tonight when i got home hbo was airing the mighty ducks. i'm sure most of you have seen this movie as it was a disney staple when we were kids. growing up in the country in south carolina, there was very little i knew about hockey (i still really know very little about hockey) but there was something about the story & the message that easily made this one of my favorite movies. i've probably seen this movie and it's sequels at least 50 times since i was a kid. each time i do i become more inspired after watching it.

one of my fondest memories from when i was in college was when the student activities board i was a member of did this leadership retreat to a lake. after all the team building exercises, meetings & brainstorming we did on the first day we were all kinda fried & honestly probably didn't want to be around each other. i can't remember if it was scott or sarah in an effort to keep everyone from roaming around and doing their own thing but one of them recommended we see if there were any movies we could watch. the cabin we were in was kinda in the boonies & the tv didn't have cable or even local channels so we were at the mercy of whatever vhs tapes they had hidden in the closet to be our entertainment. the only thing in there was the mighty ducks. i remember we all sat around the tv and watched this kids movie. half way through we were glued, by the end we kept seeing the similarities to this kid's youth hockey team to what we were doing together in trying to build and improve our programming board. we ended up watching the mighty ducks every night of our 3 day stay and by the end we could quote every word but more importantly we all felt closer.

those years in college gave me my first experience not only being in a leadership position but also being expected to be apart of something bigger than me, a team. in my 3 years on that staff, we did some incredible things together and i met some of my best friends who i'm still close to to this day. we increased our funding budget by several hundred thousand dollars, we brought shows & events to campus that students actually wanted to see, we had two mtv campus invasions, ralph nader spoke, a debate between ann coulter & ron jeremy, a lot of big concerts, and dave chappelle sold out the koger center. we also fought back when the administration was being stupid. i'll always be proud of how so many different individuals came together to create something that feels like my one contribution to my university during my time there & ultimately became the thing that started my career in music. somehow gordon bombay gets credit for that i guess.

in the years since i've been put in many more leadership positions and i've been expected to not only build teams but at times rebuild them. i still work with a variety of personalities and individuals each with their own insecurities, anxieties, pasts & motivations and every time we're able to find a recipe that makes everyone work as a team and not just as individuals looking out for their own best interests, success usually follows.

and all too often when i'm feeling discouraged, i'll find the movie and tune everything else out. some days i feel like hans, someone who's seen a lot and who is placed in a mentor role even though he'd really just like to sell skates. some days i'll feel like gordon, both confused at the situation he's in, bouncing from bad attitude to good perspective & somehow knowing he's been placed in a position of responsibility that he may not have even asked for yet realizing there's a lot of eyes looking at him to do the right thing. sometimes i feel like adam where he lets his arrogance & talents get in the way when he's really just trying to impress others into thinking he's better than he is. i definitely can be goldberg on the days when i just want everyone to have fun and lighten up and jesse comes out a lot when my talk is bigger than my actions or i'm trying to keep people at a distance. but my hope is most days that i'm like charlie - equipped enough to be on the team but not always the best player. the person with the most heart, who's always thinking about keeping the team together even when there's problems & his motivations are usually in centered on what helps everyone. the thing is with each of their flaws they also all have skills that when put together makes them champions. it's a simple message but one that's often hard to see. each time i watch the mighty ducks it reminds me it's possible to do almost anything when you develop your people & work together to create something bigger than yourselves which serves not just you but more importantly the good of the whole.

it's easy to see on the good days when it connects and it always helps on the tougher days to realize “when everyone says it can’t be done... ducks fly together”

and they always do.

When I was just getting started in my career, I worked for a lot of different people. Some of them yelled at me, some of them encouraged me, others paid me little attention, some treated me well, & others were jerks. They all taught me something whether they meant to or not.

One guy bit my head off one time after I answered the phone & flubbed over my words. He told me if I didn’t learn how to use the phone to my advantage when dealing with people I’d never make a dime doing this & would end up working at Kinko’s (kids Kinko’s used to be this place where people went to make copies & the people that worked there were idiots who’s job it was to make copies for people who couldn’t make copies themselves). I thought “all my friends communicate by email or text or AOL IM or posting on MySpace. No one needs to be good at talking on the phone.” Truth was I was a little intimidated & afraid of confrontation & it was easier to hide behind a computer screen then to deal with issues head verbally. But that entire summer, in an attempt to not get yelled at again, I listened to every call he had. I studied his tone, how his personality changed based on who he was talking to or what they were discussing, the way he’d word things as he was negotiating or trying to get a point across, how he’d end each call making every person feel heard & like they won. I slowly found my “ oice" on the phone & when I eventually started managing & booking my own bands, promoters & label people would tell me when we first met after months of talking on the phone “I thought you were in your 40’s based on how you talk on the phone.” I was 22. The lion share of the work I do now happens over the phone. AOL IM & MySpace are dead. 

Another former boss who ran a venue once told me I lacked confidence & conviction in my words most days. I was shy and didn’t want to screw up, so I came off as a bit timid. I wouldn’t always say what I wanted & instead just tried to not bother anyone. I would go to shows & watch as he interacted with bands, customers & his crew. There was no doubt he was the boss, but also that the people around him respected him & listened to him. He said “if you can’t convince people you believe in your own words, you’re not much of a leader and no band much less anyone else is ever gonna listen or trust you.” Putting that into practice forced me out of my shell & made me better with working with other people. Very rarely do I say something I don’t believe in, and very rarely do I worry if my words upset anyone either. I choose what I say based off what needs to happen at the moment and not whether everyone agrees with me all the time or not.

One boss I worked with when things were going well for me noticed I’d get frustrated & irritated easily. I’m a perfectionist & anytime something went wrong I took it personally & felt it was a reflection of all the work I put in & I didn’t want others to think I wasn’t up to par at my job. So I overcompensated by constantly venting my frustrations & making it seem like anything that went wrong certainly couldn’t have been my fault, it had to be because everyone else was an idiot. If I’m honest now I can say 60% of the time it was my fault and 40% of the time I was dealing with idiots, but in my role I was supposed to be responsible even if an idiot screwed something up. It was my ship to steer. He said once “JT sometimes you act so bitter and jaded, you gotta lose that attitude or people aren’t going to want to work with you, or at the very least you’ll have a stroke.” It helped me carry myself better even in periods of intense stress and frustration. I’m no Tony Robbins by any stretch but I try not to sweat the small things so much and people get under my skin far less than they used to. I also apologize when I make a mistake or don’t catch something instead of trying to push it off onto someone else. I still think there are plenty of idiots I’m forced to work with but I now bite fewer people’s heads off over small things that are easily fixable. 

One time a boss asked me to play some bands I was listening to. They all sounded the same and he brutally made fun of me in front of everyone. He asked "why do you like all these bands?” My response, this is just what I know so I just listen to a lot of the same stuff. He said, “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If you only listen to what you know, how will you know if you like anything else. You can’t just enjoy one thing your whole life, you need to find a lot of stuff you dig and let your tastes change.” To this day he still listens & works with some of the coolest bands I’ve heard of and is always thinking about what’s now instead of what was then. It’s helped me try to diversify what I sign, what I listen to for pleasure and to pay attention to the people who work for me or who are around me, to see where trends are going and get a gauge on what they’re passionate about. Music is subjective so my opinion doesn’t matter as much as what others seem to be perking up to.

When I was planning to start my own company, a colleague asked “why’re you so hesitant to pull the trigger.” I listed off a mile of things such as what if I don’t make enough money, what if my bands leave me, what if I’m not as good as I think I am, what if I encounter things I don’t know what to do, what if my peers perceive me as a failure for trying to do this as the “little guy.” He stopped me and said “If you’re more worried about what other people think, than what you think, then you shouldn’t do this. But to me doesn’t seem like you’ve failed as much as you worry you’re gonna fail and anyone that doesn’t believe in you, no matter where you work or what your job title is, isn’t going to believe in you anyway, so screw ‘em.” It was remarkable what losing that fear did for my ability to speed up the process. Very rarely do I concern myself now with how I’m perceived, I’m too busy doing all the work that I have instead.

I’m sure there’s plenty more stories I’ve witnessed over the years that have shaped me for the good or the bad. The one about the guy I worked for who once got drunk at a show & while talking to a band he was trying to sign, he peed all over himself. That’s a good one, he still signed the band somehow, but I don’t get drunk at shows because of that because I never want to be “that guy” that’s making the night more about his good time than the job he is being paid to do. Or that sketchy promoter I used to work for who use to walk in the other room to take calls or be very closed off with information, as he was trying to embezzle money from people, or sell drugs, or evade paying his taxes. I don’t sell drugs or try to cheat anyone out of money and I always pay my taxes early because of that. Or that boss who used to get so mad at people that he’d throw his phone against the wall, he scared the crap out of me (and probably his clients) and made me not want to ask him questions. That fool went through like 10 office phones in 3 months and got fired over and over again by his bands for the same reason, he was impossible to work with. I now make an effort to never do anything that intimidates anyone who works for me from asking a question and I’m pretty sure in 18 years I’ve only thrown my phone twice and neither time it broke. And to this day I have a good relationship with all of my clients past & present and I’m pretty sure no one goes around saying “that guy did me wrong."

