketing strategy, right. So that didn't work out, but I remember going there thinking you know what, at least I'll be able to tell my kids and grandkids.Like I took my shot. You know what I mean? I took my shot, but then of course the opportunity came to me again, 10 years later or 20 years later, was it? Yeah. 20 years later to take my shot again. And you know what? Like: I'm taking my shot. And yeah, I mean, best decision of my life besides marrying my wife, of course, so I put my best decisions like this, number one, marrying my wife. She's amazing. Number two, quitting my job, and number three, joining Modern Musician. Those are my top three decisions of all time. All of them scary, getting married is scary in some ways. I remember how my wife and I felt the day after we got married. It's like, we were happy, obviously we're ecstatic, but also it's like this feeling of: what do we just do? We just did something really permanent. Like the only way out of this is a divorce. Like you feel that little bit of: Oh my gosh, what did we just do? Same thing after I quit my job. I remember the night after I quit my job, I remember closing my eyes and hitting send on my resignation email. And just I mean, I was ready for that moment, but you're never ready for that moment. You just close your eyes, you hit it and you're like: Here we go. But then that night I woke up at like 3 a.m. and just panic hit me. Like where is the money going to come from? What did you just do? Can I ask for my job back? All those fears came in. I remember going out to the living room at about like 3 am. House is quiet. And just laying there on my face praying, just saying God, should I take my job back? Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life? And in that moment, just for some reason, just had a sense of peace, it's just no, you got this. You got this. Don't worry about it. And I went back to sleep and that was the worst of it. So the next few days after there was definitely a lot of: Oh my gosh, we're doing this, you know what I mean? There was a little bit of that, I mean, I guess, nervous excitement, dread, fear, whatever you want to call it. But once we started to see that this pathway was bearing a lot more fruit then there was no looking back.

It's a lot of adjustment, being your own boss, and having your whole day and because it used to be like: you go to work and you're gonna get a paycheck. It's just if I go to work for this amount, this paychecks gonna come in and that's very like safe predictable life and I was very used to that. It took a long time to get used to there's no paycheck coming. You know. You just invest time and you hope that your investments yield fruit and that was like my workday was not like: oh put in my hours and get my paycheck. It was like: okay, my workday is: how do I best invest my time with no paycheck guaranteed to come. That was a huge adjustment to make, but two years into it, it feels normal now, but it did not feel normal for months and years.

That's, yeah, that's the advice I'd give someone thinking about quitting and that's what it's like. It's quite a leap. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It was very scary. It's easy to sit here and say, oh yeah I did it, but you know, it was scary and I definitely had moments where I was pretty freaked out. 

Michael Walker: So good. Thank you for sharing. There's so much wisdom and a couple of things that you just mentioned that I want to reiterate. One of them was around asking yourself, what's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? And, there's something about fear. I've heard it described in this way that fear is the one thing that gets smaller, the closer you run towards it. Like when you run closer to fear, like it actually gets smaller and that's, it's like one of the only things that happens and, fear thrives in the darkness. Like it wants to avoid being seen and so it's scary to look at the fear directly, but man, like there's some real power that comes from like standing and shining the light on that. And so you’re asking the question: hey what's the worst that could happen here? is literally just like directly addressing the fear and looking at it and it turns out that you generally like the worst that can happen, you can handle it, like, you're going to be okay. And I remember having that exact same question which goes in line with the other idea that you brought up around having an ability to have a flexi job or a way to I look at it as almost like a safety net that, you know, so that the worst that can happen is literally like: you fall down and you hit the safety net.

If you're going to walk on a tightrope then it's, like, probably a pretty good idea to have I don't know a safety net underneath you if you do fall. It's still gonna be scary walk on the safety net or walk on that line, but at least you have that, you know, that worst case scenario is that you're gonna fall. You're gonna hit that. I know for us that was having a year to defer our scholarships at college and having that year gave us the freedom or the permission to go all in and exactly what you described, like really jump into the deep end of the pool, learn how to swim knowing that you have that.

