But somewhere along the way I started asking a different question: what if music could do more than make you just feel something? What if it could actually change what your body and brain are doing, not just how they feel about it?

That question sent me down a year-long rabbit hole that ended with a certification in Neuroacoustic Science Training under Dr. Jeffrey Thompson through The Shift Network earlier this year. Twenty modules, thirty hours of training, the whole thing. It wasn’t about having yet another credential to hang on a wall…. (bleh)… I got it because I wanted to actually understand what was happening in the thirty seconds before a song hits you in the chest.

Here’s what I learned. And here’s what I built with it…

The Five States Nobody Teaches You

Your brain runs on electrical rhythm. Different speeds, different jobs. Five of them matter most:

Delta (0.5–4 Hz) — the deepest sleep. Cellular repair. Regeneration. The body fixing itself while you’re not looking.

Theta (4–8 Hz) — dreaming, deep meditation, creativity, the door to your subconscious. This is where memory gets filed away and where a lot of emotional processing actually happens.

Alpha (8–12 Hz) — relaxed focus. Calm alertness. The “just breathed out” feeling. Stress release lives here.

Beta (12–30 Hz) — active thinking. Problem-solving. Learning. This is your working brain — and it’s also where stress creeps in if it runs too hot for too long.

Gamma (30–100 Hz) — peak awareness. Expanded consciousness. The rarest waking state, where your senses stop operating separately and start binding into one experience.

That’s the map. Most people have never heard a clean explanation of it, which is wild, because it explains so much about why some sounds calm you down and others wire you up.

The State In Between

Here’s the part that actually stopped me in my tracks.

There’s a specific state that doesn’t get its own clean label in most brainwave charts, because it’s not a band — it’s a border. It sits right between Theta and Alpha, at almost exactly 7.5 Hz.

It’s the Flow State. The Zone. Whatever you want to call the feeling of disappearing completely into what you’re doing… and it’s not some vague metaphor. It’s a documented, measurable frequency. And it sits almost exactly on top of the Schumann Resonance, 7.83 Hz… the Earth’s own electromagnetic pulse, generated by lightning storms bouncing between the surface and the ionosphere, happening since before there were brains around to entrain to it.

If that doesn’t spark something inside of you, I’m not sure what will. Heck, I don’t even know what to do with that fact except sit with it for a minute. Think about it. The frequency our planet has been humming at for millions of years sits right on top of the frequency where humans report losing themselves completely in the moment. Make of that what you will. I choose to make music with it.

Why Breathwork Sometimes Isn’t Enough

Something I keep coming back to: breathwork, yoga, meditation — they work. I’m not knocking any of it. I do them all (almost!) daily. Here’s the thing though… they all require one thing to work: a nervous system that’s still capable of responding when you ask it to.

For a lot of people… people who’ve been stuck in fight-or-flight for years, whose stress response stopped answering the phone a long time ago. Asking them to “just breathe through it” is asking their body to do something it’s currently not even capable of doing.

What stuck with me, talking this through with my mentor, is that the goal isn’t flipping a switch from stressed to calm. It’s bringing both systems — the gas and the brake — back down to something closer to zero, so the body can find its own way back to homeostasis. Sometimes that takes two minutes of the right frequency. Sometimes it takes ten. The point is the music doesn’t need you to try. It just works on you, whether you’re capable of trying or not.

That’s the foundation underneath everything I build now. Neat, right?

What I’m Actually Doing With This

I make music as Brave as Bears. Many of you probably know that. That’s still a thing, that’s still the songs with the words and the feelings, untouched by any of this.

But underneath MusicFit Method, I’ve built something else: the Beat Protocol. Six tracks, one for each documented brainwave state — Delta, Theta, Alpha, the Flow State, Beta, Gamma — built specifically to work on your nervous system, not just in your ears.

And here’s the thing I want to be really clear about: this isn’t only for musicians.

If you produce music, you’ll learn to build your own certified track from start to finish over six weeks. You’ll walk away knowing how to make every track after that one, too.

If you don’t produce — if you’re a coach, a practitioner, someone who works with people’s nervous systems for a living — you get full access to the entire library, and you’ll learn exactly how to use it in your own sessions. Using it well is the actual skill here. Making it is optional.

Either way, you’re walking away with the ability to bring people music that does something real, not just something pleasant.

Whatever you’re carrying right now — whatever needs to come down, or up, or just out — there’s a beat for that. I spent a year learning exactly which one, and exactly why. Now I’m teaching it.

If you want to learn more there two routes for you. Reply to this post / message me or head to beat.miketheschwartz.com and see what frequency you need right now to get you back in harmony.

Love ya! ✌️
— Mike

He was the epitome of love. Selfless, unapologetic and completely unconditional love. He’s up in puppy heaven now… sadly he’s moved on from this world :(. But the love he showed me lives on forever in me and through my music...

I’m trying something new with my music. And my art just in general. I’m going to spend a year exclusively releasing it — all of it — only on Substack (and when applicable, Bandcamp).

My first single “Learn How to Love Me” is the first experiment of this strategy. I’ve made a bunch of really killer tunes lately so I decided to slap them together and call them an album. Yes. We still make those as musicians… The Heartbreaker EP drops July 1 — exclusively here on my Substack, now rebranded to “Stories in Stereo”, and powered by Bandcamp. It lives nowhere else. No Spoti-fry. No Apple Music. No algorithm deciding whether you ever hear it.

Just you and me and the music. Here’s why…

Why I Left Spotifry

I dunno if you saw, but on June 12, 2026, Spotify updated their terms of service. I read them. All of them. I know. I’m THAT guy…

The Spotify Terms — Read It Yourself

Forget speculation. This is straight from Spotify in their own words. Read the full updated privacy policy here: → Spotify Privacy Policy

Sections 1.2, 1.3, and 3 are where it gets uncomfortable.

Why It Matters — For Fans

You came to Spotify for music. What you got was a data profile. Every search, every skip, every late night playlist you built after a breakup… logged, analyzed, and sold to advertisers who know more about your emotional state than your closest friends do.

On free Spotify you are the product. The music is the bait.

And when Spotify’s AI DJ recommends your next song — it’s not doing you a favour. It’s optimizing for engagement, not discovery. The independent artist making something real in their basement gets buried. The algorithm-friendly content rises. You never know what you missed. It’s BS. Not how I imagined a music career. Here’s why…

Why It Matters — For Artists

$0.003 per stream. That’s the number. You need 250 streams to make one dollar. One dollar. Before tax. More if you’re candaian, ‘cause oh yeah… that’s USD and there’s a bunch of taxes you’ll pay if you’re not set up properly in the states. (that’s for another rant…)

Meanwhile Spoti-fry uses your music — your actual recordings, your creative output — to train the machine learning models that will eventually make your job redundant. Without your consent. Without additional compensation. Without so much as telling you it’s happening. That sounds an awful lot like the big capital R word to me…

Session musicians get nothing. The drummer who built the track, the bassist who held it together… legally exempted from the streaming payment structure entirely. In Canada, Spotify is actively fighting CRTC legislation in court that would require them to contribute 15–25% of revenue back to Canadian artists. Hundreds of millions of dollars locked up in litigation while Canadian musicians starve. Like wtf?

