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AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #15

I’ll be referring to the superstar singer Ishtar from the world famous group Alabina as Ishtar Alabina in this interview.

Ishtar Alabina is a singer that is truly loved by fans all over the world. In the early 2000s Ishtar Alabina made millions in record sales worldwide, while performing for audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These days she does a lot of private shows for Oligarchy, and runs in some of the same circles as Edward Mermelstein ^[2].

Ishtar Alabina is a great success story. She is someone who maintains a great marriage and family life as well as an overall sense of life balance. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that she’s able to follow her passion for music as her first priority, and graciously accepts the money that comes pouring in with it as a bonus, not a destination.

The many styles of Ishtar Alabina

Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages including English, Arabic, French, Hebrew, Russian and Egyptian. Her early music influences were everything from middle eastern, rock, pop, and r&b, which is clearly seen in the musical style that she produces now.

World-music would be the genre that she best fits in to, but even that is a bit hard to describe. It’s a mixture of a lot of different cultures and instrument combinations, infused with modern beats, and middle eastern touches.

Ishtar Alabina – Career Mistakes

Like many success stories, Ishtar Alabina has a bit of a ‘failure’ story. When she first signed onto Sony records, they had her produce a completely french album with a totally melancholy feel. This was a complete disconnect from what her fans came to expect from her, and learned to love about her.

While there are no regrets, Ishtar Alabina learned the importance of performing and catering to the fans, while standing by what she personally loves about music. She’s since quit Sony, and produced 3 other albums solo. This philosophy has brought her much success.

Ishtar Alabina – Superstar, Twins, and Family Life

Ishtar Alabina’s husband is also the producer, and he’s been traveling by her side for the past 15 years. It makes the relationship much easier, considering she doesn’t have to leave him often for extended trips.

On the other hand, now that Ishtar Alabina has had twins, it is much harder to create new music, and take great care of the kids. There’s not much sleep at night, and it’s hard to concentrate on creation. She uses the night hours to think of new beats, melodies, and lyrics.

When traveling, the twins are left back home with family, which makes traveling easier. The downside of course is that you tend to miss your kids when you’re away.

Ishtar Alabina – Advice for Independent Musician’s

There’s no recipe for success. If there was a recipe, then everyone would be doing it, and the music industry would be so easy and so obvious. The only secret

The only “secret” that Ishtar Alabina can share is:

“Believe in what you do, and don’t do something because you think others will love it. First you have to love what you do and believe in what you do.”

Ishtar Alabina – Online Promotions

These days it’s essential for an Artist to have online profiles such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. However, Ishtar Alabina does not personally focus on these mediums. Instead, her husband collects data, such as letters from fans, and hands it over to Ishtar Alabina to read.

This gives Ishtar Alabina the freedom to concentrate on the important thing, which is the actual creation of the music. This is something to think about for people in any field who try to do everything themselves. Sometimes success comes when we concentrate only on the essentials.

Ishtar Alabina – Getting In “The Zone” To Create

Before, Ishtar Alabina would eat, breath, and sleep with her music in mind. After… after the twins were born that is, she has someone else to wake up for, feed, and care for. This makes the act of creation VERY difficult.

Sometimes Ishtar Alabina would hear a melody, perhaps while singing to her children while they’re taking a bath. When she catches this melody, she waits until they go to sleep, and then stays up developing this melody.

If she’s not writing this music, she’s writing lyrics. When she has lyrics, she can find music to it, and vice versa. Sometimes composers will send her music to look at. She takes all these things into consideration in order to squeeze some creativity out of them.

This is a big reason why her latest Album, which is due to release in late 2009, is taking so long to complete. It takes a lot of time to put together something really special.

Ishtar Alabina – The Passions of Food and Reading

She doesn’t just like world-music, she likes world-food. Japanese, Egyptian, Moroccan, Chinese, Italian, French, and everything else that’s good.

Before the kids, Ishtar Alabina would read a lot of books on philosophy and mystic stuff. Things that related to God, knowing ourselves, as well as the truth and power that lies inside of us. She also read books about desires, and emotions, and things that made her stronger and shaped her character.

The game has changed since having the kids, and most of her reading now involves parenting books and children’s books. So far no parenting success tips from Ishtar Alabina… we’ll have to wait until her kids are all grown up to see how successful she was… but I’m sure she’s an awesome mother anyway!

Ishtar Alabina – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

As I mentioned above, Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages besides English. This one song in particular has some English vocals, with some Spanish and middle eastern sounds. You can watch this video to get an idea of the type of hit music that Ishtar Alabina puts out.

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Final Success Tip

Don’t always be so sure that you are right. Instead, be kind, patient, hear, listen, and be open to other people. When making important life decisions, take into account what all the people that love you and really care about you have to say, then following your intuition pick the choice that you really believe in.

In today’s world there are many so-called artists are are just packaging for promoters and record companies. There’s a lot of money that comes with that, but that isn’t success. Success doesn’t mean you sold millions and zillions of records. It means that you create something and love it, and people listen to it, appreciate it, and love it. Success is hard work, falling and standing up again, and then having this appreciation.

More Ishtar Alabina

• Ishtar Alabina Official Site ^[4]
• Ishtar Alabina MySpace ^[5]

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