Photo Credit: Shaun Hollingsworth
It’s hard to celebrate the successes of others when you have come up short on your own. The most viewed post at this site is “How I Got My Music On Pandora.” The second most? The one about How I Quit My Day Job Too Early. One is about a very cool success story. The other detailing a monumental letdown. It’s easy to feel like you’re not living up to your potential when you look around at others your age or in your field and you start comparing.
I work another day job now. It’s been exactly one year since I quit that other day job. One of the things that inspired me to quit that job a year ago was a lifestyle of comparison. I was looking at everyone else who was doing what I wanted to do and comparing my life to theirs. I was looking at DJs and Electronic Musicians; watching them tour the country wishing I could do the same. I was sitting back and counting my Facebook Fans, Twitter & Soundcloud followers and wondering how can I take over the internet.
When you live a lifestyle of comparison, you can only set yourself up for disappointment and feelings of inadequacy. Is my music good enough? Am I working hard enough? Did I make a mistake that I can’t recover from? Should I give up? No one really develops artists anymore. I never had a DJ mentor; I’ve been kind of just doing it on my own. I had already learned a lot about the new music economy since moving to Nashville. But I had a lot of questions that only DJs could answer.
But you can’t learn from people when you’re jealous of them. It’s hard to have an open mind when you have a sense of entitlement. I definitely needed a shift in my mindset. Why not celebrate the successess of others? These are the things that I could learn from and ultimately grow as an artist. I had definitely not grasped the art of being an apprentice. Nor the art of becoming good at things or being a master of my craft.
I talked to Greg Rollett and he suggested that I start interviewing DJs. Well, I had already been doing that. (DJ Orig, Ducko McFli, Bateman) However this would be different. This time I would put everything together and build a course that would help people like myself trying to change their DJ career. The result of that is The Definitive DJ Mindset: 5 Ways To Take Your DJ Career To The Next Level.
The process of putting this together has been very educational for me. Just having an open mind and being willing to learn has been a huge difference. This difference for me has been being willing to learn and not being bitter about the success of others. I’m thankful and grateful for all the people who have been willing to invest in me. Including you, who are taking time out to read this. Whether you’re a DJ or not, I’d want you to consider that you can learn both from your mistakes and from the successess of others. In time, I hope that people will be able to celebrate your successes, too.