You built your “career” on their platform. They own your audience. They own the data. They own the relationship between you and your fans. The moment they change the terms — and they just did — you have nothing. Wait, you already had nothing… now you have less than nothing…

Why It Matters — For Brands & Industry

If you’re a brand, a manager, a label, or an industry professional still building exclusively on streaming platforms — you’re building on sand.

The artists your brand is attached to are underpaid, data-mined, and one algorithm change away from invisibility. The labels still signing deals structured around streaming royalties are handing the most valuable asset… your fan relationships… to a platform that has zero loyalty to either side.

The brands and industry players who move now… the players who help artists own their audiences, build direct relationships, and create sustainable revenue outside the platform economy… those are the ones who will still be standing in ten years.

The underground already exists. It just needs infrastructure. So being the troublemaker I inherently am, I decided to make a petition. I don’t have all the answers. I have a lot of ideas and a few really good questions to get the party started though… but I’m calling on all the brave souls who still believe in independent art to stand up and put an end to the streaming era with me.

→ stayindie.ca — Sign the petition. Join the movement.

I’m done feeding that machine. How about you?

What I’m Building Instead

This is it. Right here. And why you’re seeing a rebrand from the MusicFit Underground. (that’s still alive and well… it just lives over here now on Skool)

Stories in Stereo is where my music lives from now on. No middleman. No algorithm. Direct from me to you. The way it should be.

Moving forward, you can expect this place to be my creative expression hub. I will drop music, my thoughts and some personal stories each week and keep you updated on life behind the scenes as I grow and build what is becoming the CrossFit franchise of the music industry, MusicFit. See the resemblance…? I swear that was unintentional!

The free tier gets the writing, the philosophy, the tools — everything I know about keeping people moving, thinking, and making their world a better place despite whatever BS that’s going on.

The HiberNation founding tier opens July 1. Full music library access. One new release every month. Private chat. Private sound & story concert workshops. All the real stuff. Direct to you. That’s what I want to do. Buiuld relationships through my art and love for life.

This is my world. And how as a creator, I see the future. Direct. Relationship-based. Intimate. On purpose. To me it’s so much more than the music.

It has a heartbeat… 💜

The Heartbreaker EP

The sound? Alt Zen. If Big Wreck and Third Eye Blind did a yoga retreat with Trevor Hall and Wu-Tang was the instructor.

Music for burnt out 90s kids who think too much and still feel everything.

Five tracks. Built from the kind of heartbreak that cracks you open and lets the light in. The kind Darwin taught me about just by showing up every day and loving without conditions.

I forget where I heard this… probably Paul Chek…

The function of a broken heart is to let your love pour out.

That’s what this EP is.

Learn How To Love Me — Out Now

The first single is live right now. Free. For everyone. Right here to stream and as a digital download in case you wanna throw it on your preferred music player on your device. (Reminder that I’ll be releasing all my future works in my paid tier so if you’re interested, be sure to pledge your support down below before July 1) Enjoy!

If you’re open to it, I would love to know what this song reminds you of of what you think of when you listen… 👇

Leave a comment

Put it on. Let it land. If you’re interested in hearing the rest of the album, the tracks are all high quality wav files… and I’ve got some limited edition merch up for pre-sale… 👇

→ Listen on Bandcamp

The Movement

I wanna be clear…I’m not just complaining about the streaming platform fiasco... I’m building the alternative.

I.N.D.I.E. — Intergalactic Network Defending Independent and Emerging Artists — is a petition and a community for artists, fans, and industry professionals who are done watching the platforms profit while the musicians starve.

Sign it. Share it. Stay indie.

→ stayindie.ca

July 1. Darwin’s birthday. The Heartbreaker EP. HiberNation opens.

Good chat. Thanks for being here and welcome (back) to Stories in Stereo.

Stay tuned.

MTS

PS. I’m looking for 2 more private 1:1 or semi-private clients for the summer. Ideally, they’re someone who’s experiencing chronic pain, maybe a bad back, knee or shoulder… tried everything and nothing seems to click/ They’ve been written off by a doctor or told to give up or that’s just the way it is now... It’s not. Shoot me a message if you know anyone who might fit the bill. I’d like to see if I can help them out.

Last year I buried him out at my folks place. My childhood home, right next to my golden growing up, “General” Bertuzzi. They play like goofs, I’m sure.

I know Dar’s with me, in some ways more than I’d like to admit, lol and today has been a slower, reflective day for me. Something I’ve needed for a long, long time.

Before I get too far gone… I’m uncertain if you’re already subscribed to my writing… if you are, awesome. Thank you. If you’re a creative human being who’s navigating this world and these wild times, creativity is your best weapon. I write all about how to harness it and make a sustainable, creative life more than a dream — a reality. Consider subscribing to receive my work straight to your inbox if that sounds rad. All good either way.

Subscribe

See, I think of it like this…

We are merely infinitesimal. We are a speck of dirt floating on a gargantuan rock in the middle of a vast network of empty space and hope. How do we even fathom that?

Here’s one song that I’ve been riding for the past 48 hours to help me put it all together. Aptly named, by a band I’d say is one of the top three most influential artists on my music career. “Darwin” - Third Eye Blind

Chromosomes divide,

Multiply and thrive

And the strong survive

Yeah the strong survive.

That’s powerful. And I mean that in an honest way. Not in a bro-cool way. And I’m certainly not throwing it around like a plastic shaman throws out patchouli sticks and incense at an ayahuasca retreat in Peru.

It’s powerful because it reflects the truth of the natural world in thirteen words.

We are born. We do things.

If we’re lucky we reproduce.

And then we die.

And upon reflecting on one of my favourite sayings nowadays, “What Would Darwin Do?”…

He’d be pumped to go outside for a walk in the rain, get soaked and throw a stick for himself. He is the epitome of joy.

That dog taught me more about freedom, playfulness and unconditional love that I could have ever imagined when I first brought him home from his adoption family, nearly 11 years ago.

And what that means to me is to be brave, be bold and take a shot at the biggest, most crazy-ass ideas you can possibly dream up while you can… because one day, it’s all over.

If you’re betting on yourself, you’re playing the infinite game of life.

And I for one, will always choose to play by myself in the rain if that’s what brings me joy in the moment. Be like Darwin.

Love you. xo

When any industry is worrying about what should happen, pirates worry about what could happen.

Read that again.

The music industry right now is a room full of people arguing about what should happen. Should AI be regulated? Should streaming pay more? Should TikTok dances count as marketing? Should labels sign fewer artists or more?

Should. Should. Should.

They’re all shoulding all over themselves… 💩

At MusicFit, we don’t care.

We never did.

