When I was growing up, I used to have this Hollywood picture of what “Making It” meant. It usually involved being a Rock Star, to whatever degree, with all of the trappings that are cliche of the lifestyle. I would have a huge house, maybe a couple of sports cars… definitely a swimming pool and as many drums & cymbals as I could possibly ever want or need… but all that being said, these days, I don’t actually know anyone who has built this fantasy life.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that this fabled Rock Star Status doesn’t exist. Probably does. But, as an adult, one of the updated qualifiers for me about anything in life is “Do you actually know someone who [FILL IN THE BLANK HERE]?” If the answer is “Yes”, then I consider it a reality that is plausible for me, too. If the answer is “No, not yet.”, then I just put that thought out of my mind and move on to something else.
For instance: Do I know anyone who has played a show in front of 100,000 people? My answer: Yes. So, that moves the idea of Brian ever playing in front of 100,000 people into the realm of possibility.
[Side Note: This was a question that I asked myself in 1999 and, by 2004, I’d done this same thing myself. Hasn’t happened again since (yet), but a second time (and a third, and a fourth, and…) is a different goal entirely.]
As a kid, you concoct these dreams inside your head and never really give much thought to anything in the “outside world” and how it might affect those fantasies. But, when it comes to actively creating your future, the reality of the situation is that there’s only a certain amount of your life that you have any real control over. There’s a whole lot more going on around you than you will ever have true, complete control over.
You can’t control other people (as much as you may try). You can’t control the decisions or the actions that other people make. You certainly can’t control someone else’s feelings or the way that he/she feels about you or your endeavors. Ultimately, you can’t control whether other people are going to help you or hinder you. You have no say whether others will step up to be a part of what you’re working on or step in the way of the progress that you’re trying to make.
As an adult, you eventually find out that there are way too many variables to contend with in the outside world… too many things that are beyond your control which could completely derail the arrival of this imaginary life that you have created inside your own head.
So, at some point in my adult life, I decided that I would boil out all of the details about what “Making It” would mean for me. I worked to distill out all of the expectations that other people have for me as well as the qualifiers that the people around me would have that might constitute “Making It” in the Music Industry or Creative Arts.
What was left was a very simple, very specific mantra that I have said to myself for over a decade. Up until this moment, I have never shared this with anyone, including my wife, but I hope that sharing this with you, right now, accomplishes three things:
1) I hope that this helps you understand me a whole lot more and helps you make sense of the decisions I’ve made over the last 30+ years for both my life and my career trajectory.
2) I hope that it inspires you to come up with your own version of “making it”. I would love for you to set down those idyllic fantasies that you’ve been carrying around for so long… the ones that eventually discourage you and sometimes makes it impossible for you to feel positive about your life or the prospects for your future.
3) I would hope that, by giving anyone that reads this some insight into my real motivations, it would attract more people into my world that hold very similar thoughts and desires for themselves. By having even more of these people in my life, I hope that we could lock arms together and achieve our own versions of “making it” faster together than we ever could alone.
So, here’s my mantra… the one that I say every day, that I’ve written down more times than I can count, and the statement that serves as the engine for everything that I do and every decision that I make:
I want to wake up every day and have the opportunity to work on the creative stuff that I choose to work on, with people that I enjoy working with and, I want that work to generate more than enough income to pay for a comfortable life for me and my wife.
THAT is my own personal version of “Making It”. I have chosen each word of that mantra very specifically. There is purpose behind every single piece of it. Each component of this mantra also leaves a whole lot of room for the Universe to surprise me each day as I work on building and adding onto the life that I have (mostly) enjoyed for the last 49 years.
Let me take a moment and try to thoroughly break down that whole statement so that you can understand why I’ve chosen these exact words and what they really mean to me.
“I want to wake up every day”: All of this starts with the waking up. It’s the most difficult part of my day. (Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of hitting the snooze button a few too many times all throughout the course of my life).
Nothing happens until we wake up and get moving. Everything sitting in your head is simply a wish or a dream until you wake up and put some sort of action to it.
Waking up every day is also an important goal because, without it, you are finished. If I don’t make it to tomorrow to literally wake up and remain alive, then the mantra and the desire for what’s contained inside it is completely irrelevant. Without that first step of waking up, I’m not here to make the rest of this mantra happen.
(Without being too specific or morose, just know that those first few words have gotten me through some pretty dark times in my life.)
“and have the opportunity to work”: This next piece involves two parts – First, all of the things that I have done, up to this point, create an opportunity each day for working. That means that every decision I make, including how I spend my time both inside and outside of my head, must illicit more opportunity to do more work.
It’s a constructive life that I am looking to live, not a destructive once. Those few people who know me best also know that I have (and can still be) a self-destructive person if I don’t keep that tendency in check every single day. Usually, that destruction manifests on the inside (i.e. poor self talk, discouraging thoughts, procrastinating moods, etc.) but occasionally, it spills out into my outside world (i.e. anger, jealousy, spitefulness, unfortunate choices and actions that burn bridges with other people, etc).
Secondly, those words leave me the option to choose work OR to choose leisure each day. In the past, I have usually shunned recreation or “down time” and thought of it as “laziness”. But as I get older, I find myself choosing the option of spending a growing percentage of my time doing things purely for fun with people I enjoy being around.
I used to think that I was put on this Earth exclusively to work, but now I’m seeing that my best work is generally informed by and benefits from that time I have chosen to step away from the work.
