Have You Already Made it, but Just Don’t Know it yet?
Success is all about expectations, and everyone has their own definition of success. But is it possible that many people have currently, or previously achieved a major success in their life, but simply fail to recognize that success because it wasn’t what they expected?
My wife and I were sitting around yesterday talking about a great cover rock band that we used to go see frequently in the 90s, when we lived in New England. Most of the guys in this band worked day jobs and primarily played on the weekends. They were a fun, energetic, talented party band that played classic and modern rock. Over time, they built a large following, eventually packing every venue they played and getting paid well to do so. Every show they played was an event, with people showing up early, dancing and partying all night, and at the end of the night nobody wanted to leave. These guys were doing well enough to hire a production company that not only set up and ran a PA, they actually carted around and set up the band’s personal gear, allowing them to show up minutes before downbeat, making a rock star entrance every time. They even had girls falling all over themselves to make their acquaintances.
While they never wrote a song, made a recording, or even ventured outside of their region, they were the kings of the New England night club circuit for over 10 years. During that same time, I played in a rival band on the same circuit. Although we didn’t have quite as large a success, we also did okay. Looking back, none of the bands that played on this circuit, mine included, really viewed themselves as achieving a high level of success, everybody was still trying to “make it”. Flash forward another decade to Nashville Tennessee, and I’ve now played on concert stages in front of tens of thousands of people, in every state in the country. I’ve played in Canada, France, Switzerland, and on the Grand Ole’ Opry. By everybody’s definition back home, I have “made it”. While the numbers might be bigger, the concept is still the same. I’m still just playing music with a good band, to receptive audiences, and getting paid to do it. But now that it’s a “career”, while there are still some high points, there is also more pressure, and less stability. In reality, there is no real difference, it’s all just music and life. Now when I look back to my nightclubbing days in New England, it is with fondness and pride. I had already made it long before I moved to Nashville. Have you already made it, but just don’t know it yet?
Life is Expensive, a Walk in the Park is Free
This week, like most, has been a busy week so far, and my wife and I have logged some serious hours in our home offices. As we own our own businesses, our days are filled with constant activity; from website projects to advancing tour dates to writing projects to filing income taxes. Work, work, work, that’s what we’ve all been called to do, and as life becomes more expensive with every passing year, it seems impossible to ever get ahead. Pursuing a music career in Nashville is no exception, and this causes many to closely watch their budgets, often refraining from recreational activities. One thing that you can do in middle Tennessee, that costs only the gas it takes to get there, is visit one of its beautiful state parks, and yesterday, that’s just what we did, heading off to Edwin Warner Park with some water and granola bars just after lunch. 
We’ve been to the Warner Parks many times since our first discovery of these magnificent shrines of nature five years ago, and on this particular day we tackled “The Red Trail”, perhaps the parks most challenging hike covering about 5 1/2 miles. As we hiked through this amazing place, which spans almost 3000 acres of deep woods terrain only 9 miles from downtown Nashville, the stresses of everyday life and business seemed to fall by the wayside with every step we took. The park is exceptionally maintained, with clearly marked trails, and at times, the sounds of the outside world disappear to be replaced by the sounds of singing birds, foraging squirrels, soft winds, and our own footsteps amidst the occasional silence. While it was an unseasonably hot spring day of 90°, the rapidly blooming natural canopy of the forest around us protected us from the hot Southern Sun as we retreated further into the forest. Our midweek expedition took us deep within this mystical place, climbing up and down steep foothills, across the high plateau, through Dripping Springs Hollow and onward past the Betsy Ross Cabin, ever surrounded by majestic timbres, large twisting vines, and immense floral wonders. After losing ourselves in this magical place for a little over an hour and a half, we arrived back at our car feeling reinvigorated, with a renewed sense of purpose and perspective.
It’s amazing how taking a real timeout can help recharge one’s batteries, kind of a spring cleaning for the mind and soul, and how sadly, we as a society, are not more in tune to such simple yet powerful concepts. We could all live richer lives if we could just simply learn to become more connected with the world just outside of our home, our offices, and the usual playgrounds of life. For in the often chaotic and overly hyperactive world we live in, if life is expensive, a walk in the park is still free.
Does Everybody Want to Be a Rock Star ?