Here’s what the industry actually looks like from where we’re standing:

Artists are being told to film themselves lip-syncing in the passenger seat of a car — their friend driving, their dignity somewhere on the floor of the back seat — because that’s “what works right now.”

Grown adults. Serious musicians. Sitting in a car. Pretending.

And here’s the thing nobody wants to say out loud: the only thing more stupid than a stupid rule is the person who follows it.

We said that out loud.

We’re saying it again.

MusicFit was not built to fix the music industry.

We were built to make it irrelevant.

There’s a difference. Let me explain…

Fixing implies the thing’s worth saving. It implies you believe in the system enough to patch the holes. It means you’re still playing their game, just with better tools.

We’re not fixing anything…

We flipped the table.

We looked at the sports world instead.

Because sports figured something out a long time ago that music never did: the best development systems aren’t about the business first — they’re about the athlete first.

You draft them. You develop them. You give them a real structure, real coaching, real metrics, real accountability. You put them in a league where performance means something, where competition brings their best (and worst) out, where showing up matters, where growth is tracked, where that kind of culture demands excellence.

MusicFit is that… for artists.

Kind of. The biggest difference is that we call them Artist-Athletes. Because that’s what they are. Resilience. Vision. Coachability. Presence. Discipline. Consistency. These are more than just nice sounding words. These are the stats on their player card. The card they get when the come through our Free Forever development league.

Join the MFL for Free Forever here

And we gamified the whole thing. Because development without stakes is just a workshop. And I’ve never been to a workshop that built legends…

How about you...?

Who cares, anyway?

I get it. Not everyone is into levelling up. Being the best they can be. Theyy’re happy to resign to the status quo. play the game. Complain when it doesn’t workout for them. That’s easy. Not everyone is built to innovate. Not everyone can handle an athlete’s mindset when it comes to creativity, discipline, resilience… Good. I like that. More room for those who do.

I wanna be crystal clear about something. We’re not looking for everyone.

We’re looking for the troublemakers. The rebels. The artists who are more than the title.

The ones who looked at the industry and felt something between rage and boredom. The ones who kept making music anyway, not because the algorithm told them to, not because a label validated them, but because they physically were unable and unwilling to stop. The one’s who show up when nobody’s watching.

The ones who read “this is how it works” and heard “this is how it used to work.”

We want the artists who are already halfway out the door of the old system. We’ll hold it open the rest of the way.

“What could happen…?” That’s our question.

Not what should. Not what worked in 2015. Not what the playlist curators want this quarter.

What could happen if we treated artists like athletes and built them a real league?

What could happen if development was gamified, transparent, and merit-based instead of based on who you know and how many followers you have?

What could happen if the creative economy went fully decentralized — if the gatekeepers just… didn’t matter anymore? (‘cause they don’t in the sandboix we play in…)

We think the answer is a creative dynasty. Built by troublemakers. Played by Artist-Athletes. Run by artist-athletes… with a pirate ethos. 🏴‍☠️

Come with us or don’t.

Seriously. All good either way.

But if you’re still lip-syncing in the passenger seat hoping someone important notices… we wish you luck.

We’ll be over here rewriting the playbook.

MusicFit. Artist Development. Gamified.

- M

Ps. If this struck a chord (ha!) and you’re feeling inspired, that’s awesome. While we are focusing solely on Calgary for this season, we have been advised to open a waitlist for any artists or investors who want to pioneer a new, decentralized way forward in their city and build their scene with a proven leadership team and a proper blueprint in 2027 and beyond. We will be expanding into select music markets at that time and the franchise cost right now is only 33K. Shoot me a message if you’d like to discuss that further.

The one who was your best friend… until you stopped doing what they wanted.

The one who cheered you on just loud enough to keep you close, but never loud enough for anyone else to hear. Who told you that you needed them. That without their approval, their playlist, their label, their co-sign… you were nothing. Who made you feel special just often enough to keep you showing up. And the second you started figuring things out on your own — the second you stopped being easy to control — they got cold. Distant. Suddenly very busy.

You had a friend like that growing up. Maybe a sibling. Maybe a bully who called themselves your best friend…

The music industry is that friend.

It told you to hustle until you break. Post more. Show up more. Burn yourself down chasing something that keeps moving. It made burnout sound like a badge of honour. It made exhaustion sound like commitment. It made rest sound like weakness.

And the whole time, it knew exactly what it was doing.

Because an exhausted artist is an easy artist to control.

(Most of) The Athletes Figured This Out Decades Ago.

Sleep is training. Recovery is performance. The body is the instrument. And if you don’t take care of the instrument — it breaks. Every time. Without exception.

Professional athletes have entire support systems built around this. Nutritionists. Sleep coaches. Recovery specialists. Sports psychologists. The whole apparatus exists to keep the human performing at their highest level for as long as possible.

Musicians get a rider with warm beer and a 15 minute soundcheck.

We’re done with that.

The MFL Is Calgary’s First Artist Athlete League.

We take independent musicians and treat them like professional athletes. Not metaphorically. No, no… Literally.

Every artist in the combine gets a WHOOP device from day one. Sleep, strain, and recovery scores tracked and published on a public leaderboard weekly. The healthiest artist gets drafted first.

Not the most followed. Not the most streamed. The healthiest.

Because here’s what we believe — and what we’re about to prove — the artist who takes care of themselves creates better, performs better, and lasts longer. This is so much more than a theory. It’s a social experiment. And Calgary is the first city to run it.

How It Starts — The Nomination.

Nobody applies to the MFL.

They get nominated.

A band. A fan. A brand. A music lover. Somebody who’s been paying attention adds a track to the MFL YYC Training Camp playlist on Spotify. That’s the nomination. That’s the ticket. Someone was paying attention.

Then we reach out. We say — hey. Someone nominated your track. We think you’d be a great fit. Are you open to hearing more?

No application form. No pitch. Just someone in your corner saying — yo… this one. 👉 🕺

And every band we bring in gets asked the same question — who else deserves to be in this league? Who in Calgary is sleeping on their potential?

They nominate the next band. That band nominates the next. The playlist becomes a living chain of Calgary artists vouching for each other. One song at a time. One nomination at a time.

That’s how a scene gets built.

Three Combines. June. July. August.

Miss June? There’s July. Miss July? There’s August.

Each combine takes 20 artists. 30 days. Same program. Same playlist. Same draft pool. Every day, one three minute practice lands in your hands. Breath work. Cold dip. Spring water. Sunshine. Meditation. Journaling. Movement. Sleep hygiene. The fundamentals every professional athlete uses… just applied to the creative life.

No selling. No content homework. No hustle challenges. (Thank God…)

Train. Recover. Perform.

By the time September 26 arrives — Draft Day, Music Day in Canada — up to 60 Calgary artists will have trained together, promoted each other, and built something this city has never seen.

Draft Day — September 26, 2026.

Music Day in Canada. The National Music Centre. Calgary.

The best performers across all three combines get drafted into MFL Season One — a 21 week league starting in October.