We’re all not as good as we think we are sometimes yet often we all expect a participation trophy for just showing up. Things aren’t usually as big of a deal as we make them out to be. We could all stand to check our ego a little more often & focus on how to improve our situation through learning and listening and putting into practice the opportunities that are all around us. It could all go away tomorrow and for some of the people mentioned above I also got to witness when it actually did and how they dealt with it when it did. Whenever I see someone from my past who helped teach me something, whether a good or bad habit. I always say hello, try to buy them dinner or a drink & thank them, even if at the time or still today I don’t really like them. I’m pretty sure without their help or nudge in a different direction than where I was heading, I’d probably be working at Kinko’s now making someone else’s copies because I wouldn’t have applied myself to do anything other than making someone else’s copies.

that one time i almost booked dave matthews but jerry ruined it & i learned swear words don’t always work.

when i was in college, i ran the concert board on campus. me & my staff put on a lot of shows & when i was a junior given some of the success we had had, i had the opportunity to put in an offer to bring the dave matthews/tim reynolds acoustic tour to the kroger center (a theater next to campus with university ties) as apart of their spring ’03 tour. it was a big deal to even get to put the offer in. to be considered it had to be a ticketed show and open to more than just students. i remember having to take a lot of meetings with some university higher ups - specifically a guy named jerry brewer who oversaw the student life department. i first got to know jerry when i was a freshman and i was on a committee to bring dr. patch adams (the real one, not the robin williams character) to my alma matter as part of the school’s bicentennial celebration. jerry was the guy that would give on campus venue approval and anything involving university money for student programming had to be signed off by him. from that point until this proposed dave matthews show, i had learned that jerry was always a stickler for minute details. if every form wasn’t submitted correctly & every question hadn’t been thought through, no matter how minor of an error jerry sometimes would just shoot down proposals without really reading or understanding them. i want to say right now, i don’t know jerry on a personal level. he’s probably a great man, he’s worked for the university for almost 40 years, still does to this day. i’m sure he has a tremendous amount of value at his job, but in all of my experiences with jerry he just came off as a guy who probably wore a bib to eat a sandwich because he was afraid of mustard.

anyway i digress. so when i was trying to book this dave matthews concert, i had to get the offer in prior to labor day weekend in 2002. the agents were going to make a decision on the tour over that weekend & kids were out of classes for a few days and jerry was going on vacation so this all had to be signed off and on his desk by that wednesday before labor day. i had been speaking to the college agent for the tour every week for a month. it looked like we had a real shot at this, it would have been the biggest concert the university had put on in 10 years and me a 20 year old kid at the time would have been in charge of it. that meant a lot to me because when i joined the concert board there had only been 3 people on it - me, this girl mackenzie who was in charge and her boyfriend. well after the first show together mackenzie had a nervous breakdown because of the stress & quit and so did her boyfriend, leaving only me to remain in charge. in the time since i had recruited a staff over over 70 of my peers and we had started really trying to build our division into one that was treated with respect and ran like a business. we weren’t booking jugglers or naca acts or bouncy houses, we were bringing in bands every week. the agent had told me that the tour was routing between either appalachian state in boone or my college in columbia, but i was told because our student body was larger and our offer was better, that he was 90% sure it was going to us and he’d know over the weekend. that was great news to me. we went through the proper channels and submitted the offer, so next thing i had to do was fill out the paperwork for the venue request and take it to jerry. i had a meeting scheduled with jerry to make sure all the forms were filled out correctly since this was a slightly off campus venue and it needed his approval. i went in wednesday morning and noticed that my meeting w/ jerry had been cancelled but was told to just drop the paperwork off at his office & it would be taken care of. so i did just that and thought nothing of it. when i came back to school that following tuesday, i had 4 voicemails from dave matthew’s college agent trying to get ahold of me because our offer was being accepted but when they contacted the venue they were told we had not held the venue for the show. all weekend they had been trying to get in touch w/ the venue signatory a “jerry brewer” he kept saying to no response. then when i checked the last voicemail it said “josh we’re really sorry but without the venue on hold we’re going to have to give the show to appalachian state instead. i wish we could have worked it out, i don’t know how this went through the cracks.”now, i want to preface this by saying, i think i’m a generally nice person. BUT when i know someone has messed something up and there was no need for it to be messed up, well lets just say i am not the best version of myself. even at 20 years old, i was pretty strong in my convictions that if someone makes a colossal mistake out of sheer laziness, no matter how old they are, no matter what their title is, no matter how low on the totum pole i was, i was going to make it my duty to be the worst version of myself. so that’s exactly what i did. without setting a meeting with jerry’s assistant, i walked right over to jerry’s office and walked right in the door and proceeded to lose my crap on jerry brewer. i read him the riot act of how his laziness and lack of aptitude cost the university it’s biggest show, how it was a slap in the face to the students who would have loved this experience, and how it was a disappointment to my staff. now i should have just stopped right there because truthfully if i would have, i think jerry would have probably tried to do the right thing and call the agent and see if there was anything that could be done to salvage it. BUT i didn’t. i made it personal and proceeded to explain to him how i had been working my butt off for 3 years to try to make our concert division something that was taken seriously by agents and people within the music industry and that his inability to secure the venue that we had asked him to and that he assured me he would, had made ME look like an idiot in front of people that i was doing my best to get to take me seriously.that’s where jerry stopped me and he said “josh this is about a process, this is not about you, it’s significantly bigger than you and if you are going to make it about you, we have nothing more to discuss.”in that moment, i knew that although i didn’t agree with him, he was right. i should have made sure the forms were submitted, i shouldn’t have trusted him to do it for me, i should have rescheduled another meeting with him after he cancelled on me. i should have made sure everything that was required as apart of my job was taken care of before labor day break. ultimately i should have had the conversations with the venue who would have given me the answers i need instead of assuming that someone else would just take care of it for me if i complained enough. so in my infinite maturity at 20 years of age, i decided my best course of action would be to call him a “worthless asshole" and stormed out of the office. i didn’t go into my organization’s office for a week after that because i felt betrayed, disappointed and embarrassed. ultimately the process was bigger than me, and it led me to realize that that was going to be my last year in the organization because i didn’t feel i had an impact. it wasn’t until i booked a rap concert with a band called field mob and used a middle agent the following year only to learn the middle agent was trying to embezzle money from the school and pay the artist half the money, that i truly felt like i was not working within a system that had a checks and balance or took it as seriously as i did, and i resigned. but the jerry conversation, man that one hurt, because it took something that i felt i was doing so right and proved to me that you can’t win some fights.but it did teach me a valuable lesson. if i was going to complain and get mad and vent and go off on someone, i better know what i was talking about. and i better not leave any gaps open to say “well if i would have only done this.” it was about the process, it wasn’t about me. and for that i thank jerry, no matter how incompetent i thought or still think he is, that is a lesson that’s provided a lot of value in my professional life.not much has changed since that day almost 16 years ago. today i work with musicians, and their teams and their crew and even their entourage of idiot friends around them and everyone has an opinion. everyone has a complaint or a gripe or something they feel i need to hear about, even if they haven’t thought it through or gone through the proper channels or even if they haven’t asked all the questions or talked to the people they’re actually having problems with about how to solve them or find a resolution. it becomes exhausting but it’s led me to have the same conversations with them and say “this is a process, it’s not about you, but if you want to get to the bottom of it you need to talk to the specific people who deal with this specific issue and get the answers you need to live with whatever decisions are made.” that’s not always the easiest thing for someone to hear when they think they’re right, or their identity is engrained in what their doing, or someone who just wants to be mad about something. just as it wasn’t easy for me to do when i called jerry an unflattering world that tuesday in his office 16 years ago.in my line of work now i have a bit more appreciation for jerry’s stance and his role. i don’t know how many people called him or came into his office and pushed their agenda, or griped or complained or needed to vent to him about some problem he couldn’t fix that they weren’t willing to work out themselves, but i’ve got to imagine at a major university like the one that gave me a diploma it had to have been a lot. so when some grumpy 20 year old who felt embarrassed and ashamed that he didn’t get the show he wanted came in swearing like a sailor, he at least gave me the moments to say my peace (albeit poorly) and then shut me off when i started making it personal. keep that in mind too, if you have someone you work with or who is just a friend that you always go to when you need to “vent” or “let off steam” or “get them to fix” something for you, maybe don’t come in at them so hot sometimes, they’re probably dealing with things far bigger than your suggested “needs” & really make sure what you’re coming to them with isn’t something you can figure out on your own first. it’ll make you seem like a better professional, a better person, and less of an emotional wasteland. and as a professional i think there’s a lesson in that. if you are bringing up professional frustrations but using personal manipulation skills to try to get your way. the easiest way to shut you up, is to speak logic and make it less about your emotional stance but more about what’s right with the process or the business. you wouldn’t believe the amount of whiney texts or temper tantrums i have to deal with daily by people far more talented than i who are in positions to do big things in their life and so often they let their minor frustrations get in the way of positive forward growth. and truth is if there’s a real problem you should just get into it quickly & work to solve it instead of venting for 10 minutes about something that may not be about the actual problem which is what 99% of people do because they somehow think making someone feel bad for them will make them work harder. insert eye roll here. there’s a bigger piece to that that i’ll blog about at another time concerning everyone using the things that “trigger” them lately to feel like they’re due a soapbox for every irritation, but i’ll pause that for now, because that’s going to give me a good blog for the future to make fun of millennials about, and you’re gonna want to read it, because i’m hilarious and emotional needy people are pathetic and easy to make fun of. but back to the point, it also leads me to have little empathy when people try to use their personal gripes as a reason to improve their professional situation.  i have no time for it, i shut it down, because at 20 i was taught that me and my ego weren’t the most important things in the room, and that the process will always be bigger than my frustrations, and i’m better for that.coincidentally almost 2 years later, i ended up working for an act that opened for dave matthews for a few weeks. i was the grunt of the tour, selling t-shirts, settling shows, finding hot girls to sneak backstage, whatever the boss wanted. well one day i was running around like a nut and dave matthews sees me and goes “hey man, come over here.” i said “i’m sorry mr. matthews, i’m in the middle of a ton of stuff and i’m going to get yelled at if i don’t get it all done right now.” and he said “it’s my tour, no one’s gonna get mad at you if you sit down and have a drink with me.” so i did, i sat down with dave matthews and drank a bottled water, while he had 2 glasses of wine. and he was right no one yelled at me because my tasks were done 15 minutes later then they should have been, because at the end of the day all the work i was doing was helping to make the entire process of the tour go smoother, because i wasn’t the most important person in the room, but i had value and it was being noticed by the tour. i never forgot that either.i never told dave matthews that i almost booked him at my college but some idiot named jerry brewer ruined it all, but i should have, because dave matthews was awesome and would probably have been too drunk to even remember it. and even though jerry brewer taught me a lot that day about being a professional, i still think he’s an incompetent idiot who should have just turned in the papers i submitted, because even at 20 i realize that’s common sense and that he was probably just as much of a “worthless asshole" as i told him he was. also you’re welcome app state. you’re welcome. 