So I just think that there's so much wisdom in that and hopefully that resonates with everyone that's here right now and really understand the power of asking that question and then, setting things up so that the worst thing that can happen is something that you can deal with. 

Shane Heilman: Absolutely, yeah 

Michael Walker: So, looking back at where you are now, what's something that you'd say is like one of the things that you're most proud of? 

Shane Heilman: Wow I say number one: I've been married happily married to my wife for almost 20 years. Our 20th anniversary is coming up. So I'm very proud of that. And my four kids. You can tell, I hope you can tell, I like my wife a lot. I hope you can tell.

Also, my kids. They're ages 16 through 10, all four of them, and they seem to be turning out pretty well, so, I'm very proud of that. It's funny, like, you grow up and you always think people say like: my greatest accomplishment is raising my three kids or whatever, and I always think: what kind of accomplishment is that? But now I understand, you know what I mean? Being a dad and having gone through all those seasons yeah, it's a big accomplishment. There's a lot of work involved in that. I think what I'm proud of is that my music's making a difference in people's lives.

I've got, I mean, literally I've got, I try to keep every testimonial I can, but I've literally got hundreds of testimonials and emails and Facebook posts and all that, screenshots from people talking about how listening to music delivered them from anxiety. Delivered them from depression. Rekindled their relationship with God. Put joy back into their lives. Just got one recently: this lady played one of my songs at her daughter's funeral. Her daughter was 20 years old and died suddenly and played my song at her funeral. I'm proud of the fact that I followed the path that I felt like I was supposed to, and I kept going. Even when I was back just making music on the side, there were moments where it was like: what am I doing? This is crazy. I'm spending like three weeks away from my family, I'm sleeping on couches, I'm a high school teacher, putting psalms to modern alt-pop music. What am I doing? You know what I mean? There's all kinds of moments like that, but I kept the path. I kept moving forward no matter what, I'm proud of that as well.

And yeah, like I said, I'm proud of the impact my music's had that people care about it enough to support me monthly to donate. To make sure I make another album. All I have to do is reach out to my fans and say: Hey, I'm making more music and people will just boom, go make the music Shane. We believe in this. That's what I'm probably most proud of as far as my music career. 

Michael Walker: So awesome. Just put things in perspective, you as a principal versus you now are you, were you making more income like as a principal versus like your music or what does that look like in terms of your actual lifestyle? 

Shane Heilman: Yeah. To not give specific numbers, my principal job, it was a six figure job salary wise. But I am making more money now. So there you go. So it's definitely paid off in all kinds of ways. Obviously the freedom, like, I can now set my day up pretty much exactly like I want to. Think about, everyone who's listening, think about: what would I do if I didn't have a job? How would I set my day up? How would I invest my time? How would I invest in myself and those around me? What kind of life would I live if there were no limitations? What kind of life would I live if there were nothing holding me back, no boundaries. I'm doing exactly that because I don't have a job, you know what I mean? So that's, I mean, that's a huge that's wealth right there, being able to have that kind of time to live the way that you believe. But yeah, I mean it was definitely a financially smart decision for me to quit my six figure job, if that makes any sense, because obviously when you're working a salary job like there is a cap on your income. But when you're an entrepreneur, your income is only limited by your own hustle and ingenuity. It really is. So now there being no cap on my income, it just feels much more free to be able to, okay, if we need some extra money, I just go  earn it. Or I just send a few more emails or whatever, so it just gives that freedom to live the way that you believe. 

Michael Walker: Good. And what would you say, so you brought up what you're most proud of is your family and your wife and your kids. What kind of impact has it made on your family and your life and your relationship with them to be at the point that you are now versus when you were a principal? 