And the awards at the end of the season aren’t what you think…

Best Sleeper in the City. Everyone will assume we mean their music. We mean their actual sleep score. Most improved over 21 weeks.

The Youngest Rock Star. Everyone will assume we mean age. We mean WHOOP Age — the biological age WHOOP calculates based on your recovery data. We want artists who age backwards.

Most Improved HRV. Heart rate variability is the single best predictor of how well your nervous system is recovering. Over 21 weeks of intentional training, these numbers move. Dramatically. And when your HRV improves — your creativity improves. Your energy improves. Your output improves. The data proves it.

We’re not just tracking music. We’re tracking the human behind the music. And we’re betting — publicly, in front of all of Calgary — that developing the human develops the artist.

That’s the social experiment. And what I’m a little nervous about…tbh. 😬

The Grand Prize.

An international writing retreat. In Australia. Two weeks. Create, recover, perform at MusicFit Live: Australia. Better get your passport sorted…

No streaming numbers required. No follower count minimum. No industry gatekeepers deciding if you’re ready.

Just 30 days of showing up like an athlete, like a human… And then 21 weeks of proving it. In 2029 you can say you were a part of the MFL’s first international artist empowerment export series pipeline…

Do You Want To Be Part of the Experiment?

Calgary is doing something different. Because in order to produce different results, you have to do different things.

The traditional music industry had its chance. It chose control over creative development. Burnout over being human. Gatekeeping over getting to know your community.

We chose differently.

If you’re a Calgary artist who’s tired of burning out — who knows they have something real but keeps running out of runway — the door is open.

Start the chain. Nominate your favourite Calgary band by adding their song to the playlist:

Or register directly at www.mflyyc.com

Train. Recover. Perform.

That’s it. Oh yeah… keep it hush, hush…🤫 😜

— “Commissioner” Mike Schwartz

Founder, MFL YYC / MusicFit Records

PS. We’re currently focused on developing the MFL in Calgary, Alberta. If you think this would be something your scene could use, head to www.mflyyc.com and join the franchise waitlist (right at the bottom), me and the team would love to hear from you. Espcially if you’re in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg or Toronto.

The 30-day burnout challenge lives in our forever free private artist development and empowerment league over on Skool. www.skool.com/musicfittleague

Get more from Michael Schwartz in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

• creators

• marketers

• editors

• influencers

• performers

• content machines

…while somehow staying inspired through all of it.

No wonder so many talented people feel burnt out, overwhelmed, inconsistent, and creatively disconnected.

That’s exactly why we built the:

30-Day Creative Burnout Challenge

A free recovery-first challenge for artists, musicians, and creatives who know there has to be a better way to build a creative life.

This isn’t hustle culture.

This isn’t guru nonsense.

This isn’t “post 7 times a day and manifest harder.”

This is about rebuilding:

• energy

• momentum

• consistency

• community

• structure

• and your relationship with creativity itself.

Inside the challenge, you’ll get:

✅ A personalized onboarding call

✅ Creative Performance Scorecard

✅ Recovery-first artist development tools

✅ Access to the MFL Sustainable Musician Club

✅ Weekly missions, accountability & support

✅ WHOOP integration & recovery tracking

✅ Community with artists building healthier creative lives

Because we believe:

We build the human before the brand.

Who this is for:

Artists who:

• feel creatively exhausted

• struggle with consistency

• feel isolated doing everything alone

• know their current lifestyle isn’t sustainable

• want structure, support, and momentum

• are willing to work on themselves honestly

This probably isn’t for you if:

❌ You want overnight success shortcuts

❌ You think burnout is a badge of honour

❌ You want passive consumption instead of participation

❌ You’re unwilling to grow beyond old habits

The MFL is a participation culture.

Contribution is the currency.

The more you engage, support others, and show up consistently, the more opportunities open up:

• collaborations

• podcast features

• leadership roles

• showcases

• community recognition

• and future artist-athlete opportunities

We aren’t looking for perfect artists.

We’re looking for artists willing to grow honestly.

🎯 Your first mission:

Step inside the clubhouse.

Introduce yourself.

Start building momentum again.

Join the free 30-Day Creative Burnout Challenge here

Join the Challenge!

Love you, Mutti! Let’s go.

I’ve spent the better part of a decade watching talented artists quietly disappear.

They were (mostly) all super talented.

They just they burned out.

The music industry has spent years rewarding:

• overwork

• exhaustion

• constant availability

• algorithm addiction

• self-sacrifice disguised as passion

And for a long time, if you talked about recovery, wellness, nervous system regulation, or sustainability in music culture… people looked at you sideways.

Back in 2018, an Australian magazine called me “The Rock Doctor.”

At the time, I was talking about artists more like athletes:
training, recovery, performance, routine, community and sustainability.

Personally, I think we were too early.

Because now nearly every musician I speak to is overwhelmed.

They’re stuck between:
creating art, building content, working jobs, promoting themselves, trying to survive financially and somehow still being expected to stay inspired through all of it.

That’s simply unsustainable.

So we built something different.

The MFL Sustainable Musician Club is a recovery-first creative community for artists who want:

• more energy

• more consistency

• better routines

• stronger creative momentum

• real community

• sustainable careers

And we’re opening the doors through a free 30-Day Creative Burnout Challenge.

No online guru nonsense.
No fake hustle culture. None of this pay to play, playlisting hype or algorithm content craziness…
No pretending burnout is “part of the process.”

Just artists helping artists build healthier creative lives onstage and off.

Maybe the timing is finally right for you too…

Join the 30-Day Creative Burnout Challenge 👇

Free 30-Day Challenge

“Everything I release on Bandcamp is pay what you want. I don’t like paywalls for digital media.”

And honestly?

I get it.

There’s something beautiful about that idea.

No barriers. No gatekeeping.

Just art moving freely between people.

It feels generous. It feels open. It feels… right.

Until it doesn’t.

The Case for “Pay What You Want”

There is a version of this that works.

When an artist has:

• a real audience

• consistent output

• and trust built over time

“Pay what you want” becomes a connection tool.

It invites people in. It lets fans support at their own level. It creates a sense of participation. At its best, it says:

👉 “Take what you need. Give what you can.”

And in the right context, that’s powerful.

Where It Breaks

Here’s the part people forget...

Most artists using “pay what you want” are missing:

• a large audience

• consistent visibility

• or strong buyer behaviour from their fans

So what happens?

They:

• put work out

• get a few downloads

• maybe a couple small payments

…and that’s it.

No momentum.

No sustainability.

No feedback loop that reinforces the work.

It feels like generosity.

But functionally?

👉 It’s invisible.

The Question Under the Question

This debate is less about pricing models.

It’s more about something deeper:

👉 Do you believe your work deserves to be paid for?

Not in theory.

In practice.

Because if you fail to set a price, one of two things happens:

1. People default to free

2. Or they guess—and usually guess low

That’s not because they’re assholes... or don’t care…

It’s because you failed to provide a frame.