“on the creative stuff”: I have built a life that is directed by the creative process. I am here to make “stuff”.
Today, that might be a recording that can be enjoyed by tons of other people around the world. Or maybe it’s a video that entertains and educates someone while helping that person achieve something that he/she has as a personal goal.
Tomorrow, it may come to fruition by creating live music, in real time with real people. By design, that live performance will never be heard exactly that same way again. It will, however, be enjoyed and experienced by a crowd of folks collectively in that moment. Later, it may be relived in their memories or in conversations with other people that experienced that same show.
The whole point is to start the day with nothing and then end the day being able to point to something (either literally or figuratively) and say “I made this.”
“that I choose to work on”: This one is really important. I have this overwhelming desire to choose what I set my mind and hands to doing every day. I loath myself and my life when I engage in anything purely ‘for the money’.
Maybe it’s a horrible song being recorded for someone who has more than enough money to pay me for my time or working for someone I can’t stomach being around (because I have got my next mortgage payment to make). Anytime I have spent the day working on anything that I feel was foisted upon me, I cannot do my best work. These scenarios just leave me feeling like a stiff, crusty sock left mindlessly on a teenager’s bedroom floor.
Long ago, I worked jobs outside of the creative arts that I absolutely hated. During those times, I was never fully able to enjoy my life or be my best self. If anything, I needed to be destructive in my free time to blow off the steam of frustration I had build up during my work time. I have spent the better part of the last two decades trying to keep that cycle from ever happening again.
“with people that I enjoy working with”: Notice that I did not say “with people that I LIKE”. I have done a lot of great work with people who I did not necessarily “like”. In fact, a ton of the work that I’ve done over the last 3 decades has been with people who I didn’t really have an opinion about either way, BUT I enjoyed the experience of working with those people. We made great stuff and I had a wonderful time doing it. It is The Experience, preferably a fun and inspiring one, that I seek.
“and, I want that work to generate more than enough income”: Some creatives do their work purely for the intrinsic enjoyment of the process. Since I perform my work as a full-time professional creative person, it is a necessity that my work generates some sort of financial result.
Many times, that financial result is immediate. For example, I will work in the studio for 8 hours and, at the end of the day, someone then writes a check for that time. In this transaction, I am trading my time for their dollars.
But other types of work that I do will generate money in the future (and usually in perpetuity) like my video lesson packages that are available at DrumCorner.net, the entire catalog of products we sell at SessionAce.com, and the new Patreon ‘clubhouse’ that I recently started at Patreon.com/BrianStephens.
The motivation behind “more than enough” in my mantra might not be entirely obvious there. So, let me explain it.
First, there are some times that I do work and it does not generate an amount of money that is commiserate to the amount of time I spent on that work. (I have a gig in a few weeks that is a very good example of that which shall go unnamed here.) In those cases, some other gig needs to pay a lot more to offset that “opportunity cost” that I’ve chosen to shoulder for some other previous activity.
In addition, I have got to generate enough income from my work to pay for today’s commitments (i.e. mortgage, electric bill, etc.) and still allow me to stack my nickels up for those times when work is lean (like the whole last 2 years of my life) or for that eventual future when age will inevitably require that I slow down a whole bunch.
(Yeah, let’s be realistic. Age will eventually either catch me and make me slow down or ageism will cause me to not get anymore of the work that I’m currently getting. Most creatives don’t really think about “saving for a rainy day” but like it or not, we all have storm clouds on our horizons.)
“More than enough” also gives me the financial headroom to put time, effort, and money into pet projects, additional education, and/or practice time. (I’m still working on how to get paid for practicing.)
“to pay for a comfortable life”: To some, this might be a nebulous statement.
What is “comfortable” anyway? As much as I’d love to be overwhelmingly rich and never have to think about money again, I am much more realistic about my expectations here.
Maybe I would go nuts if I had as much money as Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. If I had as much money as someone like Dave Grohl, maybe I’d end up divorced (again) and tripping through an endless stream of stripper girlfriends?
Who knows?
I just know that having my financial needs met and having a little left over for something like an annual vacation make it possible to get up every day and do my work with a sense of positivity and purpose. This results in less strain on my psyche, more contentment in my marriage, and a little more breathing room in my world.
Now, someone may look at the fact that I own about 80 snare drums and think that I have more than achieved a “comfortable” life. To the person who might have that opinion, let me be the first to say that possessions are no barometer for happiness or fulfillment. Snare drums do NOT equal happiness. (And I’ll just let you in on a little secret… I’m a really good bargain shopper.)
“for me and my wife.”: Please know that I do all that I do for more than just myself. As artists, we often get tagged with monikers like “selfish” or “narcissistic” because so much of our time and effort seems self-directed. I can’t speak for all artists but for me, providing for my wife and family are what fuel me to work hard and transmute as much of my effort into dollars as I can.
(At this point, I can hear my wife saying “You know, I have a job too, dude.” So, I don’t take all of the credit for the life we currently live or the house that we live in or… I just want to do my fair share of the work needed to make sure that we have a roof over our heads, food to eat, and electricity to light up the house so that we don’t stumble into furniture or tumble down the stairs at night.)
So, there you have it! That’s my version of “Making It”. I can’t say that I have completely achieved this ideal life that I hope for and always work toward, but thankfully, most days find me doing the first half of the mantra in an effort to make the second half a reality.
What’s your version of “Making It”? Have you gotten there or is it still somewhere out on the horizon of your life? Leave those answers down in the comments section and let’s talk about it!!