Shane Heilman: Oh wow, that's an awesome question. I think it was really big for my kids to see what I did. And obviously you knew this was going to happen if you start talking about my kids I'm going to start choking up. But you know at first I think they were scared. They didn't really fully understand, you know being kids, you don't fully understand what's happening when your dad's quitting his job to do his music. They don't really know what the prospects are of success or, you know, what that really means. I remember one of my sons being a little bit upset about it cause he thought we're going to be poor now, and we're gonna be like scraping by.

But he was not happy about that, but you know, for them to see us in a better place than we were three years ago after doing it, I think is big for them to show them that, you don't have to live life the way that again, social pressure teaches you to just go get a job, go get a job.

What about being the person who hires the people who, you know, what about the person who creates the jobs? Like people are never taught that in school. The school system's a whole other topic. I was trying to transform the school system when I was in it and that was one thing that always bothered me is all the focus was on: go get a job, go get a job, go get a job. Which is such a limiting mindset to instill in young people. And I saw it really damage young people quite a bit because they never thought outside the possibility of just getting a job. And never thought about the possibility of creating their own thing, you know that just never enters a lot of their minds. And I was raised the same way. It was like: which job you're gonna take. You know I remember sitting with the high school counselor like: okay here's all these jobs. Which one do you want? I remember always thinking like I don't like any of these! Like, none of these fit me. I was just weird. I was the guy who sat in class just writing music theory and chord sheets and like inventing new chords in the back of class. Like, nothing, none of that interested me.

I just wanted to make music and do my own thing. That was always how I was. But as far as how it's impacted my family, I think it's big for my kids to see that like their dad made this leap and it worked out. And also, it's allowed my family and my wife to do this thing together. Because being a high school principal, it's really hard for them to help me with my work. But now with this, like we pack starter packs together. We pack orders together. And my wife does the live streams with me and it's just, I think it's really improved our marriage because she sees that I'm happier, which obviously really helps a relationship. My kids see that I'm happier and obviously I have more time for them too. I mean, the impact is immense, it's almost this kind of cloud lifted, in a sense. 

Michael Walker: Ah man. Thanks for sharing that. I mean, that definitely resonates with me because I know what it's been like for becoming a dad and raising my own kids and how much it means to me to want to be a good role model for them, and to make them proud. And so, seeing you do that for your family and your kids is really cool. 

Shane Heilman: Yeah, it's really cool to talk to my son and “what can I do to make money?” I'm like, like, I can see the limitless possibilities now. I can see what life is like as being your own boss, your own entrepreneur, creating your own thing, just developing high level skills that people will pay you well for. I can mentor them in that direction instead of the: which job are you going to take, direction. And if they take a job, that's great. There's nothing wrong with holding a nine to five. Like, that is the right decision for a lot of people. Some people love working for the man and that's great. So I'm not trying to denigrate that at all, I just don't want people to feel like that's their only option.

Michael Walker: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe you could talk a little bit about just the power of mentorship and investment. I mean, recently, you just invested in mentorship from a very, amazing entrepreneur. Yeah, maybe you could talk a little bit about that investment that you made and just the role of investments in general in your journey.

Shane Heilman: Yeah, it's been huge. I'd say the number one, I'd say besides, just my persistence and my, like, basically refusal to not succeed. I think that is just a side note: from my study of life, I guess, I'm a student of life, for my study of life, I think, and you've talked about this too, Michael, I think the number one X factor in whether people truly succeed at creating, the life they believe in is intensity.

Intensity is the most common thread I see throughout all successful people throughout history. They basically just decided what they were going to do and just refuse to fail. And it really almost is that simple. I think that the advice I think it was it Scott Adams? I don't know who the original quote was from, but I saw this tweet from Scott Adams. He said the best advice I ever received was, I hope I don't butcher it, but it was something to the effect of find out the price of success, then pay it. 

