If you’re a musician or creative who’s trying to make an impact with your art, you’ve probably heard you need to have ‘the x factor’ if you want to succeed.

It’s that special something that helps you stand out, that makes your work hit harder than usual, and gives you that inexplicable edge over most others.

As someone who works with musicians in a social media context, I can tell you there is a need for this.

Without some clear ‘x factor’, you simply won’t stand out or make enough of an impact for social media to feel worth your energy.

The musicians online getting all the love are the ones who make it obvious why they’re worth paying attention to.

Unfortunately, a lot of musicians don’t have this, or at least it’s not obvious that they do.

And this brings us to the point of this letter: Is ‘x factor’ something you just do or don’t have? Or is it possible to create it? And if so, how?

When I was younger, I thought I had it.

I was highly praised for my musical skills in my small town and people would speak about me as if I was destined for greatness—like I had that ‘special thing’.

Then I got older and changed my mind about that.

I went off the rails a bit, my focus slipped, and I became sloppy.

I also moved to a bigger city where I was no longer the big fish in a small pond, and realised I was not nearly as special as I initially thought.

Although I was still doing some good work and getting great opportunities, I could feel I lacked that something extra that put me at that higher level.

Now that I’m older, wiser, and have my shit together a little more, I’ve got a new perspective: Maybe we both do and don’t have the x factor.

It seems to exist on a spectrum; the x factor is there, but how big or obvious it is is determined by the effort you put into cultivating it.

If I’m not operating at my peak and putting energy into it, it’s not there.

But when I actively work on cultivating it, it emerges—and I’m measuring this based on the quality of my work, my ability to generate results, and the social feedback I get.

Now that’s interesting, right? Imagine whether or not you had the x factor came down to how much (of the right) energy you put into it.

I believe this is the case for all of us.

To be clear, I’m not saying anyone could outshine the biggest stars on the planet if they only worked hard enough (although you could probably get closer than you think).

But I am saying I believe you have more control over your personal x factor than you think—and you’ve likely got a lot more potential than you think.

How would your creative career trajectory change if you could bring out this personal x factor?

You’d be able to do exceptional creative work.

You’d be able to build a fan base much more effectively.

You’d have access to many more opportunities.

Your future could look like something you can barely comprehend right now.

Today we’ll talk about a few major areas you can focus on to cultivate a higher level of x factor in yourself so you can stand out and make a bigger impact as a creative.

But if we want this to work, we first need to address a major problem:

“I’m good enough as I am.”

I’ve talked about this to varying degrees with hundreds of musicians over the last few years.

Many musicians incorrectly believe they’re already at clear x factor status—that they’ve already done the work and they simply aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Their explanation of how and why they already have the x factor can be boiled down to: “Because I’m me, I’m unique”.

While I understand where they’re coming from—because we creatives put our hearts and souls into what we do—there are three big problems with this:

Problem #1: This idea that you’re already fully ‘developed’ is severely limiting.

If you want to boost your x factor, stand out, and make a big impact, you have to embrace endless learning and development.

You have to be willing to be constantly wrong and to let go of whatever fixed beliefs you have limiting your ability to grow.

Chances are, if you’re overly confident you’re already good enough to generate a huge amount of attention and build a massive fan base, you probably aren’t.

This doesn’t mean you’re not a great musician already. But to have a next-level x factor means going beyond just being great.

Problem #2: How are you unique?

How—specifically—are you different from everyone else?

What—specifically—makes your music, content, presence so great?

When I ask musicians this, they’ll say something like: “I have a unique sound” or “I’m really authentic in my content”.

But how? See how we’re going round in circles here?

Being unique is not a selling point or a strategy—it’s a given, the base line.

When I’m helping creatives with brand strategy, this is a common hurdle: Getting specific about what makes someone so special.

The question isn’t ‘are you unique?’, it’s ‘how are you unique?’

Developing a powerful brand strategy and cultivating your x factor are deeply connected.

During brand strategy, you’re forced to dive deep, to figure out who you really are and what makes you worth paying attention to (in my case in the context of building a creative career online).

Simply saying you’re unique or special doesn’t get you far here.

You need to understand what that means specifically so you can harness it.

And not only that, how is this uniqueness or specialness desirable to others?

These questions are hard to answer and often lead to uncomfortable truths about how much work you’ve got to do to get to that next level.

This brings me to the third point:

Problem #3: It’s more work than you think.

Most musicians I speak to want serious results.

They want to hear this from people: “There’s just something about you I can’t get enough of. I can’t stop listening. I can’t stop watching your content. Argh, what is it about you that makes me go crazy!?”