The “Nice” Trap

There’s a version of “pay what you want” that lives in the conscious / creative world that sounds like this:

• “I just want to share my art”

• “I don’t want money to be a barrier”

• “People will support if they resonate”

And again—there’s truth in that.

But there’s also a shadow side:

👉 avoiding the discomfort of asking for money

Because pricing your work forces you to confront:

• your value

• your confidence

• your relationship with money

And that can be hard for some.

So “pay what you want” becomes a softer option.

Not always intentionally. But often.

The Reality Most Artists Face

If you’re:

• early in your journey

• still building consistency

• still figuring out your audience

Then “pay what you want” usually leads to:

👉 underpayment

👉 low engagement

👉 and slow growth

Not because your art isn’t good.

Because there’s no structure around it.

What that can lead to is a cyclical narrative of worthlessness… especially if you’ve yet to do the work in other areas of your life to build that muscle up.

A More Honest Approach

Am I suggesting we ban “pay what you want.”

Of course not…

I’m saying, “hey, what if we started using it intentionally?”

For example:

• free or PWYW for discovery

• clear pricing for core offers

• premium pricing for deeper experiences

That’s a system. Not a guess.

Where I Land (Right Now)

I’m not anti “pay what you want.” You’d be hard pressed to find me anti anything really… lol

I’m pro:

👉 artists building something sustainable

Because at some point, you have to decide:

Is this something I do occasionally…

or something I want to build a life around?

If it’s the second one — you can’t avoid the conversation around value forever.

Final Thought

Access matters. Connection matters.

But if the artist can’t sustain themselves…

none of that shit lasts.

If you’re an artist reading this, I’m genuinely curious:

👉 Where do you land on this?

Reply or comment. Let’s actually talk about it.

ps. If you’re curious about where you stand in this all, we created a 2 minute quiz to help independent artists stop guessing and start assessing and move forward with their career in music. Take it here. 👇

Are you ready for a record label?

pss. It’s Bandcamp Friday and I for one, did set a price for my latest release: Stores in Stereo: Post Rock Poetry Vol. 1 + Meditations. Starting at $47 USD, you can purchase the digital format alongside liner notes of how each song came to be and lyrics for each song (when applicable). There’s 6 post-rocky bangers from the past 4 years, some recent, some of my very first cracks at production and the singing process followed by 3 dedicated NeuroBEAT meditations to help you move thorugh whatever life’s throwing at you these days. Use code substack20 at the checkout here 👇

Get the new album

Platforms getting bought.

Algorithms shifting.

Gatekeepers reshuffling chairs like it’s a new game.

Same game. New logos.

And every time this happens, artists do the same thing:

They wait.

They watch.

They hope it works out in their favour.

It rarely does.

The Truth No One Wants to Say

The system was never built to make you dangerous.

It was built to make you:

- consistent

- digestible

- easy to place

🤮

Stay in your lane.

Pick your genre.

Build your niche.

🤮🤮

Be predictable.

That’s how it scales.

🤮🤮🤮

That’s also how it dies.

Meanwhile…

I’ve learned that the artists out here changing the game have a few things in common. I call them “killers”.

They take action.

They break rules.

They collide with other killers.

Hip hop with folk.

Neo soul with punk.

Indie with something that shouldn’t work on paper—but somehow does.

That’s where the edge lives.

It’s less about talent…

Calgary is full of talent.

What’s missing is:

the right room

A room where:

- you’re surrounded by killers

- you have to make quick decisions

- you have to adapt or get exposed

A room where:

you leave better than you walked in

So We Built One

Not a community.

A league.

Where artists:

- train

- collaborate

- compete under pressure

No comfort zones.

No rehearsals.

No safety net.

Certainly no “you did great” for the sake of not wanting to rock the boat and hurt anyone’s feelings. F*ck that. If you want a participation trophy you can exit stage left… ✌🏻

You get thrown in.

You figure it out.

You perform.

Why This Matters Right Now

Because while everyone else is:

- chasing platforms

- waiting for opportunities

- trying to “break through”

We’re doing something simpler.

We’re getting better.

Together.

Fast.

This Isn’t For Everyone

If you want:

- control

- comfort

- perfection

You’ll hate this.

If you want:

- growth

- challenge

- to find out what you’re actually capable of

You’ll feel it immediately.

April 26

We’re putting 10 artists in a room. Total strangers. All killers.

New groups.

One hour.

One song.

Then they perform it.

That’s how this starts.

The Invitation

We’re keeping this small and intentional.

We’re just watching.

Seeing who leans in.

Who’s curious.

Who’s ready.

Final Thought…

The scene didn’t die.

It just got comfortable.

And comfort doesn’t create killers.

🎤 If this hit…

Reply.

Better yet, apply. Artist-Athlete Registration

The pilot is happening in Calgary April 26 with the intent to tour the world and build an underground network of straight up killers. LFG.

Reach out if that’s you.

Or just stay close if that feels better right now.

We’ll see you in the room.

- m

Laptop open.
Instrument within reach.
Time carved out like you promised yourself you would.

And then… nothing.

Your body tightens.
Your chest gets a little heavier.
Your brain starts negotiating exits.

Check your phone.
Tidy your space.
Scroll for “inspiration” that somehow never turns into anything.

You tell yourself:
“I’m blocked.”

You’re not.

You’re protected.

The moment before the work

Most people think the hardest part of creating is the work itself.

It’s not.

It’s the moment before the work…
when your system quietly says, “this doesn’t feel safe.”

We call that resistance.
We label it procrastination.
We try to out-discipline it.

But what if that moment isn’t weakness?

What if it’s intelligence?

I’ve been thinking about this through the lens of creative sustainability since I dropped the Kasador episode on MusicFit Radio…📻
We talk about load vs capacity in the body…
what we rarely talk about is emotional load vs creative capacity.

Creative sustainability organizes your output.
Protected Creative patterns shape your access to expression.

Here’s what I mean…

What’s actually happening

What most artists call “creative block” is often something else entirely:

Protected Creative Syndrome
A nervous system response designed to keep you from re-experiencing a past emotional hit.

At some point—recently or years ago—you felt something while creating:

• rejection

• embarrassment

• pressure

• not being good enough

• being seen too clearly

Your system took note.

And like any good bodyguard, it made a decision:

“Let’s avoid that happening again.”

So now, every time you approach that same edge—
publishing, writing, recording, sharing—
it steps in.

Not to stop you.

To protect you.

You already understand this… in your body

Touch your toes.

If your system doesn’t trust the range, what happens?

It tightens.

Not because your hamstrings are lazy.
Because your body doesn’t feel safe going there.

So it restricts.

Creative work follows the same pattern.

• Emotional tension → creative restriction

• Unprocessed story → avoided expression

• Internal threat → external distraction

The body and the art speak the same language.

This isn’t a discipline problem

Most advice for creatives sounds like this:

“Just show up.”
“Be consistent.”
“Push through.”

And sometimes that works… temporarily.

But you don’t solve protection with pressure.

You override it.