I love that. That is so simple. Find out what the price of success is. Okay. Count the cost. What's it going to cost me to get where I want to go? And pay it. And for me, investing in mentorship has been probably the most important bridge to that because I had this intensity: I'm going to achieve this. I refuse to fail. But I could not have gotten there without investing in myself and investing in coaching and mentorship because there are these people across the bridge, like, they know how to cross the bridge. They know how to get there. And in order to access them, I had to invest in there and invest in paying for their time because otherwise I'd have to learn everything on my own. And that takes a lot longer. I've said this before: joining the Modern Musician program, it was like fast-forwarding my life five years. It was like, it would take me five years to learn everything I learned in that program. And it just like fast forwarded me there in three months which is… You can't replace that. I mean, it's amazing. So I'd say over the course of my music marketing career, in the last three years, I can't remember the exact number. I bet I have invested somewhere in the neighborhood of between 30 and 50,000 dollars just in coaching and mentorship. And that's been the best money I've ever spent because, again, it has basically allowed me to create the music I want to create, and, again, live the way I believe in and spend my time the way I believe in because it's showed me the entrepreneurial wisdom that's allowed me to pull this off. So, I'd say that's a small price to pay for being where you want to be. Like, if I asked someone right now would you pay 30-50,000 dollars, and again, that's just a number, but let's say it costs you to drop 50 grand today in order to be able to figure out how to live the life you feel like you're called to. I bet most people would do that.

Michael Walker: Yeah. Absolutely.

Shane Heilman: If they knew it would work, of course, 

Michael Walker: It always comes down to that leap of faith, and that willingness to take the leap, which that's the scary part.

Shane Heilman: And a lot of people don't, that's true. A lot of people don't. A lot of people get to that. And it's this, you're going to make this big investment in yourself to try to, again, make that leap, make that jump, make that move. And yeah, a lot of people don't do it. It's true. 

Michael Walker: Yeah. And what you, we talked about earlier. If you're on a tightrope, then, there's a way to do it, like you get the safety net down and you think about what's the worst that's going to happen. You get the safety net, but then gosh, you gotta take those steps. You gotta walk out. And it's scary and you have to acknowledge that it's scary but do it anyway.

Shane Heilman: But it's so much fun. It really is yeah, it's scary, but gosh, like it's a lot more fun than just staying in safety and feeling like you're, and feeling dead inside half the time. It's way more fun than that. So just to encourage everyone. 

Michael Walker: Yeah. Absolutely. What I appreciate about you too is, yeah, I see this and everyone that I know that has achieved success in different domains has this mindset of entrepreneurship and a willingness to learn and grow and that gives them that intensity, but also they're, they invest in themselves continually and they don't stop, like it's a part, they're a lifelong learner. And it'd be very easy for you just to say: you know what, like I figured out stuff that works. I'm just going to keep doing this and I'm, I'm just, I'm happy here. You continue to make that investment in yourself and your education and so do I. We invested in a 35,000 program recently and that's what it takes is that level of lifelong legitimacy being a lifelong learner. Continuing to invest and it's something you hear a lot from everyone. It's really about: you are investing in yourself, I would say, and making that commitment and having the boldness to believe that you can do it. I personally find that super inspiring and I appreciate you coming on here and sharing that. So, Shane, to wrap things up here, if you had to go back in time and let's say that we're going back to the moment that you're sitting, you are at that precipice of pressing the button to quit your job and you're just getting ready to go, like you're on the fence of deciding if you're going to go all in on your music. If you could give yourself one piece of advice back then before you had experienced the results, before you learned what you know now, what would you tell yourself? 

Shane Heilman: I would tell myself, what are you waiting for? Seriously, what are you waiting for? What sign are you waiting for? What are you waiting to see happen? This is going to work. You've got what it takes. The worst that could happen is that you just get a different job or reboot. What are you waiting for? Are you waiting to retire? Are you waiting to die? What are you waiting for? If this is what you're supposed to do, what are you waiting for? So that's probably what I told myself. Yeah. 