What a funny world we live in. My wife and I went to our bank yesterday to open a new account for our website design business. During the 45 minute meeting with the branch assistant, the conversation steered towards the music business, at which time we discovered that our banker and I shared some common ground. That common ground being; we are both guitar players, we both have home recording studios, and we both are interested in the evolution of music as an artform. Interspersed between some short questions regarding our bank account, our music conversation evolved to cover some ground on current recording trends, theories about why the music industry isn’t what it used to be, where it’s heading, and how the affordability of technology has contributed to a world of mediocre music. It turns out that our newfound musical banker friend knew more about music, and the business of music, than many of my musician friends. This hard-core music aficionado had obviously invested a lifetime into his musical pursuits, and somewhere along the line, he made the smart choice of getting a real job. He can work on his music at night and on the weekends, without panicking the rest of the time to pay the bills every month.
Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, I thought of a friend of mine who is both a musician, and a realtor. I imagined this fellow showing a house to a prospective buyer, and how, if you met him in somewhere in the real estate world, you would have no way of knowing he’s a world-class studio musician, having played on countless gold albums.
This unsuspecting conversation in a bank office, reinforced some of my convictions.
We never know who we are really talking to. Whether someone’s a banker, a realtor, a dentist, or the Terminix man, in many cases, a person is much more than he or she might first appear.
The power and importance of conversation. Not only was our conversation interesting, and revealing, I now have a musician friend at the bank.
It’s smart for musicians to have other careers. The fact that skilled and dedicated musicians are working as realtors and bankers paints a telling picture about the music business.
And lastly, everybody wants to be a rock star.
My Book Project, One Year and Counting
It’s been one year, almost to the day, since I embarked on my first book writing project, The Nashville Musician’s Survival Manual. And while there is an end in sight, there is still a huge amount of work to be done. I have never attempted to write a book before this, and it has been a massive learning process. One from which I have learned even more about the music business, the literary process, and myself. It takes a lot of hours to write a book, and one of the biggest challenges has been staying focused on such a detail oriented project over a long period of time. Being a working musician at this point in Nashville requires one to wear a lot of hats, and the hats I have been wearing have been that of a working guitar player, tour manager, and studio owner, while also working as a marketing director and content writer for a website company (not to mention my new role as a startup author).
It’s such a paradox, all throughout the book, I make references to the necessity for musicians to wear a lot of hats for survival. I am now finding myself wearing more hats than ever, and while I’m okay with this, the very nature of this kind of fragmented existence doesn’t always allow me to put my efforts where I really want or need to.
I just finished transcribing and editing an extensive interview for the book with world-class recording engineer Bob Bullock. Bob talks about this issue of wearing a lot of hats for survival and how this new age is forcing many of us to do so. He also said that while he now has to wear a lot of hats, he still works at being exceptional at one thing, which in his case, is that of a mixing engineer, and why it’s important to have at least one specialty to give you a competitive edge. In my case, my specialty is guitar playing, but I have found that guitar playing alone won’t pay all of my bills. I love playing guitar, I love the feeling I get when I’m playing with a live band, or recording in the studio. Through the process of researching and writing this book, interviewing musicians, and recalling some of my prior musical experiences, I have found a new appreciation for the musician in me. I just wish I had a little more time to wear my musician hat. Meanwhile, I can at least write about it.
The Pitfalls of Texting
Yesterday I learned a valuable lesson. If you have something to say to someone important in your life, perhaps texting isn’t the best way to do it. I just learned this the hard way. I made the mistake of complaining to my boss about an issue that wasn’t really that significant through a short text. He perceived my three sentences in a way I had not intended, and before I could explain my thoughts further, he reacted harshly. We went back and forth in texting world for a little while, but it was well into the next day before things calmed down. The human voice, whether in person, or over the phone, can give different meaning to the simplest words and phrases. Those same words and phrases appearing on a screen can have several different meanings, depending on how the reader interprets them.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, when most human interaction was done through telephone calls, face-to-face meetings, or handwritten letters. If you needed to communicate with someone, typically, a real conversation would take place. Now, most people I know prefer to communicate via texting or e-mail. For me, texting is great if you have a simple question for someone that requires a yes or no answer. But if it involves anything that’s dynamic or complicated, intricate details are often hard to convey in 140 characters or less. I can’t even think of how many times I’ve had long winded “conversations” with someone who is important in my life, texting back and forth for 20 or 30 minutes, or sometimes more. I often wonder, why didn’t we just talk on the phone? This would have been a five-minute phone call. Sometimes in the middle of those situations, I’ve tried to call the other party, and they didn’t answer, but they do answer the texts. Why are we afraid of direct human interaction? I know there’s no going back, and texting is here for good. But I think that next time I have something important to say to my boss, or anyone else important in my life, if there’s any question about how my message will be perceived, I’ll wait until I can do it in person, or at least in a real conversation.