Pivots & Process: The Fun Journey of Embracing Failure

It’s early March, and here in New York, it seems like everyone is kind of in overdrive mode. This is a city that doesn’t exactly know how to rest and recharge, so navigating its chaos can be…well, chaotic at times.

I have definitely been feeling that chaos. Since November, I’ve gotten sick at least once every month. Try as I do to take good care of myself, I can’t deny that launching and building MANX while working other jobs, looking for other work, and adulting in 2025, is a tall order. And in the midst of that chaos, I’ve found I’m learning a lot about failing, pivoting, and giving things time to grow.

So today, I wanted to focus on some of the more humbling aspects of building MANX - pivoting, failure, and embracing the uncomfortable hard stuff.

No one thinks about your business as much as you do

This topic came up in a recent meeting with Joe, the business counselor I connected with via resources available through the Brooklyn Public Library (***Pro Tip: if you’re launching a business and don’t have unlimited funds, see what resources your local library has, because one of them may be pro bono business counseling!). I have to say, it made me laugh, in a slightly uncomfortable yet liberating way.

In this spirit, I’ve decided to move the MANX Podcast launch date to Fall 2025 - definitely not what I had anticipated when I started MANX, but over the past few months, it’s become clear that moving the launch is the best decision. It’s allowing me time to build the two other pillars of MANX first (creative projects & education), which are major undertakings unto themselves. It’s also giving me the luxury of recording podcast episodes over a longer period of time, and focus on quality over quantity.

The reality is, Joe is right. No one dies if the MANX podcast doesn’t launch until this fall. Literally, no one. The only reason I would have pushed through to do it earlier would have been “I have to do this because I said I would, even though it is my company and nothing bad happens if I delay this project, and in fact, I actually will do better quality work if I DO delay it.” So given that the world will not explode because of a delayed podcast launch, I’m going with the option that makes the most sense, and prioritizing quality over quantity.

PIVOT!

Ross demo-ing exactly how NOT to pivot.

Pivoting is not a skill I naturally do well. As an opera singer and a soprano, it was drilled into me that this profession was a long slog, and to keep going when it got tough. And yes, both of these things are true! Good things take time, and perseverance and grit are necessary for any profession, esp. in the arts…

and yet, there is a fine line between perseverance and insanity. The reality is, few of the singers studying opera in school will be able to financially sustain a career singing opera alone - but because of the niche nature of opera, singers tend to be funneled into one pathway - the “undergrad degree, masters degree, young artist program auditions route” - without a lot of opportunities to critically think about HOW they really want to use their skills and training, or to seek out or build opportunities that tailor their operatic training to suit their own unique interests.

The result is, there are a lotta talented opera singers out there with highly developed skills,…and a lotta debt, few professional opportunities, poor finances, and a lack of creatively fulfilling work. I’m willing to bet most of these singers could benefit from a hard pivot.

I was one of them. I will freely admit that I spent WAY too long trying to be a good little operatic soprano. I did all the degrees, racked up student debt, did the young artist program audition circuit, paid way too much money to fly to New York for way too many failed auditions, and spent precious time waiting for someone important in the industry to recognize and validate my voice as being worthy to be heard. And as a result, I was broke, miserable, and never really made any key critical changes that would have better set me up for success. It took awhile, and me hitting a metaphorical rock bottom, to realize that I alone was the person who could take charge of my health, well being, and what I wanted to do professionally...and that doing so meant I had to pivot.

Pivoting became a lifeline, an opportunity. It was also humbling. In order to take better care of myself, pay my bills, keep training to do the creative work I loved, and pursue creative opportunities, I had to accept that the path I had been walking had not worked out. I needed to make big changes in order to get somewhere more fulfilling. I stopped doing young artist program auditions, I moved into the dance/somatics/functional movement world, and essentially am not based in the opera industry at this point. I take regular lessons, and am continuing to work on my vocal technique and new repertoire, but I’m focused on building opportunities in a completely different discipline. Do I hope that one day, I get to create those opportunities within more opera-centered spaces? Absolutely yes! But I can’t sit and wait for those opportunities to come - if I did, I’d miss out on the fruitful collaborations and resources that have become available to me BECAUSE I pivoted into the dance industry. None of this has been easy, but I don’t regret for one second making the decision to pivot.

The thing is, I keep finding that pivoting is proving to be…a constant. Building MANX is a lesson in learning when to cut your losses, and channel those resources differently. I’ve had to pivot with the MANX podcast, with building the website, marketing MANX classes and workshops, even designing the material for a residency this summer - it’s a constant lesson in pivoting. Getting comfy with pivoting is proving to be crucial in developing MANX.

Getting Comfy with Failure

I’m starting to wonder if launching a business is actually a never ending lesson in getting comfortable with failure. As a singer and dancer (and one of those former “high achiever children”), I have spent a lot of time being very afraid of failure.

Going to music school didn’t exactly help that tendency. Once I got to college, so much of the culture around my operatic training revolved around not making mistakes (this was especially true if you were a woman). It was instilled really early on that if you were a woman, you were replaceable at any time, and that you could not afford to fuck anything up, because no one would forgive you. As a result, I spent a good deal of my early adult years checking a lot of boxes (degrees, auditions, summer programs, etc.), but I also spent a lot of time feeling creatively stifled. It was almost as though I didn’t have a lot of outlets where it was ok to try something and have it not work.

I’m pretty sure this is one of the reasons I was so drawn to dance - because it wasn’t the main thing, I wasn’t under the same pressures as other dancers in the room, who had goals of moving to New York for a dance career (which funnily enough, has ended up being my path). I got to try things, I got to experiment. I got to make mistakes. In short, I was allowed to fail in an environment where instead of being judged for it, I could learn from it.

There’s something liberating about knowing that many of these early steps with MANX are fluid and forgiving. Just like Joe said, no one thinks about MANX as much as I do. No dies if MANX has to pivot, or if something doesn’t go as planned. When I get really stressed out about a project, or administrative tasks, I remind myself that this is a process, it’s going to take trial and error to figure out what works, I do my best to remind myself of these things. :)

Things take the time they take

I’ve gotten to study and be mentored by Alexandra Beller, a phenomenal dancer/choreographer/director who specializes in Laban Movement Analysis and a somatic movement practice called Bartenieff Fundamentals. One of my favorite concepts in Bartenieff Fundamentals is called Yield & Push. In order for force to be exerted in the most efficient manner, something first has to yield (ex., a woman in labor needs to breathe before she pushes during childbirth).

If all we ever do is push, push, push,…we don’t ever soften. We can’t prep our minds and bodies for the hard stuff.

Building MANX has been a humbling reminder that there is only so much pushing I can do at a time, before it results in bad decisions, lack of sleep, and, illness. I’ll be honest, I think this will be a lifelong process to build this skill. I am finding that when I do actively work on it, I’m make much more sound decisions, and manage my time and energy better.

If you’re an entrepreneur/small business owner, please comment below if you so choose, or drop me a line at manxoperaanddance@gmail.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic of pivoting/failure/process!

-Melanie, MANX Artistic Director