And whatever gets overridden… comes back louder. Spicier. Like hot peppers… 🌶️

They go down hot… 🥵

And come out even hotter the longer they stay inside. 🥵 🥵 🥵

The different ways protection shows up

Not all artists freeze the same way.

Protection has patterns.

Here are a few you might recognize:

The Looper
Feels everything. Finishes nothing.
Gets caught in cycles of thinking, revisiting, refining… never releasing.

The Suppressor
Understands it. Never expresses it.
Intellectualizes emotions instead of moving them.

The Escapist
Busy doing everything except the work.
Scrolls, plans, consumes—anything to avoid the edge.

The Performer
Can only create when the stakes are high.
Relies on pressure or deadlines to bypass the block.

And then there’s the shift:

The Transmuter
Feels → processes → expresses.
Turns emotion into output instead of avoidance.

None of these are personality types.

They’re strategies.

Ways your system learned to keep you safe.

The real cost

Here’s the part that stings a little.

The energy it takes to avoid the work…
is often heavier than the work itself.

Because you’re not just avoiding the task.

You’re holding the emotional charge underneath it in place.

Unfinished.

Looping.

Waiting.

The reframe

You’re not blocked.

You’re not broken.

You’re simply in a loop your system has failed to close.

And until that loop is finished…
your body will keep trying to protect you from stepping into it again.

What comes next

Before you can move through this,
you need to see how it shows up for you.

Because it’s not random.

It’s patterned.

In the next piece, we’ll map exactly what type of creative you are
when it’s time to do the work—
and how to spot it in real time.

Because once you can see the pattern…

you can finally change it.

Not from the amps—those are off.
From the bodies.

That low electrical buzz that lingers after a band leaves everything out there.

Kasador just stepped off “stage”. Shirts damp. Hands raw. There’s talk of blood blisters like it’s part of the setlist.

No one’s complaining.
That’s the thing.

This is the job.

Before this all starts… We find a corner. Not quiet—just quieter.

Someone cracks a drink. Someone else leans back like they’ve been holding tension in their spine for 90 minutes and just got permission to release it.

I ask them about sport.

Not music.

Sport.

Because there’s something in the way they carry themselves that feels trained.
Conditioned.
Like this isn’t just expression—it’s endurance.

Cam smiles.

“It’ll be a slog.”

He’s talking about the UK run. Ten dates. Two days off. Across the pond where crowds still pack rooms like it means something.

No irony. No apathy. Just energy.

Stephen jumps in—he’s seen both sides now. The early grind and the more structured push.

“Europe culture still loves live music.”

You can feel it when he says it.
Not as nostalgia. As fuel.

Here’s what sits underneath all of it:

They’ve figured out how to keep going.

Not perfectly.
Not effortlessly.

Just… consistently.

Most artists chase more shows.

More cities.
More streams.
More noise.

Kasador feels like they’re chasing something else entirely.

Capacity.

We start talking about what that actually looks like on the road.

Sleep that comes in fragments.
Food that exists somewhere between gas stations and green rooms.
Bodies that tighten, adapt, compensate.

Night after night.

There’s no off-season in this game.

And still—they show up.

High energy. Locked in. Present.

That’s not accidental.

That’s training.

Somewhere between Scottish football references and stories about hands torn open mid-set, the parallel becomes obvious:

Touring is a sport.

Just no one’s coaching it that way.

Touring As Sport

Athletes taper.

They build toward performance.
They manage load.
They respect recovery as part of the process.

Artists?

They’re handed a calendar and told to survive it.

And here’s the quiet truth sitting backstage:

The system rewards output.

The ones who last the longest get seen as the strongest.

But lasting… and thriving… aren’t the same thing.

Kasador knows this.

You can hear it in the way they talk.
You can see it in how they pace themselves.
You can feel it in the intention behind their set.

They’re not just trying to make it through the tour.

They’re trying to still be a band at the end of it.

That’s the difference.

This conversation sticks with me long after the room clears.

Because it hints at something bigger than one band on one tour.

It points to a different lane.

One where:

• Sleep becomes strategy

• Food becomes fuel

• Recovery becomes part of the art

• And longevity becomes the goal

Creative sustainability isn’t a nice idea.

It’s a requirement for anyone who plans to stay in this game long enough to matter.

Kasador’s still in the thick of it.

That’s right… the Kingston 4-piece’s high-energy live show is merely the byproduct of reps on reps on reps. Self admitted, there’s “no touring secrets”.

They’re

Still learning.
Still pushing.
Still feeling the weight of the road.

And still choosing to approach it like something worth training for.

The room’s quiet now.

Cables wrapped.
Lights off.
Energy settled.

But that buzz is still there.

Something’s shifting.

You can feel it.

And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear more than just the music.

Follow kasador on Instagram @kasadorband and make sure you get on the list at www.kasadorband.com so you know when they’re coming to your city.

Please take 10 seconds to subscribe and rate/review the show where you like to do the podcast thing —> https://musicfitradio.riverside.com/

If you are a part of a band, or maybe you’re a brand or a fan who believes there’s another way to help build a better, more sustainable path for artist-athletes like Kasador to succeed in music, please consider sharing this out and/or pledging to the underground. You can become a founding force in our mission to build a new, sustainable music economy. One where artists can thrive and let their music do the music thing even better.

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About the Author

Mike Schwartz stays close to the parts most people miss.

Backstage. After hours. Between the sets.

He studies how artists break… and how some of them don’t.

Blending performance, recovery, and story, his work cuts through the noise of an industry that rewards burnout and calls it dedication.

MusicFit Underground is where he keeps the record.

If you’re building something that lasts, you’ll recognize it.

I’m standing in my kitchen, barefoot, coffee going cold.

I see the notification:

“___ followed you.”

Nice.

Something I said… or played… or posted… landed.

I follow them back.

Ten seconds later—

ding 🛎️

“Hey! Thanks for the follow! Check out my latest track!”

And just like that…

the feeling changes.

Unfollowed.

Was that too harsh? Let me know what you would have done… ⬇️

Comment

It’s subtle.

No one throws their phone across the room.

No one writes a complaint.

They just… lean back.

A little less interested.

A little less curious.

A little more guarded.

Because that moment?

Was the opposite of that connection you say you’re all about…

It was a transaction in disguise.

And here’s the part most people miss—

This has nothing to do with music.

This is how people lose anyone.

Clients.

Fans.

Dates.

Opportunities.

You skip the human part…

and jump straight to the ask.

You didn’t do anything “wrong.”

You just moved too fast.

Like walking up to someone at a party, shaking their hand, and immediately saying:

“Cool—here’s what I do, here’s how you can support me, here’s the link.”

No curiosity.

No space.

No reason for them to choose you.

And when people don’t get to choose…

they don’t commit.

They comply at best.

They ignore you at worst.

Or they’re ice cold like me and unfollow. 😂

That’s why it feels like no one’s paying attention.

That’s why it feels like you have to push harder… post more… say more… send more links…

Because deep down—

you’re trying to force a connection that never got built.