this afternoon i grabbed coffee w/ a college student that my old boss asked me to meet with. she graduates soon & was in town interviewing for jobs at various music companies. my old boss sees some promise in her, so as a favor to him, i told him i’d be happy to meet with her. the meet up couldn’t have came with worse timing. i’ve been in 3 weeks of utter hell at work, stressing out over everything, overreacting, internalizing, not being the best version of myself and in general just being mentally and physically exhausted. but the coffee meeting was happening whether i wanted it to or not because i’m a grown man who’s not in charge of my own schedule and my assistant had already cancelled a bunch of other things i wanted to avoid this week and i wasn’t going to let my old boss down, so i needed to man up and drink coffee with this freakin' college kid.

as with most coffee meetings with strangers, they start with small talk and pleasantries, the stranger tells you a little about themselves and then they finally get to the actual point of the conversation. now usually i’m quite ninja like in my ability to talk about anything but myself. i’ve learned over time most people if given the opportunity will go on and on about everything in their life, and so when the topic turns to me, i can easily skirt around it and get back to focusing on them. in these types of meetings though, i can’t escape quite so easily, because i’m actually the subject they want to talk about.

she asked about my job, how i got my start & what steps i took along the way. i talk to a lot of college kids and these questions come up quite often. jenn from my office has heard me tell this story probably 9 million times in the 3 years she’s worked for me. she often jokes and says it’s hard for her not to roll her eyes almost every time i tell someone my background story, because i always tell it just a little bit differently. part of the reason for that is i have a terrible memory & the other part is when i’m caught up in telling a story i can tend to embellish a bit for the purpose of really driving a point home. i’m sure i often make out that i was some kinda refugee who walked miles to school in the snow with no shoes on, starved to death because i was so poor and suffered in the same ways the cavemen did before they discovered fire. in fairness, jenn’s right, i have a penchant for storytelling and sometimes remember the exact details a little fuzzier than they really happened. kinda like that guy adnan on the podcast “serial" who’s in jail for killing his ex girlfriend. to hear him tell it he’s so innocent and was framed, he had an idiot lawyer and was just a kid. he couldn’t remember what he was doing the day she died, probably because if you asked me he killed her, but because some white lady who worked for this american life reports on it, now everyone thinks he’s innocent even though it’s obvious to me (and america if you’re truly honest with yourselves) that adnan killed that dang girl. i mean come on, just listen to the podcast, i know you have, it was like the most listened to podcast in the world. and you’re telling me that sucker can’t even remember if he was playing nintendo the day his ex girlfriend was found dead, come on. nope he doesn’t remember crap because probably he killed her and also because it makes for a better prison story if you think he’s innocent. so i guess you can say i’m kinda like that dude from serial who killed that girl but can’t remember quite how he killed that girl so instead he says he can’t remember and you think he’s innocent because sarah koenig from this american life will make you believe anything because SHE knows how to tell a good story. i think i’ve made my point. you’re welcome. 

anyways, keep me on track people. i get lost sometimes.

anyway i answered her questions. my story can be inspiring and she seemed inspired. go me. so she asked the follow up which always comes next. it’s the question every college kid who’s not sure if they’re doing the right thing right before they graduate always asks me in hopes that i will give them some sort of reassurance as someone who “did it” so they feel at peace with their choice.

“if when you were my age you knew what you know now about where your career would take you, would you have still chosen to go down this career path?”

had she asked me this question on any other week, in any other month, in any other year, i would have had a stock answer that reassured her, challenged her or maybe even made her think twice if she was serious enough about this. today i was just honest. 

now i’m paraphrasing here, because lord knows i can’t remember what i said. right jenn? but i think i said this.

“to be honest, when i was your age there wasn’t anything a 36 year old goober like me was going to say that was going to convince me i wasn’t right. so here goes. you want to know if i would recommend what i’m doing now to be something you should dedicate the next 14 years of your life to doing. ha. well let’s see, the past 3 weeks i’ve been an absolute lunatic. i’ve bitten off people’s heads, i’ve been short with people, i’ve felt overextended, not heard, overwhelmed, mean, negative and like a really really bad version of myself. i’ve wanted naps, soooo many naps, i even wanted to be deaf one day so i wouldn’t have to hear anyone complain or hear their stupid ideas that i already thought about 3 days before they asked them because i’m that good at this that i’m like ms. cleo the psychic reader when it comes to people feeling sorry for themselves and needing to be mad at someone for something they did to themselves. literally on tuesday in front of my entire staff i almost had a nervous breakdown and talked some nonsense about how out of control i felt and now i think they all think i’m a crazy person and maybe they’re be right. so yea at 22 i had no clue that my last 3 weeks would have been like this, and if my stupid 22 year old self would have even had that thought i probably would have pursued something that paid me better, gave me more vacation time, or benefits, or maybe  i would have just spent more time trying to talk to pretty rich girls so i could be a stay at home dad with no kids so not really a dad but like a bum who’s wife’s rich and maybe even considered adopting a pet if she wanted that and i dont’ even like pets but if my rich wife liked them i’d like ‘em or heck i’d even get some stupid hobby like flying kites like those dumb people that fly kites seem to enjoy…”

immediately the poor college kid's eyes got huge & i could tell she instantly regretted asking me her unoriginal question. she was probably thinking “what on earth did i just get myself into, this coffee isn’t even that good." so i continued.

“but here’s what i do remember about being 22. everyone that was older than me told me not to get into this. they told me this profession was very trying, that i’d make tons of sacrifices that might not be worth it. they told me that most days i’d feel more defeated than successful. they told me that no job was permanent. they told me that i’d have more self doubt after doing this job than confidence. and they told me that most people that do this for a living are drug addicts or idiots or both. so i can tell you this as a 36 year old that now appreciates what all those older people told me when i was your age. they were right.”

again not the answer the poor kid was looking for. she was no longer smiling like she was when she originally asked this question before i started my ramble. instead i think she was looking for the exit signs in this coffeeshop so she could run the hell out. 

