We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cassie Petrey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cassie, so happy to have you on the platform with us today and excited to chat about your lessons and insights. Our ability to make good decisions can massively impact our lives, careers and relationships and so it would be very helpful to hear about how you built your decision-making skills.
One of the easiest ways to push yourself to make a decision, is to accept that not making a decision is actually making a decision. Making a call is scary! The responsibility is yours when you’re the decision maker. I think the potential to be responsible for a bad outcome is what paralyzes a lot of people in these situations where it’s on you to make the call. You know what’s worse than making a bad decision though? Living a life full of fear and limbo. I fear limbo the most, and that pushes me to move forward at times where I feel indecisive.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I started off as an early fan girl of the Backstreet Boys, and my passion really started when I created a Backstreet Boys newsletter at age 12 (that reached fans worldwide!). It was incredible being part of a fan community that gave me life-long friends through shared concert experiences and love for music artists. This inspired me to want to work in the music industry — to help artists connect with their fans on a deep level. At age 17, I became a college rep for Warner Music Group, and my development of some of the industry’s earliest artist social media pages on Myspace and Facebook led to a full-time position in Warner’s Nashville office where I oversaw social networking campaigns for label stars, including Faith Hill and Blake Shelton. I met my co-founder Jade Driver when we were both attending MTSU in 2004, and we founded Crowd Surf over 15 years ago to give back to the artists that helped us so much over the years. Helping artists and knowing their importance in our world is still what drives me today.
My job is really special, because I get to help artists share their gifts with the world. When I was growing up, music was so important to me. It was there for me when I was having tough things happen in my family. It was a part of the best moments of my life. Going to see concerts inspired me to start traveling the world. Artists have a tough job, but provide so much joy to so many people. I feel honored to help and protect them, because I know how important their contribution to society truly is.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
One of the qualities that’s been important in my journey is curiosity. I work in social media, and that would be a hard job to enjoy if you didn’t like learning all the time. A lot of other people are moaning and groaning when a new tool is launching, while I’m itching with excitement and see so many opportunities from something new and not saturated with users. I show up everyday to be the best that I can be, no matter what’s happening. My best is better some days than others, but my heart is always in the right place. Slow and steady wins the race. If you show up everyday and be the best music industry executive you can be, eventually more and more people are going to hear about you. Something else that I think is important is to stay positive, and really try to see the best in people. I keep faith that the hard work is worth it, and that it will benefit myself, my team, and my artists in the future.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest area of growth in the past 12 months has been accepting of the fact that it’s ok to do things for fun, and not be perfect at it. I’m learning to surf right now. I’m not naturally good at it. I’m still not good at it. I will never be a big wave surfer. Accepting that it’s ok, and that I can still have fun anyway, has been a really positive experience for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://crowdsurf.net/
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cassiepetrey
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/crowdsurf
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassiepetrey/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/cassiepetrey
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cassiepetrey
Image Credits
Annie Noelker
