Of course, I would have loved it if theyâd gone to Number One, but that wasnât the most important thing anymore. Iâve had my moment selling zillions of records, and it was fabulous, but from the second it began, I realized it wouldnât last forever. If you believe it will, you can end up in terrible trouble. I honestly think thatâs one of the things that tipped Michael Jackson over the edge: he was convinced he could make an album bigger than Thriller, and was crushed every time it didnât happen.
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I appealed to an alternative crowd. We all know that sex sells â but I wasnât that kind of artist. I signed my first record deal when I was twenty-six. I was a grown woman, I had my politics down, I had my attitude and my band. I wasnât manipulable. I didnât get much negativity about being bisexual â by the mid-1990s people were cooler about gay sexuality â but at the same time it meant that I couldnât be marketed as the straight sexy rock chick.
I was super happy with it, and Timo and Martin were about to release it, but then fell out over allocation of music publishing royalties, and Timo left the project. I guess theyâd had some underlying issues with each other that this album brought out. The album was shelved as a result. I was very hurt by the experience. I felt Iâd written some of the best material of my career, and it seemed they put it on the shelf to gather dust.
And yet that envelope had my future in it: everything thatâs happened to me since happened because of what it contained. You try and figure that out without giving yourself a headache. Who knows? Maybe I would have found another writing partner, or joined another band, or made my way as a musician without it. But I do know my life and my career would have been very different, most likely substantially worse â itâs hard to see how it could have turned out any better â and I suspect you wouldnât be reading this now.
I was also told that a brand-new CEO shouldnât be trying to make huge acquisitions. I was âcrazy,â as one of our investment bankers put it, because the numbers would never work out and this was an impossible âsaleâ to the street.
The banker had a point. Itâs true that on paper the deal didnât make obvious sense. But I felt certain that this level of ingenuity was worth more than any of us understood or could calculate at the time. Itâs perhaps not the most responsible advice in a book like this to say that leaders should just go out there and trust their gut, because it might be interpreted as endorsing impulsivity over thoughtfulness, gambling rather than careful study. As with everything, the key is awareness, taking it all in and weighing every factorâyour own motivations, what the people you trust are saying, what careful study and analysis tell you, and then what analysis canât tell you. You carefully consider all of these factors, understanding that no two circumstances are alike, and then, if youâre in charge, it still ultimately comes down to instinct. Is this right or isnât it? Nothing is a sure thing, but you need at the very least to be willing to take big risks. You canât have big wins without them.
Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and said heâd come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it the other way, it didnât matter if nine out of ten didnât like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders.