When I was in grad school for math finance, I said that “exponential growth in perpetuity is a stupid assumption.  This is an impossibility in a physical world.  We'd all be buried in widgets by now”.   A classmate advised me not to express this “opinion” (fact) in front of potential hiring managers. 

Since I've now ruined my chances of getting back into a finance job, what is my career goal?  I want to sell 100 tickets to a single concert, playing the music I like best.  It's not the revenue, but that's where I think I've got a balancing point.  This would fund the logistics of getting me, and maybe some bandmates, to a physical space to play and tell my stories.  That facilitates a connection with people, in the audience, and those sharing the stage.  I love these small venue gigs with a performer standing five meters away.  I like hanging out with musicians, and people who like music.  I could get lucky, but I expect this will take years to achieve.  There are multi-decade artists who continue to operate at this level, and I would be proud to be their peer.   Career and life goals merge into one.  No size of house or boat would be a better result. 

I'm not close enough to even attempt selling those tickets yet, so what about “growth” and progress?  Until we accurately measure happiness, I maintain that key performance indicators (KPI’s) are usually more trouble than they are worth.  But I happen to have some KPI’s that are automatically calculated for me, which are social media followers and engagement.  These are clearly correlated to my actual goal, in that I need an audience to sell a ticket to, and a way to reach them.  So, I admit, I’m counting likes.  I won't do anything for a like.  I'll only compare the response to the things I want to do anyway.  If my business friends can anticipate an annual bonus non-toxically, I can monitor my social media stats non-toxically.   Roughly speaking, I’d like to see 50% growth on my YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify in 2022.   That’s of course not expected to be in perpetuity after 2022, because that would be impossible, but such a robust one-year gain at this stage seems achievable. 

Towards the actual goal, I plan to be live performing around the GTA post-pandemic whenever we get to that stage.  If you’re reading this far you might be interested?  The best place to be aware of these events is to follow my artist Instagram or Facebook.  I continue to livestream on Youtube, but more guerilla-style unscheduled - so follow that platform if you’re far away.  It’s “Jason Pilling” on all platforms, and then look for my picture.  Or, I’m still small enough for retail service, so if you let me know that you want to know, I’ll let you know directly when it happens near you. 

Have a good 2022.