Michael Walker: Cool. Goosebumps. Awesome. Hey, how about, we've got a squad here. I haven't really looked. I've just been so engaged in this conversation. This has been fantastic. Can we get like a round of applause for Shane right now? I mean, I feel dang dude, so awesome. Yep. Hey, Lavender, how are you doing? I was just gonna see some folks from the Artist Launch Challenge. Sweet. Aw, that's sweet. Lavender said: You guys seem like the coolest dads, lol. Cool is not a word that I think my wife would describe me. I'm pretty dorky around them, but yeah, I would say that for both of us, I think that's one of the things that I resonate with so much about your story, Shane, is just I know how important your family is to you and your relationship with your kids and your wife. And yeah, I know when you won your gold artist award when you submitted the video for the artist of the year award, that was one that just like I remember sharing that with my parents being like: that's that is awesome that we get to be a part of that and helping people to do that.

Shane Heilman: I knew you're gonna bring that up that video. That video’s infamous by now, but yeah, I broke down the video talking about my kids.

Michael Walker: Yeah, it was real. It was real and it was raw. And I felt that. It was, it's powerful.

How about we bring on some folks who are here live to be able to ask some questions? Guys have any questions for Shane that you'd like to ask directly, then you can raise your hand here in the discord community, or you can put them in the chat and I'm happy to answer from there. I see some hands up.

I see Steve Cuban, let's bring him on.

Shane Heilman: Steve. What's going on man? Hey, Steve. 

Steve Cuban: Hey Shane! Hi, Michael.

Shane Heilman: Hey, Steve, good to talk to you. Yeah, I can hear him.

Michael Walker: Awesome.

Steve Cuban: You can hear us? Great. Sorry, I don't have the camera hooked up, but I'm watching you and really always so encouraged by your story, Shane. What a blessing you are, man. You and Michael. If we had guys like you mentoring us, we will go very far.

Shane Heilman: Wow. Wow. Thanks so much, man. That means a lot.

Steve Cuban: The question that I have would be, because I and many people here, we love to use music to bring people into a worship experience, and we like to play and sing scripture songs, so I wanted to get your feedback on that, and in a way that would apply to everybody here about taking words that have been written in the Bible and putting them to music, and how much liberty that you take. Do you have to go word for word what the Bible says or do you take your liberty and adjust the translation, or adjust the interpretation of what you're saying to how maybe it fit back in that day and how it would fit today? Because some people are very strict, they say: Oh, it has to be exactly what the Bible says. And other people say, no, you can take your poetic license. What's your thoughts about that as a psalmist, brother?

Shane Heilman: Yeah. Thanks for the question, man. Yeah. It's definitely a balancing act. So whenever people ask: do you put the Psalms to music word for word? I always ask him word for word with what? With the original Hebrew? Because if you're gonna do word for word, it would be, you'd have to sing it in Hebrew. Cause what the English translations try to do is they try to communicate the words and the ideas in that text the best they can in a different language. And anybody who's done translation work knows it's very hard work and there are definitely thoughts and ideas in ancient languages that are very difficult to convey accurately in modern English. And sometimes they just can't, so they just will put literally what the text says. And we're going like: that doesn't make any sense. So what I try to do is I try to use the best most literal modern English translations that I can, when I can. And of course, when you're making melodies, sometimes you got to squish a word here, or you got to use a synonym here, there to make the melody work and stay consistent, but I try to use just the most popular, basic modern English translations, the most reliable, and then just do a little bit of a little bit of idea by idea paraphrase/synonyms to make it work. But the goal is always to communicate what the original text is trying to communicate, and again, that's basically doing translation work, and I'm leaning on scholars to do that. It's like a balancing act between going “word for word” with the English translation and just trying to convey ideas with the words and music that reflect what's being said. So it's a balancing act but that's how I approach it. 

Steve Cuban: Great. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And I really appreciate that you delve into the Hebrew to see what the original words mean. Because it does make a difference.

Shane Heilman: Absolutely does.

