It’s not about networking, but inspiration.

It’s not so much who you know, but what you can learn from them.

Maybe it’s MySpace. Could be Facebook and LinkedIn and too many business books. They all focus on networking. Establishing your "brand" and meeting as many people as possible. Blowing up your rolodex so you can trade favors, so you can get a leg up. But what if you’ve got nothing to sell?

The business world is divided into leaders and followers. There are very few of the former, but that’s where the action is, that’s where you want to be, especially if you’re an artist. And yes, artists are business people too.

Don’t go to lunch with someone unless you can learn something. Foisting your CD upon someone further up the food chain will get you nowhere. Stop giving and start taking. I know that sounds selfish, but unless you’re focused on you, you’ll never triumph.

In 1981, Steve Jobs attended the International Design Conference in Aspen.

I hear the snickers. The tony mountain town. I’m gonna let you in on a secret. If you’re not willing to spend money, blow it on stuff with no hope of immediate return, you’re never gonna make it. Being poor is a state of mind, a knee-jerk reaction people use to excuse themselves from playing. Stop criticizing others’ advantages and start exercising them yourself. Sacrifice a new car or a few nights at restaurants and you can suddenly do that which will help your career.

Anyway, it was at this conference that Jobs cast aside his old design thinking and embraced the look of Apple products today. He was inspired by the presentations. It wasn’t about hiring those who spoke, making connections, but triggering the neurons to fire in his brain.

Put yourself in stimulating situations. Learn how to critically analyze and come up with something new.

Lore has it that Mark Zuckerberg wanted to go back to Harvard. But Sean Parker shed light on the future of Facebook, the need to be in Silicon Valley working full time. Parker is no longer employed there, but it was meeting him that changed the direction of Zuckerberg’s life.

We can all point to one or two good teachers. I wish it were more, but if so, you’re probably lying. Jobs was tuning out in school until a teacher offered him a lollipop and five bucks to do extracurricular math problems. The key point was that someone recognized his intelligence, that he was special, it set him on the right path.

You’ve got less time than you think. Instead of going to lunch, drumming up business, focus on those people and situations who will help you grow. Art doesn’t emanate from a vacuum. In the case of music, it comes from listening and experience. Sure, you’ve got to know how to play, but that’s why some of the greatest songs of all time were written by unskilled musicians. They distilled the influences, they rearranged the building blocks in an exciting new way.

You can be just like everybody else. A member of the group, fighting to maintain his place on the lifeboat. Or you can build your own ship and be master of the ocean.

Success comes down to thought. Perseverance comes next. If you think it’s as simple as making connections and climbing the ladder you’re headed for a life of drudgery in middle management. If that.