“…but all those people who were in their 30’s & 40’s that were telling me all of that, knew that i was going to do this anyway. they knew this is what i wanted, and they knew they weren’t going to talk me out of anything. and you know what, even though i’ve had 3 of the most trying weeks of my life & have felt like a complete lunatic & useless person to everyone around me, i would not trade any of the ups & downs, the highs or the stresses that i’ve had in 14 years for anything. because it all happened how it should have for me. i couldn’t have imagined the successes i’ve had at such a young age or seeing the things i’ve seen. i never thought i’d live in nashville - the honky tonk country music line dancing capitol of the world. but i love it here. i never would have thought at my age now i’d be an entrepreneur again and not working for someone who gives me benefits and a 401k. but i adore what i do now, even when it drives me crazy. if i’ve learned one thing in my time working with music, it’s that i now know who i am as a person and i’m pretty unapologetic about it most days. this job has tested me and pushed me. it’s taught me patience, empathy and even tolerance, and i’m anything but all three of those things. it’s taught me that no matter how bad it gets, i’ll get through it. and it’s taught me that if i surround myself with good people and we all trust and believe in one another and we stay the course, we can create some really amazing moments and do some special things together. every day i get to go into work, no matter what craziness is going on around me and i get to talk to two of my favorite people, two people i’ve given chances and believed in, they both work for me, they both don’t know who master p is - i bet you don’t know who master p is either do you, but those two non-master p knowing fools do more for me and my business than i can ever thank them enough for. they’re smart, and they’re driven, and self motivated & they’ve taken something i created and are making it their own and because of them what i’m doing now is far better than i could have ever imagined on my own. i get to talk to bands that i love, who’s music inspires me, who i consider friends and who also believe in me and i get to help them achieve their dreams and goals and hopefully build a business that supports the art they want to make for the people they want to make it for. and i get to do all of that without anyone telling me what i can and can’t do. my job and my life are focused around two things - doing things that i think matter and doing them with people that i think matter. that’s it. and at 22 years of age, i didn’t have the foresight to think any of that was even possible, because i didn’t think a dumb kid from south carolina could be that lucky. so if you want me to tell you what you should do with your life, i’d tell you to stop listening to some 36 year old guy who went crazy these past 3 weeks and just wasted an hour of your time and learn to trust your own gut, because i think you know what you wanna do, and whether i tell you to do it or not, you’re going to do what feels right in your heart, and secretly if i’ve made my point that’s what i’m trying to tell you anyway.”

her eyes were still big, but she was now smiling.

i got up, thanked her for her time and said “i gotta go back to work and be crazy again."

as i walked in the door & sat down, i apologized again to my staff for how i’ve been acting the past 3 weeks. they laughed, jenn probably rolled her eyes (again) and we just continued to do our jobs. because at the end of the day, they support me and they motivate me, and i think somehow i might do a small bit of that for them too. if i’m honest, i think most times they don’t think i’m as crazy as i think i am. and that’s why they’re my people and that’s why i’m glad that at 22 i didn’t listen to nobody but myself, because had i listened to anyone else, i wouldn’t have what i have today. and i hope for that girl’s sake, 14 years from now she feels even a fraction of the way i do tonight. i also hope she can admit to herself that adnan killed that girl, because he did, and i’m not going to listen to you either if you don’t believe me.

having no clue what you’re doing but eating cheese toast anyway

When I was 18 years old I went to college thinking I wanted to be a newspaper editorialist. A week into college I realized I really just like telling people what to do, but that I didn't really read newspapers and that I had no clue what I was doing. I went to lots of concerts and downloaded music on Napster for free, lots of it, so much that I froze my hard drive twice. I figured music might be something I wanted to pursue as a career. I knew no one that worked in music & had no clue how one even started career in music. Through some research (mostly by looking in liner notes of CDs of regional bands (kids CDs are these things that existed before Spotify & Apple Music that you used to have to pay for, they were giant wastes of plastic & money, enjoy your music for free, you're welcome), I found people in my state that had small businesses that worked in music. I joined street teams of bigger companies around the country & put up their posters and passed out their CDs for free all over my campus. I joined a concert board, brought a lot of concerts to my campus, met some of my best friends & helped be part of a team that increased overall funding for that organization by almost 200%. I got yelled at a lot. I interned everywhere and I mean everywhere for free. No one paid me any dang money and I was totally fine with that because I didn't have enough knowledge to deserve any money. Management companies, booking agencies, venues, festivals, a record label owned by Hootie & The Blowfish as well as a few places that I think were just covers for people who probably sold drugs, were addicted to drugs or drank vodka for breakfast (it wasn't all pretty people) while they did their drugs. Most of the time I kept thinking "I have no clue what I'm doing." I got yelled at a lot. I never learned how to make coffee, I still don't know how to make coffee. I questioned why I wanted to do this a lot, maybe I wasn't good enough at this, it seemed to come more naturally for other people but I was stubborn and was going to figure out how to do it even if I fell on my face. I made enough mistakes to where I probably should have been fired a million times, for some reason none of those people ever kicked me out of their offices and were patient with me. When I was 21 I started a small business out of my apartment where I'd book and manage bands. I did so because I had interned for virtually everyone in the southeast & no one was hiring and crap I was graduating in a year. I had no business plan, no clue how to budget & really no clue what I was doing. I just found bands that I liked that no one else was helping and that needed help. I made some money, I lost a lot more of it. Before I graduated college I made a plan to move to Charleston to keep working with bands because there were a lot of good bands coming out of there and I thought maybe that'll open up an opportunity for me. 2 days before I graduated college, I got fired by my biggest client because music had burned him out & he wanted to go home and paint houses for the rest of the year. At my graduation I didn't tell anyone this happened so they wouldn't talk me out of moving to Charleston to pursue this music thing that by the way still wasn't guaranteeing me any money. I also blew every single dime of my graduation money that night. Every. Single. Dime. But it was quite an epic party. I moved to Charleston without any graduation money (idiot), lived in a friend musician's house for free. Most of my bands barely made enough money to pay me but they still did whenever they could. On my worst financial month ever, someone broke into the house I lived in and stole my bicycle, some change off the counter & some Pauly Shore DVDs. In retrospect that criminal probably needed those Pauly Shore DVD's more than me but losing Encino Man was really just a rude slap in the face but a pretty epic rock bottom. For a year, 90% of my daily meal plan was cheese toast & Dr. Pepper on recycled paper plates because I had no money to buy anything else not even new paper plates. Not too long after that, a few of my bands signed record contracts, a few of my bands started growing regionally and making a little money, and a few of my bands just complained a whole lot and eventually decided they didn't want to be in bands. Some things haven't changed. Slowly but surely things started connecting. When I was 23, I got a call and asked if I wanted to go on the road. I reluctantly said yes. I got to travel all over the world in tour buses & airport shuttles. The bands I worked with played arenas, amphitheaters, big clubs, little clubs. I got yelled at a lot more. I had no clue what I was doing. Every time I got yelled at, I tried to figure out why and never did that again. I got better at my job. I spent 2 years of my life doing that and made some friends who I got to watch accomplish their dreams & that I'm still close with today. At the end of that, I got a call to move to Chicago to work at a company that first inspired me to work in music. This was a bigger experience than I had ever imagined for myself. I had no clue what I was doing and just wanted to make sure I didn't screw up enough for them to realize that and toss me out. I worked all the time and we signed a lot of bands that ended up becoming really big and selling lots of records & tickets and a few even won awards. That company eventually let me move to Nashville to open a satellite office because I hate snow & it snows a lot in Chicago. Somehow they never tossed me out & I worked at that company for 9 years with some of my favorite people & got to do some incredible things. Then after thinking about it for years, I decided to start my own business...again (what an idiot huh). It was a risk to leave behind a salaried job at an established company with a 401k plan and good insurance (god I miss the good insurance). I was worried I still had no clue what I was doing and maybe my bands or my assistant wouldn't come with me. All my bands did & my assistant did too. My only goal was to not go bankrupt in the first year. Now every year on our anniversary we host a "Not In Debt Yet" party and will do that until we do go in debt & then we won't do that anymore because we'll be in debt. In the first few months of working for me on a car ride back from Atlanta to see Mayday Parade, I told my assistant that I had a plan for her to become a manager. She probably thought I was crazy & probably thought "I have no clue what I'm doing" but I knew she had all the tools to be great at this. Now going into our 3rd year, that assistant is now a manager at my company. She manages 2 of our bands now and she's better than I was at her age and probably better than I am at my age now honestly. We were driving back from Atlanta last week & I remembered "hey remember 2 years ago when we did this same drive home and I told you you were gonna be a manager and now you are one, funny how that happens." Things were going good & I was starting to think "hey maybe I do have a clue what I'm doing" but deep down I knew I wanted to grow and I couldn't get that thought out of my head. I overthought about it a lot, ran the numbers more times than I want to admit & kept talking myself out of it because things were working how they were & maybe changing things up like this would mean "maybe I don't have a clue what I'm doing." I've had someone I wanted to hire for a year now, everything in my heart said this was the person, everything in my brain kept saying "nah you have no clue what you're doing" and so I stalled, I kept talking myself out of it. Then we talked again at a party for an hour about how to figure it out & I got that gut feeling of "do this idiot" & so I said I'm going to figure this out. I hired that new kid 2 weeks ago, she graduated college this weekend, & she starts in 2 weeks. Now I somehow have to figure out how to fit 3 desks in our tiny office...actually no I don't... my new assistant has to figure that out because now all the things that I have no clue how to do is her responsibility. ALL OF THEM Maddison. That's called delegating folks. If I'm honest, most days I still don't think I have a clue what I'm doing, but looking back at it all, every year after a lot of overthinking, praying & trying to be honest with myself, I've faced my fears and trusted my gut and because of that I've found myself surrounded by better people each year who somehow help me get a clue about what I'm doing and because of that things seem to keep getting better and easier and they're working. Here's to another year of having no clue what I'm doing but doing it anyway... and hopefully not going in debt, because then we can't have that party and I like that party.