Steve Cuban: If I can share this for 30 seconds. I was one time reading Isaiah 54 and as I read it, all of a sudden I felt this Caribbean beat come and it just fell into place. Single barren woman. And I felt a reggaeton beat, where the clave goes twice.

Shane Heilman: I have similar experiences. Yeah. I'm reading something and I'm like: I hear something.

Steve Cuban: And that's so cool, the inspiration, and here's what was amazing: as I read the Hebrew, and I'm thinking about this reggaeton beat, and I'm hearing it, and then I look, and there's a section in the Hebrew, verse 7, that says that God, for just a small moment, is mad. Just a small moment. And the Hebrew word is reggecaton. So here I'm hearing a reggaeton beat, and the Hebrew word is reggecaton. Now, how cool is that? I mean, God inspires us even as musicians, eh?

Shane Heilman: Yes, that is really cool. Yeah, and I'm really interested also in just like the science of music, because I know some people when they compose music, they really feel like they see color, or they can tell what color the music is.

Steve Cuban: Oh, wow.

Shane Heilman: And I have the same experience when I'm reading the text. Sometimes I'll just hear what this should sound like. It's very odd. Some people like: where does the music come from? I don't know. I just, I hear it and I start writing it and playing it. So anyway, no, thanks for those thoughts, brother. I appreciate that.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Thanks Steve!

Steve Cuban: Thanks, Michael.

Michael Walker: All right. It's so cool. Yeah. I mean, the creative process is such a beautiful thing. And, there's a lot of truth to the idea that there's different frequencies almost like sound frequencies. I've seen videos on YouTube where they have a pile of sand on a table and they just raise the hertz, like the frequency and at different frequencies it rearranges itself into geometric shapes. And it's so interesting. And it’s like, you're talking about lights and sounds and I think it was called synesthesia. I know is a thing where you can, yeah, taste colors.I don't know. Our senses are amazing things. And we, you have evolved to try to make sense or try to, we can perceive some things. Sometimes I wonder if the way that we evolved like eyes, like in the early stages of having eyes and we were trying to we could just, we could sense something that's happening but we don't fully grasp it or fully understand it because our eyes aren't fully developed. I wonder if we have certain senses that are like that with, maybe how we perceive time, whereas we have very primitive, like, sense organs around it. Maybe someday we'll fully be able to better understand. 

Shane Heilman: Yeah. Maybe how blind people talk about how their other senses are really heightened, to make up for their lack of sight. That's always really interested me. And then of course, Beethoven was deaf. I don't know. I still don't know how that worked. You know what I mean? Like you just feel vibrations through the piano. But, yeah, the world is not just stuff for sure. You know what I mean? But yeah, I could get into that for a long time. Just the frequencies like I do believe that music has spiritual power that is within it. I don't really exactly know how that works theologically, but what I do know is I can play music for a certain person and some of it, the music that I've made and you can just tell this has a real, tangible spiritual impact on the person. I just find that fascinating.

Michael Walker: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, so how about we check out our chat and see if anyone else has any questions or anyone wants to come in here live? Matt said: Shane, do you tune for 432 Hertz?

Shane Heilman: I get that question all the time. You wouldn't believe how many people ask: do you make your music to God's frequency or the devil's? Cause I don't know if anyone knows about the 432. Do you know about the 432 and 440 Hertz controversy? 

Michael Walker: I've heard touches of it, yeah. Like it's a certain frequency you can retune your instruments towards. Is the normal one the devil frequency? 

Shane Heilman: Okay. I don't want to get too deep into it. Okay. It's a conspiracy theory, but the story goes that 440 Hertz, which is the most common frequency at which music is recorded was the frequency, was used by like Hitler's doctor or something to torture people. And that's where it comes from. Or that's the tradition. But 432 is supposed to be like in harmony with something. I don't know. So that's the idea is that 440 was like some corruption, and 432 is like the real healing frequency or something like that. I've researched it personally. I don't believe there's anything to that. And that's a long conversation, but I could share some resources with those of you who are into it, but I have not found that to be a credible theory. I don't think there's anything to the 432 frequency things. That's just my two cents. 