The shift is simple.

And brutally uncomfortable for people who are used to promoting:

Pause.

Someone follows you?

Resist the sell.

Insist they tell…

Give them the opportunity to tell you something…

Who are they?

What pulled them in?

What did they see?

Because the artists—and honestly, the humans—who win long term…

Stop chasing attention.

They create moments where people can lean into their world.

Where someone thinks:

“Hold up… there’s something here.”

And when that happens?

You don’t need to send the link.

They’ll ask for it.

And that moment…

That’s the difference between being tolerated…

and being chosen.

👊 🎤

If you’re building something that people can actually feel—not just scroll past—stick around.

I write about music, mindset, and the art of creating connection that lasts. And for heavens sake, ask more questions before you sell me your music like a greasy used car salesmen in a plaid sport coat, jonesing for his next fix. lol

Let people ask for your music. That’s where the real connection starts.

If this hit, I invite you to subscribe so you get the next one right to your inbox. 👇🏼

Subscribe

This week has been super productive for me. I’m ten days ahead on my financial goals for the month, I’ve been in a creative supercycle and it’s gorgeous outside here in Calgary, Alberta.

A thought came to me this week about how the music scene is structured.

You see, I believe there’s a quiet truth most artists feel…
and almost nobody says out loud.

You can be working hard, showing up, saying yes, doing the gigs, posting the content—

…and still feel like you’re spinning in place.

Not quite “stuck”.
Just… circling… y’know?

And while the gurus out there would say the problem is effort.

Just not working hard enough. Just don’t want it bad enough…

That’s not the problem.
Clarity is.

The system runs on language

“Exposure.”
“Opportunity.”
“Industry standard.”
“Great chance for you.”

These words sound normal.

They get passed around so often they start to feel true.

Until you slow down and ask:

What does that actually mean?
Who does it benefit?
What am I actually trading here?

Most artists never get taught how to ask those questions.
They just get handed the script.

So we’re building a new one

Not louder.
Just…Clearer.

The MusicFit Underground is shaping a shared language—
so artists, fans, and the creators making things happen behind the scenes (photogs, video wizards and all the — as we coined ‘em — “amplifiers” and “room keepers”) who care about independent art can actually understand the game they’re in.

Words that mean something.

Definitions that reflect reality.

A way to look at a situation and know, in your gut:

this is aligned
this is noise
this is worth my time
this isn’t

No gatekeeping.
No pretending.

Just… clarity.

Proof of concept: this week

On St. Paddy’s, we ran a secret house show with Kasador.

No bar chaos.
No late-night burnout cycle.
No watered-down connection.

Just a room full of people who actually wanted to be there.

You could feel it:

• artists present in their craft

• audience locked in

• conversations that carried weight

That’s what happens when the environment supports the work.

That’s what we’re building more of.

This is where you come in

Before we scale anything, we’re listening.

To artists. To fans.
To photographers.
To videographers.
To the people actually in it.

What’s working.
What’s draining.
What’s worth it.
What isn’t.

We’re mapping the real terrain—
and turning it into something usable.

If you want in early

I’m running short interviews and a quick form.

Nothing heavy.
Just real conversation.

In return, you’ll get:

→ first access to the MusicFit Underground Dictionary (e-book)
→ early insight into how this whole thing is shaping up
→ a say in what gets built next

If you’ve ever thought:

“there has to be a better way to do this”…

This is that moment.

Fill out the form or reach out for a quick call.
I’ll send the link your way.

Book Your Chat w/ Mike

Take the Survey

We’re building this in the open.

One room at a time.

In reality, most of the time the opposite is true.

Artists burn out because they care deeply about what they’re creating… but they’re trying to sustain that creative output without systems that support the work.

The music industry talks endlessly about hustle, exposure, and strategy.

Almost nobody talks about sustainability.

What happens to the nervous system of a performer who spends years living in fight-or-flight?

What happens to the body when touring, rehearsing, and late nights become normal?

What happens to the story artists start telling themselves when the work they love becomes the thing that drains them?

Over the years working with musicians, athletes, and high performers, I kept seeing the same pattern.

The artists who last the longest treat creativity like a performance discipline.

They take care of three systems:

Sound – regulating the nervous system and creative energy
Strength – building physical resilience and recovery
Story – clarifying identity and purpose

Together those form the foundation of the MusicFit Method.

In this video I break down why so many artists burn out and how a simple shift in perspective can help creatives stay in the game for the long run.

Watch the video and drop your thoughts below.

For the past year I’ve been quietly documenting the local music scene… shows, artists, venues, conversations happening after midnight and before soundcheck.

Some of it became interviews.

Some of it became photos.

Some of it turned into a zine.

Now it has a home.

MusicFit Underground.

An independent Calgary publication dedicated to the people building music culture from the ground up.

Not the industry headlines.

Not the algorithms.

The real scene. Fan-fuelled.

Built for this city’s artists by this city’s artists.

Inside the Underground you’ll find:

• artist features and interviews

• live show photo dumps

• scene dispatches from around the city

• playlists and conversations with musicians

• stories about the reality of building a creative life — both on and off the stage

And occasionally…

some weird stuff. 🤪

The Underground runs on a simple rhythm:

Weekly Dispatches from the scene

Afterhours live events

Quarterly zine drops

(Spring ‘26 submissions are open!) 👇🏼

Submit here!

and a growing community of artists and fans who actually care about Calgary music.

If you’re a musician, venue owner, photographer, or fan of local music…

You’re already part of the scene.

You’re welcome underground. 👇🏼

Subscribe

Subscribe to follow the dispatches.

See you out there.

⚡️ 🫡

The harmonica sang with just enough reverb to make the local shoegazers all jelly-fish... I felt my whole body fill up with electricity. The lights came up and that kick drum pounded my chest, awakening my ancestors in the process.

I laid witness to that gritty, “stomp-clap-hey” style the Aussies were notorious for and this room was going bonkers for it.

That moment was all the way back in 2018. I had just celebrated my birthday the week prior, and that intro to “Canopy” was the most anticipated part of my 31st trip around the sun. It slaps.
Canopy is written in Kim’s classic emotional refuge meets nature’s beauty lyrical style. A gritty take on life where it’s clear that instead of seeking an escape, it’s about finding a place — in nature, in love, or inside yourself — where the storm above you becomes manageable. What a bop.

The reason I write this is because that awesome looking photo up there was one of the first times it clicked for me.

That was one of the first Mickey Madness* moments I’ve always been a Rockumentarian — preserving music culture and spotlighting those who bring their A-game, each and every time they hit the stage.

Kim and I have grown close over the years (I pretty much fangirled for 15 years until he noticed me…lol) and he’d be the first to tell you how important life offline and in nature is to handle the stressors of the music industry. You gotta recharge the batteries.

So I put two and two together and came to the quick realization that I am in a place in my life where I feel ready to embrace all of the things that make me uniquely me. Everyone is going to have their opinions. I’m unable to affect that. Let them, I say.