everybody’s free (to drink iced mocha’s) 

before i start this blog, i just want to say how important i think starbucks is. i don’t think starbucks really gets the credit it deserves sometimes, so here’s to you uniformed coffee empire, here’s to you. today i came into work on very little sleep, after starting a new workout program that i totally bombed, and knowing i had a few calls i had to make that i knew were not only going to be pointless but that i was dreading. a tired, frustrated and unmotivated me is the worst version of me. then by about 2:30, our intern becca went and got starbucks and as silly as it sounds, that tasty iced drink i ordered really changed the mood. so buy starbucks people, it’s the truth.

ok onto what i really want to talk about. aside from the starbucks iced mocha with no whipped cream and almond milk (which i can’t praise enough) i had, i often fail to realize the people and things that come into my every day life that change not only my perspective but my experiences themselves and help keep guiding me on a path that actually benefits me. i’m quite stubborn and rarely ask for help when i need it, so it takes special situations & persistent people to really get me over my own wrongness most days. i’ll start with re-evaluating the start of my day and then try to bring it back to the big picture, almost as if i would have had that lovely iced drink before the day began.

so i woke up at 6 am after less than 4 hours of sleep. i was drool on the floor, don’t want to be here, tired. why’d i only sleep 4 hours you ask? (i know you didn’t ask, it’s rhetorical, stick with me people i’m telling a dang story) it wasn’t because i didn’t sleep well, i slept great or as great as one can sleep in 4 hours, you see i have sleep apnea which i didn’t learn until a few years ago and i have to wear this darth vader looking mask when i sleep that blows air into my mouth so i don’t... you know... stop breathing and die, it’s quite sexy. ladies did i mention i’m single. before i got it though i probably went 7 years undiagnosed and was sleeping at a rate where every 9 minutes my body would literally have a convulsion to wake me up so i didn’t choke on my tongue and die. yep, that’s a real thing. anyway my mom realized something was wrong one night when i was visiting home because i think i sounded like a gun shot wounded dying yeti when i was sleeping and it freaked her out. now i go to a doctor once a year who charges me $200 to watch me yawn and tell me the machine i’m using is working and that he’ll see me in a year. but hey i can sleep now, so i can’t blame my inability to sleep for my tiredness.

so who do i blame for not sleeping? my friends of course. well last night i went to a super late movie with some of my friends who all lead busy lives. we do the same type of work - all with varying level of commitments. some of them have kids (or goats) who poop in bathtubs, some of them travel a ton and recently started new jobs with much higher commitments and stresses, some of them won’t buy new trucks even though they’re about to be rich (ben hutto, this is about you, buy the truck you idiot, everyone tell him to buy the truck in the comments section) but we all got together to watch a movie late at night about dudes in suits who saved the world by killing a drug dealer who lived in cambodia and turns bad guys into hamburger meat, mainly so we could just hangout in the middle of all our busyness and of course see a cameo by elton john where he kills robot dogs with bowling balls (shhh don’t tell peta). anyway, so i got little sleep because i didn’t get home until about 1:30 last night and then had to wake up at 6 am to go to the gym.

now let’s talk about me failing at the gym. i go to the gym 3 days a week with a personal trainer, kenny chesney goes there too, he’s far superior at going to the gym than i am, but i digress. anyone who’s known me for more than 3 years knows that exercise is a new thing for me. i’m pretty sure i didn’t exercise more than 3 times from the age of 1-32 and that includes being the all time worst hurdler on my high school track team my junior year (i still lettered, and if i ever get rich i’m making them retire my jersey and name the track after me). the max exercise i did all those years probably involved lifting a burrito to my mouth and i was dang good at that, could have been an olympian if that was a sport. the only water i drank those years came in the small amounts of water inside a dr. pepper can. today i drink close to 130 ounces of water a day, barely touch soda and i try to eat as healthy as i can. even though editor’s note i did go way off my diet last night and eat an entire family size box of cinnamon toast crunch by myself. i fail sometimes ok, i fail. anyway this gym i go to that i failed at this morning, i would have never gone to if it wouldn’t have been for my friend andrea who invited me to join her gym when i finally got serious about my health. in under 3 years of going there, i’ve lost 50 pounds (41 pounds of which was body fat). i’m stronger than i’ve ever been, i can run without being chased by an animal, i can do pushups like a marine and touch my toes like a gymnast and it actually makes me feel good and i (usually) enjoy going in the morning as it starts my day off in a really good way. the fact that today was a new program and i didn’t feel i did that great is ok, exercise has taught me it’s less about being perfect and more about showing up and putting in the work. my trainer olivia pushed me and encouraged me and got me through it. one of the guys i work with is named paul and paul has been going there for a month & a half and he has the best attitude about it, works super hard and just being around him made me complain less (maybe not cuss less) but definitely complain less. so even though i didn’t master my program today i left feeling way better. and tomorrow morning i’ll wake up at 6 am again and go boxing with my buddy tyler. yea i box now, like mike tyson with less ear biting. i go boxing because my friend kate invited me almost 2 years ago & that day i hated it but she encouraged me to keep coming back and now most weeks (as long as i don’t oversleep) i go about 3 days a week to that too.

by the time i got to work this morning i was spent. the first thing jenn & becca asked was “are you ok?” because i must’ve just looked like death. we got through the start of the day and it’s annoyances and by mid-afternoon after that lovely iced mocha that i’ve been telling you about, we got to talking a little more big picture. jenn, my only employee, reminded me of how we first got to know each other. jenn was persistent on introducing herself to me, and in classic not paying attention to anything me mode, i almost had forgot how many times she made an effort to get an “in" with me & the company. she did radio interviews with my acts, wrote about them in the magazine she ran, heck she even interviewed me one time for her magazine. she introduced herself to me at a college speaking seminar i did. she applied for an internship twice - i turned her down both times without meeting her, and when my former assistant decided to pursue a different career (which involved her famous dog), jenn applied for the job even though i had given her no real reason to want to work with me after all her efforts. my former assistant (who knew me way too well by that point) actually thought jenn would be perfect for the job and actually prepped her about the interview process, gave her cheat notes about what questions i’d ask, so she’d be prepared. jenn was the last person of about 60 that i interviewed for that job, at one point i told leslie “if none of these idiots work out, you can’t quit.” after 59 interviews, i had given up. i had talked to every idiot 22 year old in the city of nashville & they were all wrong. jenn came in and was exactly the type of person i wanted - she was focused, she was a hustler, she wanted to manage bands & she wanted to work for me (which i would have known if i would have paid attention all the times she tried to make an impression on me, but let’s not get past the point that jenn cheated in the interview ok, CHEATER), but i remember we hired her within an hour of the interview. i told leslie “make sure she doesn’t get a job anywhere else or you have to stay.” jenn took the job and leslie is now rich on internet dog money and a new york times best selling author (no really, she is - because leslie is also awesome). jenn’s the best person that’s ever worked for me and that wouldn’t have happened if leslie wouldn’t have helped her cheat and if jenn wouldn’t have been persistent enough to want to work with me regardless of how many times i got in her way. today, paying jenn's paycheck is the only check i look forward to paying every month and anyone who knows me and knows how cheap i am realizes how odd of a statement that is. but she truly makes my company, this job & personal life better and makes things move so much more fluid than i ever could do on my own with all our acts. and after we talked about how much of a cheater jenn was, i got to thinking about clients i had worked with in the past and the clients we work with now and how they all came about. and one after another it became obvious that so many clients we had in the past and had now came from referrals from other clients or people we had worked with before and there was kinda a weird connection between all of them. people who had told me i should try this, or work with this person, even if i didn’t see it at first. the ones that went away were for the better and opened up room for the ones we’ve had great strides with. those same people encouraged me to start my own business 2 years ago too. a decision that scared the crap out of me when i was making it, but that has now made me incredibly happy and i can’t imagine not being an entrepreneur at this moment.

i have countless other stories like this, if i wrote about all of of them or even half of them, this blog would turn into some really long book that none of you would bother reading. so i’ll leave you with this.

i know most days i, and i’d assume most of us, overlook the small things that are actually positive, because frankly it’s easier to look at the annoying things, the tiresome things, or the things that make us feel discouraged. it’s much easier for us to all feel like victims instead of the lucky jerks we actually are. so here’s what i suggest. ready? reflect on the people who impact you and present you with opportunities to change things for the better, stop being so stubborn, and get out of your own way. be open to change, it’s gonna happen whether you’re ready for it to or not, and usually that change leads to the things you really want. trust your gut and just let things happen how they’re going to. you can’t control it anyway. and finally the most important thing i’ll tell you is, and i really want you to pay attention to this part… i really do think you should try these iced mocha things though, and that’s not just because i’m fishing for starbucks gift cards for christmas either… ok i am fishing for those, but you read this until the end and isn’t that the whole point anyway. starbucks for everyone!!!!

Stay hungry my friend.

My new intern Liz asked me earlier this week what I wanted to see my company accomplish. I didn't really give a good answer because I hadn't had lunch yet, it's only her first week guys she doesn't know I'm useless before I have my Chipotle.

Well, tonight I tried to go to sleep around 10, but I couldn't and it finally hit me what I wanted to say to her. In the 15 years I've managed bands now, I've learned one thing to be true about running a business, representing clients and just having successful relationships in general. Your one job if you want to be successful doing anything is to find people you believe in & teach them to believe in themselves.

Sounds simple right? It's the hardest thing in the world to do. Doing that forces you not to get fixated on your own setbacks & challenges because you have to be focused on helping improve someone else's situation. Those people you believe in at times will disappoint the hell out of you, they'll make you angry, you'll argue with them, they'll say stupid crap, they'll get in their own way, they'll make your job 900% harder than if you could just do it for them. But you can't.

Your job is to believe in them, so that they can believe in themselves one day. There's zero guarantee they will do that, so it's a risk. But boy oh boy if they actually do start believing in themselves, it means what you're doing is actually working. That one change in mentality gives them the confidence to know that their talent, taste & abilities are sound and if someone can believe in themselves in that way, there is no ceiling on what they can achieve.

Most successful people I know had someone that believed in them before they believed in themselves and gave them the time to develop into who they are today. 90% of the time, those people continue to give back to someone else and help create a culture of investing in others because there's really nothing more rewarding than it.

So what's in it for you? You get to say "I was right", that's the reward. If you’re lucky people notice you’re someone who can develop talent and it opens doors to being able to do the same thing for other people over time. There will always be someone smarter than you, more connected than you, making more money than you, & doing something you're envious of. But the way to avoid all those insecurities that far too many people get caught up in, is to look what you're doing as the "long game", it's a career, it's going to have many chapters, but the one consistency it can have all along is learning to develop talent. The more talent you develop over time creates a culture of "your people" doing big things and further compliments the fact that you're doing it right. It’ll give you a lot of pride & a lot of perspective about why you want to do the job when there are so many things about the job that you’ll disagree with.

I can look back on every client, intern or person I've worked closely with over the years and there's two consistencies, they've all driven me crazy at one point and they've also added tremendous value and depth to my life for being uniquely who they were and teaching me that it’s okay to be uniquely who I am and that no one can get in our way if we both believe that. Those moments are what you get to keep long into your career - you’ll find them more valuable than all your gold plaques and awards, more than all the sellout concerts you go to, they’ll be the subtle reminder that what you did this for mattered and they’ll hopefully help you build something of your own one day just like I hope I’m doing right now. Go to bed Liz, it's late and I'm hungry again and lunch isn’t for like 10 more hours.

My company made some swag. If you'd like something you can now pick it up in our store or if you come to my office I'll give you some for free. 

Store: https://squareup.com/store/workshopmgmt/

STEPHEN KING “The Desk”

there are no ugly women in oxford, mississippi & other thoughts on anxiety & taking a break

2 days ago i made a very out of character, last minute decision… i decided i was going to take a vacation… and i was going to take it in 2 days…and i didn’t give zero craps what anyone thought of it. i made the decision on my drive into work and the first thing i said as i walked in the door to my staff was “hey guys i don’t mean to freak you out, but i’m going out of town on friday for 6 days. cool?”

i gotta admit my employee & our interns were a little surprised. i’m a pretty predictable person, i love routine, i like schedules and i tend to think most of my decisions are pretty calculate and planned out over a long period of time specifically to make sure no one gets affected - i like that about myself and i think others like it about me too, it’s part of what i think makes me steady. so i didn’t really know how they’d react. this decision however was different, i just felt in my gut i needed to disappear for a bit and i needed to do it suddenly. i shouldn’t have been surprised by this but they (along with all my clients) were very supportive of it. i think everyone probably felt “yea you’ve been a little abrasive lately, get out of here you lunatic.” i don’t say enough lucky i am to get to work every day with people who not only have such strong character but also care for me seem to be able to tolerate my own unique brand of “crazy person.”

traveling’s always been a big part of my life and the past few years i’ve tried to take one vacation a year that’s non-work related. because of my job i’ve gotten to travel all over the word to a lot of big cities & cool places. i’ve been blessed with travel to 49 states (minus alaska, which is just cold and i don’t do cold) and several international countries. so to do something a little different for actual vacations for personal enjoyment one of the things i started doing that’s served me well is i now exclusively go to places i assume others wouldn’t go on vacation to. i’ve been to boone, north carolina, savannah, georgia, athens, georgia, and mobile, alabama over the years. there’s just been something comforting about planting myself in a very small, beautiful southern city for a few days and forgetting my “problems.” these trips always refresh me in a way that the big cities or beaches just don’t. there’s not a lot to do, and you’re forced to just soak in the local culture, talk to regulars and it’s easy to disappear and feel like you don’t have to be “on." my friend leslie who i’ve known since i was in middle school has been offering me for months to come use her family’s vacant home in oxford, mississippi. it’s only 4 hours away from nashville and it’s actually one of the few cities in america i’ve never been to. so on a whim i hit her up on wednesday & asked if if the offer still stood. she said yes, gave me a ton of ideas of things to do and places to eat at, and said “the place is yours, here’s where you’ll find the keys.”

i’m sitting on her couch right now in the quaint little house & i’ve got to say it feels like exactly what i need at this moment.

so why does someone who has amazing friends & family, owns their own business that gives him a lot of freedom and flexibilty in his life need a sudden vacation you might ask? what’s so urgent you whiney 1% whitey? well truth be told i don’t quite know. the funny thing is nothing’s really going wrong. work is good - my business continues to grow, my acts are busy, i’m wanting to sign a lot more things too, i’m not burned out at all (which i gotta say is unusual because i have my hands in a lot of things), and my stress level because of all that is super managable and surprisingly quite low. my personal life couldn’t be going better - i’m in the best health, both physically and mentally, of my life. and i’m being as social as a person like me gets - going out regularly, making plans with friends, seeing lots of movies & more concerts than normal, dating regularly (which comes with its good & bad). so as i evaluate everything on the surface (which yes i do, i’m a dork), nothing really feels disconnected.

but something was feeling off for the past month. i just haven’t been inspired and i’m a person who does need inspiration to feel like i’m growing. i’ve been working hard on my personal life & my professional life but not getting the overall satisfaction from everything i’ve wanted. i think we all go through that though, right? little things that normally wouldn’t affect me were really getting under my skin. anyone who knows me knows that i hate listening to people complain about their problems when they have no solutions in mind on how to improve their situations, i call those kinda people toxic venters and for some reason i was getting surrounded by the marvel avengers of toxic venters lately. i was starting to feel manipulated, taken advantage of, and just honestly like everyone was being rude, self absorbed pieces of crap with no concern for what it was like for me having to be the person taking on their burdens. but instead of saying “i’ve had enough” i’d just listen and try to help, all the while knowing none of them wanted my help. the truth is none of these people are bad people, some of their actions i admit were questionable but i should have felt honored that they were coming to me with their problems, but instead i started to get resentful. i was also feeling quieter and less willing to show myself in situations. most people that know me realize i can be very extroverted, not at a loss for words & able to sit genuinely with who i am. anyone who knows me really well though, knows just how introverted i actually am. my normal preference is to be home in the quiet and not having to be “on” for everyone. being social takes work for me, being in quieter places where i can be more internal is where i feel more at home. and again none of this is unusual. i work in music, everyone’s problems are the biggest deal in the world (please note i say that sarcastically, because really some of y’all are silly with the garbage you get fixated on and very few problems that involve “music” are actual problems in the grand scheme of things) and i’ve learned over the years sometimes you gotta let people get their stuff out so they can get out of their own heads and start thinking more pragmatically & not make emotional (also read “dumb”) decisions.

the other thing that was messing with my head is i was also getting really sick from traveling, not just like “ugh i hate traveling” kinda sick where i snap mean spiriting pictures and post them on instagram from airports, but actually physically sick. on a trip back from LA i got what felt like the early signs of the flu, on a trip to portland several days later my ears wouldn’t pop which gave me a migraine and i felt like i was going to throw up the entire time at the show. on a trip to new york a few weeks later, i started getting crazy anxiety on the flight there and then awful motion sickness once we landed. for someone who has traveled as much as i have in my life, all of this just felt super, super off. i started feeling helpless on these trips mostly because i knew once i was on the ground i needed to power through meetings and have impactful time with my bands and the people working for me. then all of that spread from work to just general social settings. the thought of going to parties, having meet ups with friends or even attending work related events or concerts started stressing me the hell out, like anxiety you wouldn’t believe. and again none of it made sense, when i’d get there everything was fine, i’d have a good time, but man the "getting there" part was awful. all i could think about was i didn’t want to talk to people who were going to just talk about themselves, or worse yet were going to want something from me. part of the draw backs about working in a city where your profession is the focal point of the city is the amount of mooches per capita who are looking for hand outs is overwhelming. i had a show in nashville a few weeks ago & i couldn’t even keep up with the amount of hangers on-ers that came up to me (and i reiterate these are people who never talk to me unless they need something) and they were all looking for work or advice on some bad idea they had that they’ll likely never execute because (and this is going to sound harsh) they’re not good enough to keep their own jobs or see their own ideas through because they let their personal crap get in the way of them completing things or just being a professional in general. sorry i said it - fake that til you make that why don’t you. so saying all of that, because of feeling sick, anxious and frustrated i started feeling like a bad version of myself. i didn’t want to be that grumpy person that everyone was like “what’s wrong with that dude” & i noticed i wasn’t being as positive as i wanted to be with others and worse yet, i didn’t feel like i was as fun to be around or even funny (and y’all, all humility aside, lets be real... i’m hilarious, so if i don’t feel like i’m funny in public, somethings wrong).

so off to oxford, mississippi, i went this morning in my car and after a brief stop in memphis to check out graceland (which by the way did you know elvis has a whole bunch of stuffed animals in his living room & a freaking jesus statue with his name on it right in front of his grave and that junk is wild) i pulled into the driveway. only a few hours later, as cliche as it might sound, i could just feel my soul feeling settled.

i had a wonderful dinner at a place called snackbar and then just spent a few hours walking around the square in downtown oxford. looked around square books & picked up a few things i’m going to read this week while i put my phone on airplane mode & ignore as many emails and text messages as i can. i popped into proud larry’s - a bar & music venue that some of my very first bands used to play every other month which gave me a very comforting and reassuring "how far i’ve come/nostalgic trip down memory lane” kinda vibe. i was able to settle in & remember that even back then i was also an entrepreneur, albeit a really green and probably bad one, but as i sat there and had my drink i could remember how i felt back then. so full of possibility, so full of life. the little things didn’t bother me and i was reminded how many doors opened for me just because i was willing to put in the work, how open i was to collaborating with others and letting them into my life, and how it felt like i had a new idea every day and wasn’t afraid to execute them because of financial concerns or even dumber how i’d be perceived. i just did me, and doing me worked out.

i’m looking to a few days of solitude this week. i’m going to write a lot, read a lot, watch movies and just explore & visit places & do things that are fun to me. did i mention there are zero ugly women in oxford? ZERO! jenn - we might need to open a satellite office here, just sayin’ :) enjoy your next week of work suckers :)

First steps are always the most daunting. They're filled with doubt, fear & an assumption that we just can't do it. Tonight I had a long call with a friend who's going through a tough time professionally & personally. I could hear the doubt, frustration & fear in her voice. She's burned out, she's tired, she's got a lot of financial pressures & she's been unwilling to talk about her struggles because most of her friends have made their problems seem more important then what she’s going through. I initiated the call because I had been noticing she’d seemed quieter, but all the while she was worried that telling me these things would be too burdensome to me. To me? The person who called her specifically to ask how she's doing. The person who genuinely was concerned with what's going on with her. In all her feeling of loneliness and shame, she was more focused on not letting me know what was really going on with her, because she was worried it would give me a bad impression of her.

It got me to thinking, that was me a couple of years ago.

Two and a half years ago, I was in one of those really crappy, awful, no hope filled seasons. I was frustrated with where my career was going, I was angry that I wasn't taking enough risks yet fearful that taking any risks would cause me to make less money & be perceived poorly by my peers. I was very overweight, depressed, and frankly ashamed of who I had become. I wasn't taking care of myself because I felt like a failure. I was negative and clinging to excuses. I was refusing to date because I felt I couldn't be any good to anyone and I was maintaining friendships that were no longer beneficial to myself or the "friends" I was worried about disappointing. I was stuck in a rut.

Perspective is a funny thing though. When you're going through these rough, nasty patches, you don't notice that you're slowly starting to take small steps in the direction you secretly want to go. You just assume any change has to be some big, impactful & immediate thing. But first steps usually never are grandiose and they're never truly done alone. Just like a baby walking for the first time, we need someone we trust to let us feel like we’re doing it on our own but encouraging us just enough to make us feel like we're not going to fall on our face forever. When I opened myself up to change, without prompt people who loved me and knew how stubborn I was, made an effort to encourage me to move towards some choices that would help get me to where I wanted to go. Usually they knew what I was capable of before I did.

My friend Paul recommended I start seeing a therapist. My friend Jessica started going to church with me. My friend Andrea encouraged me to start going to her personal trainer. My former boss Gregg encouraged me to start my own business. My friends Rachel, Chelsea & Annabel (and pretty much every other woman I know) told me I needed to start dating again. I started apologizing to past friends I had done wrong and taking responsibilities for things I had messed up that I used to blame others for. I started signing new clients I was passionate about, and I parted with some who were causing me frustration & who I no longer felt I was helping in the way I wanted. I started taking a more proactive approach to mentoring the young people who interned or worked for me, and got a great deal of joy out of watching them find success. My friend Kate encouraged me to get some hobbies (and introduced me to boxing, which I love now). My family supported me through everything and gave me the confidence that the risks I was taking were actually thought out and logical. And the more I opened myself up to other people, the more encouragement I got. I started getting more and more inspiration from listening to my clients, my friends, from those same peers that I was once worried would perceive me differently. I started reading more, watching more movies and finding inspiration everywhere instead of negativity and excuses. And slowly I broke out of that rut and started feeling good about who I was and what I was doing. And a funny thing happens when all of that combines, you start doing things that excite you and you start meeting people who grow with you, and you start valuing the people who cared enough to see through your struggles alongside you.

I don't say all of this to say I've got it figured out. Far from it. Every day I have struggles and things I come up short on, but I no longer feel hopeless or alone. I no longer let my anxiety or my guilt dictate my choices. There's no shame in admitting you need help, encouragement or support. Those feelings of anxiety I used to have now feel more like higher standards I set for myself to continue moving forward & that’s the pressure I prefer. If anything I think it’s powerful when we can admit that. It’s the first step to change. Surprisingly I feel like I can do almost anything right now, and that's an incredible feeling and something that’s also weird for me to say about myself. I’m motivated, I’m happy, I’m trying new things and that’s exciting. But I’m proudest that I can look back on those rough seasons and realize they were crucial to getting me to feel how I feel today. And I truly hope if you’re going through tough times right now, you’re able to have the perspective I didn’t, and make it easier on yourself and let the great people surrounding you help you get back to where you want to go quicker. Much love.

My good friend Charlie Ballew passed away tonight. Mr. Charlie has been a friend of my family for as long as I can remember. He was my Mom's principal when she was in school, he's always been a close friend to my Dad & they served on the high school football chain gang together. And little known fact, according to my Dad, Mr. Charlie's wife made the best egg sandwiches in the world.

Every fall when I was a kid we'd go to Clemson home games together - back then on those van rides home, he'd just talk and talk about how much of an idiot Ken Hatfield was. As I grew up and went to Carolina, our conversations shifted to me being the one talking about how much of an idiot Tommy Bowden or Dabo Swinney was, and he'd laugh & give me a wink. Charlie also had one of my favorite laughs.

The past few years every time I'd go home, I'd either go visit with Mr. Charlie or he'd come over and we'd watch football together, eat pizza together & he'd make sure to always tell me I was his "buddy." I love Mr. Charlie. He made a huge impact on my life, he was always kind to young people, he supported them & made them feel important. He was shining example of what it means to be a good man, an educator & a "buddy." Thoughts & prayers go out to his family.

moments

I told someone the other week that oddly enough the moments I'm most thankful for are the ones I wasn't prepared for. They were the moments that scared and gut checked me. They were the moments that made me really question who I was & what I really wanted to do.