Michael Walker: We should come up with a new frequency, the Modern Musician frequency. And, if we retune to 500 or whatever, I don't know, we come up with the Modern Musician frequency. And that's how we know if someone is part of the squad. You have to make music only in the frequency of 555. Definitely not 666, so we'll avoid that one. That's not the, yeah.

Shane Heilman: So, no. I don't do 432, Matt, to answer your question. 

Michael Walker: Alright, so let's keep on going to questions. He said 420 is a high frequency and it heals. Marijuana.

Shane Heilman: I'll take his word for it.

Michael Walker: Alright let's see. I think we have a hand up in the audience. We might have time for one more question here. I see Rakuta. Rakuta asked the question: what did you do to follow up after the great response to your free CD offer? Yeah, that's a good question. Like in terms of the free CD offer, and like a followup to that and different strategies. What are some tips or tricks in terms of the tactical side of things that you find that are working?

Shane Heilman: Yeah, it's a great question. For me, I found that the sales funnel was absolute game changing strategy for me to be able to generate enough revenue with my music. The reason that the free CD offer was profitable and I shouldn't just assume that everybody here knows how a free CD offer works because I remember that first podcast I heard where they said: we're going to teach you today how to make money by giving away your CD for free. I was like, how does that work? That doesn't sound like a good strategy to me. But the idea is, you offer a free CD just pay the shipping cost. But what makes that offer profitable is the upsell or sometimes it's called a bump offer where when someone's checking out to buy the CD, which is, it's like, four or five bucks for a CD. It's a great deal for the shipping and handling, I should say. And then, but anyway, they're only, they're paying four or five bucks and they're getting this CD shipped to them. My upsell at the beginning was to upsell to my whole collection. So I had four CDs at the time. So I'm like, hey, do you want to get our whole collection? I think at first I offered it for 20 bucks. So for an extra 20 bucks, you can have three other CDs, which is an insanely good deal. The upsell was what made that profitable. Without the upsell, it would not have been a profitable thing or a good idea, especially with all the ad spend that you're spending. So when you have about 50 or 60 percent of people taking that upsell offer, now you're starting to get into profitability. And after joining Modern Musician, they taught me all kinds of other upsells I could do. So now when people come to my free CD offer, they can upsell to the entire CD collection. And then after that, they can upsell to join our inner circle where they support us monthly in exchange for certain benefits. And I have a funnel step where people can join in one click. And also some, so if they don't want to join the inner circle, then there's a downsell offer like, hey, do you just want a t-shirt?

So the funnel is a way to negotiate with the customer: okay, what exactly are you interested in and what exactly do you want to spend? Because some people will go into the funnel and they will just buy everything. So they came there for a free CD offer and they're like: Oh, I like that offer. Oh, I like that too. Oh, I like that too. And now they're spending over a hundred dollars in that funnel. This is the way I always put it. When I send an email to my list with an offer, I found out pretty quick that if I send an email to just what I call a dead end offer, that's it's on your website buy this CD and people will go buy the CD. But if there's no, upsell behind it, or if it's just they buy the CD and that's it, I'd make a little bit of money from that email. But if I sent him to a funnel and offer with a funnel and upsells behind it, it's five to 10 times as much revenue. Sending them to a funnel instead of a dead end offer.

So yeah, the sales funnel is definitely what I offer after. And you just think to yourself: okay, I've got this offer. What would be a logical next step? What would be a way to enhance this experience or take this experience to the next level? Then that would be a good follow up offer for people. And then think about it again. Again, you can keep on putting offers in front of people, as long as they will keep taking them. They can say no whenever they want, but why not just say, Hey, do you want this too? And some people will say yes because they're impacted by the music they're really excited and they want to support you. So why not give them the opportunity? So I also follow up on my email list. So if someone just takes a cd and passes on, you know, the upsell offer that's not the last time they're going to hear about it because they're on that in my email list they're going to get multiple more opportunities to take those offers later.