Over the past year this newsletter has been evolving into something bigger than a blog or updates from Miketopia.

Between Sets is now becoming MusicFit Underground, a magazine and community exploring sustainable creative lives. (Rest assured… I’m keeping my column. It’ll be called Between Sets.)

Welcome to the Underground

Here you’ll find:

• artist interviews and show reviews

• conversations with scenesters, hosts, music fans… anyone passionate about helping build a sustainable music ecosystem

• stories of grit, leadership and overcoming adversity from the lens of rock n’ roll

• live performance/conversation hybrid events known as MusicFit Afterhours, our signature series)

• reflections on the creative life

If you care about creativity, culture, and the realities of sustaining artistic work, you’re in the right place. And sure, it’s starting in Calgary, and with your help soon enough who knows… maybe we’ll be worldwide…

More soon.

— Michael

*Mickey Madness is an alter-ego I use when I need to find the “Fight-Club-meets-Conor-McGregor” strength & energy to do hard things. Mickey’s my scene gremlin avatar. lol

P.S. Here’s “Canopy” performed by Kim on Mahogany:

If you’re anything like me, what follows the question, “what if” is traditionally something all doom and gloom like…

• “I forget the words”

• “Nobody cares”

• “I screw up”

• “They all make fun of me”

• “They don’t like/accept/love me…”

That last one hits. That’s what I realized was keeping me from the one thing I could be — myself. You may even have haunting memories of something similar. (I suspect if you have a soul, you have.)

It’s natural. Our subconscious mind is running the playbook afterall, and once I discovered that for myself after two decades of staying stuck in the same loop.. I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to helping others get out of their loops and rewrite the stories that had been keeping them from being the one thing they could be — themselves.

Today I ran into it again. Felt the body shut down. Slept through my alarm and missed my first appointment today… and instead of shaming myself I decided to take a curious look at what was going on under the hood.

Here’s what came up.

The Deeper Issue

What I’ve discovered this past (exhausting) week, I’m trying to fit in as a perfect solution to whatever perceived problems exist in the world. Sounds like a good thing on the surface, right? Well… if you’re anything like me, who can and has worn almost any hat and proven to be good enough to get by, that becomes a big distraction. Everything looks like a lane and constant switching becomes the habit your mind believes is your path. My last week has been a lot of minor tweaks to the overall plan, typically when something or someone new presents their problems. It’s exhausting. And my body just straight up told me no more when I woke up. Groggy. Fuzzy. Slight headache.

Heard. Loud and clear.

The Solution

After I wrote solution just now, I felt some resistance… “path forward” feels better in my soul. The trouble with solutions is that part of the way I operate best is through living and learning and passing it on, so a solution is actually more about me failing and learning from the take aways. As you can imagine, that takes some time…

Quick note* If you would like more information on how you best move through life, message me and I’ll connect you with my Human Design mentors. I’ve found HD incredibly helpful in navigating the day to day challenges and accepting the ways I am best received and I would be happy to help you feel more ease in your life too.

Here’s the thing… Today marks one week out of the cozy, yet draining commercial gym job that I took on for 6 months. While I had all the intention of hammering out ten conversations per day, I accumulated a measly five in total. That’s because I’m operating against my natural design. I’m not a hustler, not a pusher, certainly not a cold caller. I’ve learned all these skills as part of a decorated 25 year career in the people business across multiple industries, but holy moly does it ever wear me down.

I’m a lighthouse. I need an invitation into the lives of others in order to offer my gifts and if you’re a Splenic Projector too, you’ll feel this next line hard.

When I push upstream against the current, people tune me out. I might be pisces, but I’m not a strong swimmer. I do better guiding the ships to where they need to go. I hope you like the metaphor. It connects a lot of dots for me.

That said, I did one of my favourite exercises I’ve ever learned (and now teach) for how to get out of the loop, “What if…”.

Instead of what iffing all the worst-case scenarios, I think about what if it all works out? What if in an ideal situation, my crazy idea actually works? This is just one of the powers of language and how our mind processes information.

Anyway, I wrote what came to mind after those two words today and I’ve shared it below. Turns out, freewriting exposes what’s actually going on under the surface. That ocean of mine is deep and I’m starting to wonder if I had it all backwards this past week. Like, what would it look like if I was just me… doing and being the things that only I can be…? Here I am in the act:

Would love to hear what you would do next if you were in my shoes. Please comment your thoughts if you’re open to it below. Thanks for reading.

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Lately I’ve been sitting with a simple question:

What would happen if I did more things simply because I loved doing them?

No expectation.
No revenue target.
No strategy attached.

Just… the joy of doing the thing.

For a long time I’ve treated almost every idea like it needed to become something productive. A program. A workshop. A business model. A tour. Something that had to justify itself with results.

That mindset is useful in business.

It’s terrible for creativity.

And it’s even worse for culture.

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MusicFit Underground

MusicFit Underground is an artist-powered ecosystem built by artists for artists. We connect independent musicians with the people, tools, and structure needed to build sustainable careers in music with care, clarity, and integrity.

By Michael Schwartz

Because the truth is that most of the things we admire in music and art didn’t start as revenue strategies. They started as people gathering because it felt good to make something together.

Think about the scenes that changed culture:

Seattle grunge.
’90s skate punk.
Early hip-hop.
Indie folk collectives.
Jam bands.

None of those began as carefully engineered business plans.

They began with people saying:

“Let’s do cool stuff together.”

Basements.
Garages.
Warehouses.
Backyards.

Music first.
Money later.

The culture came before the commerce.

And once the culture was alive, the economy naturally formed around it.

That realization changed something for me.

Right now I’m building things that matter to me: coaching work, leadership programs, musician wellness, and a gathering of artists here in Calgary. Those things need structure. They need planning. They need to support themselves financially.

But they can’t be the only thing in my life.

Because if every creative impulse has to justify itself with a price tag, something important dies. The curiosity disappears. The play disappears. The weird ideas that might become something amazing never get the chance to breathe.

So I’m making a quiet shift.

Some things in my life will exist purely because they bring joy.

Music circles.
Jam sessions.
Creative experiments.
Small gatherings of artists.
Late-night ideas that don’t need a business plan.

No pressure.

Just people creating together.

Ironically, those are often the places where the best opportunities appear. Not because anyone was chasing them, but because real connection was happening.

Scenes grow around people who are clearly enjoying themselves.

And culture grows where pressure is low enough for creativity to move freely.

So this is a reminder for myself as much as it is for anyone reading this:

Not everything you do needs to become a product.

Some things exist simply because they make life richer.

And sometimes those are the very things that change everything.

Let me know what you are creating just for the joy of creating.

And if sh*t like this excites you, be sure to follow me and join the underground —> www.substack.musicfitunderground.com

Peace,

M

MusicFit Underground

MusicFit Underground is an artist-powered ecosystem built by artists for artists. We connect independent musicians with the people, tools, and structure needed to build sustainable careers in music with care, clarity, and integrity.

By Michael Schwartz