I’m exaggerating here… but only a tiny bit. A lot of the musicians I speak to genuinely do say stuff like this.

But to achieve this level of x factor you have to work incredibly hard. Way harder than you think.

And while that does mean working hard in the way we typically understand it (the grind) to an extent, I’m also referring to inner work.

Physically doing the things that will generate results is a must, but you must also work hard to get to know yourself and your strengths.

And the inner work pays off in ways you can’t imagine.

Someone who works hard to truly understand themselves and who also then works on improving themselves can end up working just a few hours a day and getting better results than someone who grinds 16 hours a day.

They worked just as hard—if not harder—just in a different way.

There are other types of hard work you have to do too, such as learning to deal with uncomfortable situations, or how to get over the beginner’s hump of leaning something new.

This type of hard work is rarely addressed relative to the physical grind, yet it’s a massive contributing factor of success.

If you’re one of the creatives who’s willing to do this, you have a huge advantage.

What I see in 99% of musicians I talk to is either an unwillingness or inability to do the work required in this way.

• It could be because they lack patience. Many musicians have been conditioned to focus on fast, surface—level results and they don’t have the patience for doing the real work to find and cultivate their x factor.
• It could be because it’s uncomfortable to look at yourself and your situation honestly like that (”am I really that special?” often has a painful answer).
• Or it could be they have limited time and energy to give to their creative stuff in general, and they (understandably) want to prioritise actually working on the craft.

But bottom line: If you’re someone who hasn’t yet tapped into your x factor, and you want to, you can’t avoid having to do the work.

What if you did do the work, though?

How far could you go?

How much better could you be?

How much better could your situation be?

Cultivating your x factor makes you limitless; it’s interwoven with developing skills and a deeper understanding of yourself.

If you knew you had more in you to reach millions, to enjoy the adulation from your fans, to literally build the life of your dreams… would you do the work to bring it out?

If so, read on 🙂

3 S’s of the x factor life

In my own (admittedly wobbly) pursuit of cultivating my personal x factor, I’ve identified three major pillars that need to be attended to if we’re to succeed.

• Self—awareness: you need to know yourself to know how you’re great.
• Skills: you need to develop the relevant skills to execute effectively.
• Situation: you need to put yourself in the best position to increase your chance of success (which includes developing skills and self—awareness)

Let’s take a look at each of these so you can boost your x factor.

Self—awareness / self—understanding

To know yourself well puts you in a better position to succeed in many important areas that contribute to cultivating your personal x factor: great marketing, branding, creativity, productivity, mastery of your craft, making important decisions, and more.

Many of these things can exist and function without a good understanding of yourself, but a higher level of self—awareness will you put at a higher level of x factor.

For example, if you’re a musician who’s trying to stand out and build a fan base on social media in 2023, you likely need:

• Strong branding
• A strong marketing strategy
• Boundless creativity
• A high level of productivity
• To be intimately connected to and have a mastery of your craft (and that doesn’t necessarily mean musical ability)

All of these require you to know yourself well; the more self—aware you are, the closer you can get to optimising each of them.

A creative who takes external action is powerful. But a creative who takes external and internal action is unstoppable.

Here are five things you can do to help you with this:

Thing #1: Do more stuff.

Might sound obvious, but the more ‘stuff’ you do, the more you’re going to learn about yourself.

So many musicians I talk to are trying to figure out the perfect plan to take the online world by storm before they have any real understanding of their current abilities as it relates to content, marketing, building relationships with fans, etc.

If you want to learn how to improve and how you’re great, do more stuff.

Write more songs, create more content, talk to more people.

Thing #2: Write.

I’ve yet to find a better way to help me understand myself.

Writing is more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Try this: Once a week, let’s say on a Sunday, take 30—60 minutes to do a writing exercise.

I like to start with a ‘brain dump’—just dumping whatever comes into my head onto the computer.

That usually clears my head and naturally leads into some kind of planning or more focused self-reflection on the topic of how to get ahead.

Or you can go into one of these writing sessions with a clear goal.

For example, if you’re a musician who wants to build an audience on social media, go straight into writing about your strengths and weaknesses related to the topic.

Look for areas you could improve and decide on whether they need to be improved (by seeing if improving them aligns with your current vision) or whether you should just lean more into your strengths.

If you’re anything like me, these sessions will bring a lot of clarity and produce a plan to get excited about.

Thing #3: Spend time with yourself.

Meditating, going for a walk, or just contemplating.

I believe every creative should spend some alone time with themselves regularly.

You can use this time to think directly about your strengths as they relate to your creative career, or just let your mind wander but plant the seed in the back of your mind that you want to learn about yourself.