The beauty of nostalgia is it lets you look back fondly at a period in your life that if you're truly honest with yourself you were scared and felt uncertain about the choices you were making. It also lets you realize you were more ready in those moments then you thought you were. There's a lot of peace and comfort that comes with knowing that sometimes simple setbacks that at one time made you feel defeated were often the same ones that helped place you on a path to uncover the best version of yourself & do your best work.

Nothing in my life has ever worked out exactly the way I thought it would. I've been more disappointed then I care to admit. But I'm so thankful for that.

Now on most days when I have the urge to get stressed out because I feel busier then I'd like, more over committed then I want to be, or under pressure to make sure my decisions not only affect me but others positively, I try to take a breather. It's in THESE moments now that I realize how much happier, confident and strangely more prepared to take on whatever is thrown at me, then I ever imagined I'd be.

It's because of these little moments that I find myself more excited, humbled & thankful then I ever have before. So many great things are happening in my life, in my work, with my clients, and with my friends and family who I care about. And lots of those things I can't take credit for. They're the result of other people caring about me, working with me or for me, supporting me, encouraging me & forcing me to try new things.

I find myself far less nostalgic lately and far more focused on what's next and what's happening now. I'm very grateful.

teachers, talkin’, & mooching rednecks

my mom texted me this weekend and said “we’re at your dad’s 48th high school reunion and a lady came up to me and said ‘your son - the one who lives in nashville - i just love his writing.’” i had no clue what writing she was referencing, or in fact who this woman was but my mom concluded she was probably a friend of one of my aunt’s on facebook and has seen a blog post or two of mine. mom’s are usually right about these things.

i grew up a relatively shy and anxious kid in a family of extroverts. for as long as i can remember, my dad & my brother have always been very outgoing. they were always good at sports and made friends very easily. i, on the other hand, still hold the record for fewest hits in t-ball and most missed 3 points attempts in fountain inn little league history and because i guess group sports and interactions weren’t my thing i probably had a harder time making friends & feeling like i fit in. in truth being around people REALLY stressed me out. people were loud, people were demanding, people broke your toys (i’m looking at you zac & britt), people could be rude because they always wanted to talk about themselves, and people were emotional like really emotional. i couldn’t be heard in those situations, so i just disengaged.

those types of interactions with others felt very intrusive to me and i didn’t really know how to share much about myself without coming across in the same way that i perceived them. but people would still corner me and talk to me, suddenly i became known as being a “good listener” - in a way that made me feel good. it made me feel like i was helping them but not really getting much out of the conversation. i’d let these “crazy people” talk about whatever was going on with them, then they’d be glad that they got it out and then (my favorite part) they’d stop talking and i could go back to whatever it was i was doing. i used that as a crutch for a long time to be less active in relationships because the thought of having to be present with “those people” felt torturous. in a lot of ways i thought i could get through life by tapping into as few of my feelings as possible, because in truth i didn’t think many people wanted to hear what was going on with me anyway, because they were too busy gushing about whatever drama they had created in their own lives.

then my grandpa died. my grandpa jim was this sweet old man who worked on air conditioners and was a farmer and smoked a lot of cigarettes and would listen to me. when we went back to school my teacher mrs. woods made us write a paper about what we did over break. so without hesitation i gave her a story she wasn’t expecting. i wrote about my grandpa’s death and how it devastated everyone in our family. there was news coverage of his passing in the newspaper and on tv and reporters were calling my grandma and my relatives asking for quotes and sound bites while we were grieving over the loss of a family member after his very tragic death. then there was the people who came to my grandma’s house and literally sat there and ate the food other people had brought for her, because they were mooching rednecks that i felt were using my grandpa’s death as a way to the free buffet line. i remember how sad my mom was, but how she wasn’t getting much time to be with her feelings because she was too busy having to react to the funeral arrangements because everyone else outside of my family were acting more damaged then the people who actually lost a loved one. that really bothered me. also i was just hurting. i had lost my grandpa, my friend, and although he was a very quiet type, he was someone who made an effort to help me talk about things. my paper was filled with a lot of sadness and anger, and for the first time i really expressed how i was feeling about something with zero regard for how it made anyone else feel.

i got an A+ on that paper. i also had to sit down with the counselor the next day because i think mrs. woods was worried i was going to try to beat up all the people who ate my grandma’s food that week & mrs. woods was a smart enough lady to know that there was no way i could beat up anyone :) i remember she told me that what i wrote was powerful. that i had a way of explaining things that made it very vivid for the reader and very easy to comprehend. it was the first time i can remember being told i was a good communicator and it gave me confidence in something i was until that moment very insecure about.

so with that, i decided i was going to become a writer. i joined our newspaper staff in high school, i won awards and became very involved. i liked writing editorials, because i could write my opinion about whatever was on my mind and because “The Rampage “ was distributed to every student in the school, people HAD to read what i had to say whether they wanted to or not. i also had final say on the editorial process for our “senior wills” edition before graduation. senior wills are where the leaving seniors “bequeath” things to their friends and underclassmen. most people do really funny things or really sweet things. not this guy. i pretty much told off anyone i didn’t like and because the principal didn’t take the time to read over the edition because he trusted us, i got the final word (my ultimate act of defiance). boy am i thankful that twitter didn’t exist when i was in high school, because i would have probably been beaten up a lot or even shot for some of the things i thought back then.

when i decided on a college, i chose a school with a top rated journalism program because i just knew i was going to go on to be a pulitzer prize winning editorialist. then i started college and realized, oh yea, i don’t read newspapers at all. fail. so i gave up writing and my interests shifted to music, and luckily that turned into a career. today i communicate daily with hundreds of people either by phone, text or email. it’s funny the things you think you can’t do, and then you do them and you realize you’re not as bad as you thought. if you’re like me, you always assume the worst, and sometimes it takes a friend, a family member or in my case an english teacher to tell you you’re better at something then you thought you were and in a rare case that confidence you were missing can actually change the course of your life.

from where i sit now i still think i’m a pretty good listener, although i’m much more atune to give feedback. i still struggle with verbally talking openly about the things going on with me. recently i was visiting in chicago and my friend annabel told me i have a “ninja like” ability to deflect conversations when it’s my turn to talk about myself. she’s right, although i am trying to make a better effort to be more present and less hesitant to share what’s happening in my life. it’s still easier for me to collect my words and put them on paper, in an email, on the internet, or a text message then it is to sometimes even say them out loud in person. and i no longer would consider myself shy since i’ve just become an introverted person with an extroverted job - go figure. and while i still can be very turned off rude, overly emotional and needy people, i am at least able to express to people how much i care about them now.. but lets be clear, i still ain’t eating around anyone after a funeral, that’s for the moochy rednecks who i still want to beat up.

Today was our interns last day so we decided to do something special for them. So we hired a singing Elvis impersonator to come in and FIRE THEM!

15 years ago today...

This week I've been looking back through my old Mortar Board day planners that I had when I was at USC. Randomly enough, 15 years ago today I had my first ever internship in music. I found out about the company I interned for, Mountain Entertainment, by seeing their contact information listed in the liner notes of CDs by some of my favorite regional bands like Dezeray's Hammer, Weekend Excursion, King Konga, Cravin Melon & Dayroom. They even booked Afroman.

I had no clue what artist management was but when I found out their office was in Simpsonville - the town I went to high school in, I sent Marty (the owner) an email and said "I love all your bands & if you let me work for free that means I don't have to work at the movie theater this summer." Looking back, given that my email address was [email protected], I'm amazed he even read the email much less told me where his office was. Their old office was located above the back parking lot of what is today a gun store. I remember marking up a lot of posters, sending out physical press kits & glossy photos (remember those), running the postage machine, sweeping the floors, taking out the trash, and being made fun of a lot. I also can recite every word on every The Jerky Boys album thanks to my time there.

Marty was the manager and he was the guy every band called with their problems and he'd calmly offer advice & fix everything and the band would feel better after talking to him. Then immediately he'd get off the phone & be full of more stress than anyone I ever had seen. He'd always say "Why do you want to do this? Don't ever do this!" Nowadays, I can relate to a lot of what Marty was probably going through and am in awe of how much he juggled. Then they had this guy Billy who was a booking agent and he would be on the phone with some talent buyer telling dirty jokes and then put him on hold to cuss someone else out on the other line and then get back on with the first caller and use humor or conversations about fishing to gauge the poor sucker for more money for his bands. It was an art form. And then there was Julia who was the person that literally kept everything together, she was the glue that dealt with all the contracts and made sure everything was properly communicated between the staff, the bands & their crew & that none of the details fell through the cracks. She also helped cover for me if I screwed something up too bad, which I did a lot. That internship sealed the deal that I wanted to manage bands for a living. 15 years later I'm managing my own bands, running my own business and have interns of my own. I credit that environment & their willingness to teach me the business the right way for any success I have had since. Hard to believe that was 15 years ago.