Meet Suanna Lynn

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Suanna Lynn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Suanna below.

Hi Suanna , we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

Confidence and self-esteem is not easy to cultivate. It takes discipline and I really believe there is a mental, physical, and spiritual component to feeling good about yourself.

Mentally, there is a mindset that you need to have that you tell truth to yourself. Daily you need to remind yourself that you deserve to be here, you have a right to dream, and you can’t please everyone. It’s so important to just assume the positive – assume that someone wants to be your friend, assume that people are on your side, assume that people really want you to be somewhere & go into social situations with that mindset. If you believe you are worthy of respect and admiration, people will often follow suit! Additionally, it’s so important at the same time to get out of your head. People aren’t obsessing over you the way you are, they aren’t thinking badly about you the way you assume – they are much too busy thinking about themselves!

Physically, you have to take care of yourself. You need to be filling your life with appropriate nutrition, hydration, exercise (outside!), good sleep and on the flip side removing toxins where you can! And I can’t push this enough….removing yourself from your devices and social media every now and then I think is so important. Social media can really do some work on our minds and we start to compare which robs is of our joy and confidence. Additionally, the blue light that our devices exposes us to hurts our ability to digest our food and get proper melatonin which affects our sleep. Don’t have your phone be the last thing you look at if you want to feel good about yourself!

And probably most important in my life, the spiritual side of confidence & self-esteem is crucial. My Christian faith tells me I am fully loved and fully known. This gives me the peace and confidence that I have been created with purpose and the God of the universe knows & loves me, and has plans for me.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a singer-songwriter & entrepreneur. I regularly write, record, and release music, and I am also the owner of a marketing consulting company that helps entrepreneurs with content & marketing needs & marketing analysis.

My marketing company works with small to mid-size business owners who are incredibly talented & passionate but need some help clearly articulating their services & products and also why consumers should choose to work with them instead of other parties. I have found that business owners know their product & services, and their audiences the best – but sometimes it can be hard to take a step back and fully explain what it is you can provide your audience. That is where I step in. I help business owners create a vision & mission statement which forms the foundation for every business decision. We then create website content that clearly articulates the services provided and why consumers should choose this business, as well as a compelling story about the business that makes consumers feel connected. From there, I work with business on any other communication support that will make them potent in the marketplace. I work with sales teams to ensure there is cohesive messaging and create collateral to make their work more effective. I also then help with any external digital communication – mostly in social advertising and email marketing. It is so life-giving to see my clients equipped with a clear, effective communication strategy that sets them apart in their industry! I absolutely love using my skills and passion for content to bring order to what may have been chaotic.

With my music, I do the same thing. I use melody and lyrics to bring to life a story or a specific feeling or vibe in order to bring unity to people. Something happens when you hear a song that feels like came right of out your diary and makes you say, “me too.” It makes you feel like you’re not alone. That is what I want me music to do. Just as there is strategy in my business approach, there is purpose and meaning in everything I write and record. As Walt Disney famously said, “That’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” That is what I love about being a musician, I get to be an agent of hope.

My approach in business and music though is definitely unique. I have always considered myself a business-minded or data-driven creative in that I sit in the middle between the most artsy people in the room, and the most analytics minds. I am a blend of the artists & the analysts; creatively inclined in writing & creating art, but I will always do so with a strategic mindset.

While I am not a master of either, this has served me throughout both my music & business endeavors as I am more strategic, organized, and focused than other creatives I’ve seen, but I have the ability to bring a human side to data than other analysts.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

You need to pay attention to data. For both aspiring marketers and songwriters, while the creative aspect is your true gift, in order for your gift to have relevance is you need to tie it to some sort of greater need that you are meeting in the world. For marketers, you always need to start with business needs and let that drive the creative process. There needs to be goals of the campaign, and strategic decisions made to resonate with audience that is driven by historical data. For music, if you are going after a career in music you can’t just be led by what feels good. You need to pay attention to ways that the industry is shifting and what kind of music, topics, and production is resonating with your specific audience then write towards that. For both, never lose the human, but don’t be afraid of data.

Emotions are important, but they should not take the wheel. I can’t tell you how many talented musicians or marketers I have worked with who really struggle to be taken seriously because they lack regulation around their feelings. Emotions are incredibly important for both effective marketing & songwriting. They are the human and the drive behind everything you are doing. However, while emotions should have a seat at the table, they should never be the head of the table. Emotions are data points that give you information on how to navigate a situation. But people who let their emotions control them lose every time. You never need to be embarrassed for how you feel about something, but how you respond is different.

Fill your tank. Whether you are a marketer or a songwriter, you are constantly pouring out. Therefore, you also need to take seasons to fill our tank. Say no to some things so you can get some R&R, read a fiction book to expand your vocabulary and that allow you to escape to an imaginary narrative, pay attention to your nutrition and how you are physically operating. Believe me – the songs that need to be written, the campaigns that need to get done will still be there when you take a second to re-fuel. This will also allow you to be more effective when you do show back up.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

LISTS!!! I am a huge list person. Every year I create a Google doc with the months of the year and then make a few realistic goals for each month. This makes your goals attainable and more likely that you’ll reach them! And some of those months, the bullet point is literally: take a month off.

It’s also important to take life as seasons. For example, I LOVE to perform and sing live. However, I am a mom of a 1-yr old and we have another baby on the way. As you can imagine, I am way too tired to perform live and because I know this is just a season, that’s okay and I don’t stress about that or feel like I’m failing in any way when I turn down a gig! So I ask, what does make sense in this season? I can write and compose music during nap time and at night, and when I have childcare I can spend time in the studio. I have zoned all my efforts into this season as a season of writing new music. That way I don’t need to get discouraged if I’m not releasing anything or performing live, because I have made the decision that those aren’t what’s best for me and my family right now. Some day, that won’t be the case, and I’ll be more public about everything I’m working on right now!

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