Before You Read...
📩 Join My Free Weekly Newsletter
Join over 4,000 composers reading my 🌎 Compose & Conquer Newsletter, and every Tuesday I'll send you free resources and strategies to help you master your composing craft and get paid to do it.
😖 Growth is uncomfortable
If you want to get better at something, it’s going to be uncomfortable.
Why?
Because growth and comfort can’t co-exist.
When you think of something you feel comfortable with, what are you really saying?
You’re saying that you’re content with it. That your present skills or state is something that feels safe and secure.
But what if you want to get better at something...
🤝 “I’d need a guarantee…”
How often do you hold back on your dreams simply because you’re not sure if they’re possible?
Maybe you feel like your goals are too ambitious, too risky, too improbable.
But I don’t buy it.
What you’re REALLY saying is that you’re scared.
You fear…
- What it would mean if you failed.
- Not knowing what success could bring.
- Wasting time on something you might abando...
I’ve struggled with staying physically active for most of my life.
Here’s a little overview of the cycle I run into over and over again:
- ✅ Create a solid action plan for exercise + diet
- 🤩 Crush it in the beginning
- 😐 Lose excitement over time
- 😴 Skip at some point
- ❌ Never do it again
For years, that cycle has dominated my relationship with exercise.
But I’m starting to change that.
W...
If you're a composer looking to go full-time and pursue your dream, what's holding you back right now?
Is it a lack of information?
Is it information overload?
Or maybe...
Is it a lack of confidence?
For many, it's a combination of all three - but today, we'll chat on confidence.
Many composers I teach say they're waiting to "feel ready" to pursue the career.
We call this the "when-then" fa...
So, you've been trying to do composing professionally for a long time now.
Maybe you've even dreamt of this career ever since you were a kid.
You love the idea of...
- 🥰 Doing what you love for a living
- 🤩 Getting to work on cool projects
- 😎 Getting to work with cool people
- 🤑 Getting paid well to do it
And yet...
You're now hitting a point where all the things you've tried to get there ARE...
Someday, you'd like to start pursuing paid composing work.
But you're not ready for it yet - or so you think.
So to GET ready, you've been focusing on practicing your composing skills so that your music will be "good enough" to be taken seriously.
And yet, you might still be wondering:
"How will I know when my music IS good enough to get paid?"
Good question.
But what if I told you that you'...
One of the most difficult questions I’ve ever been asked came from a 30-year old composer back in 2023.
Here’s what he wrote to me:
“On paper, I have the knowledge, experience, and abilities to pursue a full-time musical career in some form or another.
But I lack FAITH.
On a good day, I still can’t see where all of my efforts are leading. And a bad day, my work feels fruitless and naive.
So...
I love listening to podcasts.
So when sound designer and educator Akash Thakkar invited me onto his ‘Sound Business Podcast’, I jumped at the chance 😄
On this episode, we discuss:
- 🔑 The key to an effective practice routine
- 😓 How to stop comparison from killing your creativity
- 💪 Why you need to take risks (especially if you hate them)
I highly recommend it for some background (or active) ...
As you may have discovered yesterday…
Mondays can make or break your energy and motivation for the rest of the week:
I used to feel like Garfield.
I’d over-exert myself at the start of every week, thinking:
“I’ve got to get EVERYTHING done on my to-do list to stay ahead!”
But every time I’d do that…
I’d be SO exhausted by the end of the day that I’d spend most of Tuesday recovering f...
Throughout the last 365 days, my YouTube channel has been climbing rapidly to nearly 100,000 subscribers.
But for the past few months...
I'd been dealing with a pretty hefty creative block. 😓
It started with a short break from content creation I took in November to create the 🎬 Composing Career Bootcamp.
But as more time went on, I found it harder and harder to resume the types of YouTube vide...