So my email list also works as like a follow up funnel to keep on putting offers in front of people as I'm serving them, as I'm giving them good content to read, as I'm nurturing them, as I'm pouring into them. I'll drop offers here and there, and people will be like, okay, yeah, I'll take that. That's what I do as a follow up to the free CD offer. 

Michael Walker: Super smart. Yeah. And, we could probably be here for another hour to 10 hours, just talking about the email follow up stuff and your genius around email sequences and the importance of email.

Shane Heilaman: Yeah. I had these thoughts about that.

Michael Walker: So it’s surprising, but I mean, but you did, I mean, you talked about how important email was to your own journey and how you got started with that single email and you have this email list of 5,000 people, which is amazing. Single email over a thousand dollars, that's pretty dang awesome. And definitely the follow up and you mentioned how you get the follow up process and the upsells are really the thing that made that whole thing work. The good news is for all of you who are here right now, it's good to be you because we actually just launched a brand new what we call: the fan journey template, and it's in your street team account right now.

If you've been following along with the artist launch challenge, then you've, over the past week, we've been setting this up together. But this fan journey template basically creates your own free shipping offer that you can send fans to. And we automatically fulfill it for you. So you don't even have to worry about, sending things out yourself. And it includes the upsells for you. So what that looks like is we have these digital cards. These digital exclusive cards that you preload your content onto exclusive content that people can get. And we ship this out for you. It's like a CD, but we ship out the card and people have the ability to upgrade from a bronze pack that includes some exclusive content to like your VIP or to your gold, So you have that built in upgrade. And we also put in the inner circle upgrade in that fan agent or any template as well. So really in that like single template that you guys have access to in your street team accounts, you have the ability to get started and get launched and start following in a similar footsteps to what Shane has been talking about all throughout this podcast.

Shane Heilman: Do it, sign up, start doing it. Definitely. 

Michael Walker: Yeah. If only it was available in your account and it was free. That would be really cool, huh? 

Shane Heilman: Yeah, if only it was easy to set up and, just like all the templates were done for you. That'd be great, wouldn't it? 

Michael Walker: There's like a step by step process that literally just helped you do all of this and hold your hand through it. Gosh, that'd be cool.

Shane Heilman: We got to develop this idea. Let's talk more about this. 

Michael Walker: That's not even what I meant to click, but it worked out. All right. Hey, Rakuta, I see that you did manage to get up here. We are probably gonna wrap up the podcast now, just since we're a bit over time now, but we had a chance to answer your question. It was a fantastic question. So thank you for asking that. And because we're here live right now I don't know what your schedule looks like right now, Shane, but for me personally, after we're done with the podcast, I'm going to hop off and go into the breakout rooms here in the Discord community. And this is a chance for us to network a little bit more and connect with other artists who are here live. And maybe if you have any additional questions that you'd like to ask to Shane or I, then we can hang out for a little bit. So we're going to hop over to the breakout rooms now, but let's give a round of applause one more time for Shane. This is awesome. I mean, like we've talked about. This before, like I know your journey, but hearing it in more detail again has been super inspiring. And I'm just, yeah, proud to be a part of your journey project, for you to be a part of the team. And it's so cool that we get to do what we do and be able to have conversations like this and be able to inspire and guide other artists on their path. So thank you for being a part of it and for taking that leap of faith yourself and, and the ripple effects that, that you're helping with other artists that you're guiding through Modern Musician as well. It's really awesome. 

Shane Heilman: Thanks, man. Really appreciate that. And on behalf of all the artists listening, I want to thank you, Michael, for what you do, because obviously, you coming along at that time in my life really did change my life. And I think really did change the trajectory of my future. So you're doing something super, super valuable. And I don't want you to ever forget that. 

Michael Walker: Thanks, man. That means a lot.

Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure and check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

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