What’s important is that this time with yourself is actually time with yourself.

It’s not you sitting around on your phone—that’s just distraction.

It’s being free from distractions like that so you can get to know yourself.

One huge difference I see between a lot of successful and unsuccessful creatives is how much they give to this kind of thing.

Is it everyone? No, but it’s a lot more than you think.

Even the biggest artists in the world who you think wouldn’t care about this stuff will reveal in an interview that they have some kind of practise that helps them get in this space.

Thing #4: Take in more perspectives & feedback from others.

I’m not saying constantly seek out feedback from just anyone.

But it’s highly useful to be able to look at yourself objectively.

It’ll help you see more sides to yourself; it’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re relying on just you.

You might even start deluding yourself (I do this all the time).

The external feedback helps.

Just don’t overdo it and start thinking everything you hear is automatically true.

As with most things in life, a good way to go is usually to take a bit from both sides.

Thing #5: Branding.

If you’ve never tried to do a proper brand strategy before, you’re missing out on some serious clarity about who you are.

One thing I think musicians don’t realise is that branding is not just about coming up with a strategy to help you stand out and connect to a certain audience (although it’s definitely that too)—it’s also an exercise in massive self-discovery.

If you want to develop a deeper understanding about yourself and what makes you great, dive deep into brand strategy.

It’ll help you professionally and personally.

This is one of many similar bits of feedback from the first part of my course (the branding bit):

It might sound a bit abstract to some, but if you want to go further out there, you’ve got to go deeper in there.

Your x factor—what makes you truly special—is in you… but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see it right away.

It’s more than likely you’ll need to dig deep to find it.

Think of it like a superpower buried deep inside you.

To activate it, you have to clear a bunch of stuff out the way, hone your skills and get into the right position for it to click on.

Self—awareness is one major part of that.

Level up your skills

The next crucial factor in bringing out your personal x factor is developing your skills.

This idea excites me, as simple and obvious as it is: The more skilled you become (in the right ways), the more you’ll be able to access your x factor.

Here’s Ira Glass’ “The Gap” if you haven’t heard it before.

Although there are undeniably people out there who seem to have something magical—something that feels/looks effortless, like they haven’t done any work at all to cultivate it, most people are simply not skilled enough to have an obvious x factor.

And that’s a great thing to know!

Imagine that—in large part—all you had to do to become someone truly exceptional is get really, really good at your thing.

Easier said than done, but the point is there’s a clear path. There’s an answer.

Skills can be developed, and although it’s hard, the learning process is often quite simple.

That to me is very exciting.

So which skills are important to develop to help you cultivate your personal x factor?

Whether you’re a musician, or a different type of creative, these will apply:

• Creativity (in craft and marketing—and everything).
• Productivity—you must learn how to manage yourself and get a lot done (or at least the important things done) at a high level.
• Mastery of your craft—you must be exceptionally good, either musically proficient or being able to use your craft to create an exceptional experience for people (ideally both).

Let’s talk briefly about each.

Creativity.

Most creatives don’t realise they can actually increase their level of creativity.

While some people are naturally a lot more creative than others, just like cultivating your x factor, anyone can improve their level of creativity if they approach it intentionally.

Here’s the simple version: The more information you put into your mind > the more it has to work with > the more connections it can make > the more creative it can be.

Now, if that information is high-quality and you consistently fill your mind with it, those connections your mind makes will be better—you’ll be able to generate a super high level of creativity.

A lot of creative people I know rarely do this (and I didn’t do it intentionally for years).

They essentially ‘work with what they’ve already got’ for way too long and then run out of creative ideas—no wonder!

I highly recommend making it a regular practise to fill your mind with high-quality information.

That could be:

• New music for inspiration
• Books
• High quality media
• New experiences
• High quality content
• Anything that you think could help you level up.

Basic rule: Take in more stuff that you want to get better at.

If you want to write better music, listen to better music and take in better creative work.

If you want to make better content, take in better content, information, etc.

I talk about this more here.​

Productivity.

Productivity is an essential ingredient in cultivating your personal x factor.

If you want to be someone exceptional, you have to do a lot of work to get there (remember Ira Glass’ words).

And to get a lot done, you want to be productive so it doesn’t take your whole life to get there.

As with creativity, most creatives I know have no idea just how much control they have over what they can get done—and the quality they can achieve.

It’s (understandably) hard for people to hear “you could be getting way more out of your time and energy) when they’re juggling the billion things they have to do build their creative career, their 9—5 and everything else in life.

But like everything else, there’s almost always more that you can’t see.

I’m finding there’s basically no limit on the superpowers you can give yourself—as long as you look for them.

​This newsletter covers my most important productivity tips.

You’ll be happy to hear they’re not complicated at all. In fact, they’re extremely basic—but extremely effective.

One thing to learn about productivity is that it’s much less about the scheduling tools and cramming as much as possible into an already overstuffed day.

It’s about finding the heavy hitters—the few things that are responsible for most of your progress and success—and getting the most you can out of them.

Mastery of your craft.

It makes sense that if you want to be someone who has an irresistible presence as an artist, you should be really good at what you do.

Many musicians are great, but not exceptional.

And the musicians who are great (but not exceptional) and manage to generate a great response from people, say on social media, are usually able to create a great experience for people.

As much as it might suck to hear this, when I say ‘mastering the craft’ I’m referring to both musical ability and the ability to create a great experience.

There’s always something “attention—worthy” in the artists who are doing well—and it may not always be insane musical skills.

This is why self—awareness is such an important part of boosting your x factor. Here’s an example:

I recently bought a new piano because I’m getting back into it and I plan on sharing stuff soon.

I’m good, but not exceptional (not yet anyway—right now I’m super rusty).

It’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to generate a high level of attention just from my musical skill alone, at least not right away (have you seen some of the musicians on social media?)

But I do know how to create a good experience, and I’ll be taking advantage of that.

I’ll make sure my videos are aesthetically pleasing and create an immersive world around my music.

If I were to go into social media assuming I’ll get as much attention as the best pianists on there simply from showing up and playing, I’d be sorely disappointed with my results.

But because I know I’m not exceptional (again, yet) I can leverage the power of creating an experience to help make an impact.

It’s mastery of the experience instead of just musical or technical proficiency.

You may have your own opinion on whether this is good or bad and that’s fine, but regardless, you need something you can deliver that is exceptional.

And this is no easy thing. Whichever way you go about it, you’ll need to do intentional practise and stay committed to it—

• That may mean boring dexterity exercises to improve your playing
• Or practising your videography skills
• Or something else.

But you have to understand that in order for people to crazy for you, you have to give them a clear reason to do so.

Simply being a great musician will not necessarily cut it.

Your x factor may be insane skill in one way or another, or a combination of multiple things that add up to be more than the sum of their parts.

Again, you need self-awareness to know what’s best for you here.

Put yourself in a better position to succeed.

We’ll keep this last part brief.

If you want to cultivate your personal x factor and make a bigger impact, you need to put yourself in situations that allow this to come about.

This absolutely includes everything we’ve talked about so far:

• Becoming more self—aware
• Increasing your level of creativity
• Becoming more productive
• Mastering your craft and/or your ‘experience’

But it also includes things like:

• Your environment—be mindful of where you spend your time and what impact that environment has on your ability to bring out the best in you. Is it full of distractions and things that cause bad physical or mental habits? Or is it primed to keep you inspired, focused, and feeling expansive?
• The people you’re around—ask yourself the same questions as above.
• How you take care of yourself in various ways—are taking care of your mental and physical health? These are both insanely important for you to flourish. There’s a reason 99% of top performers talk about exercise as one of the most important parts of their lives.

All of these things contribute to your ability to bring out your personal x factor.

Can you see how if you’re not paying attention to any of this stuff (which most people aren’t) it would be hard to see and develop what makes you so great?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about life so far is that we truly have a lot more power than we think.

Every area of your life can be improved significantly if you give it the right kind of attention.

And creating your x factor is no different.

If you want to become exceptional and be seen as exceptional, that’s not just going to happen without doing some serious work.

The good news for you is that most people don’t realise how much power they actually have.

So if you’re one of the people who decides to become truly and intentionally great, you’ll have a massive advantage.

And what we’ve talked about in this letter is a great place to start.

So let’s recap in the form of action steps for you. To cultivate your personal x factor:

• Spend more time with yourself
• Write
• Seek different perspectives & feedback
• Make a lot of stuff
• Boost creativity by constantly taking in high-quality information
• Enhance productivity (read this)
• Identify the areas you want / need to master to make an impact and go to town.

If you’re not yet optimising these things, you have a lot more x factor in you than you can see.

Go get it 🙂

I hope this has given you some exciting stuff to think about and work on!

A quick reminder that round 2 of my course Awaken Your Music Brand On Social Media is opening up soon.

I’m limiting spots this time to make more space to help everyone 1:1 (so it’ll be like getting coaching with me as well). If you don’t want to miss out, you can join the waitlist here.​

All the love and you’ve got this,

Alex