"Artistic expression is blessedly, refreshingly nonessential."

I just read this bold, amazing, scary, beautiful, confronting, passage in my new bible, "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert (birthday buddies!): 

"And, yes, I absolutely do believe that our artistic instincts have divine and magical origins, but that doesn’t mean we have to take it all so seriously, because—in the final analysis—I still perceive that human artistic expression is blessedly, refreshingly nonessential. That’s exactly why I love it so much."

I smiled, I shook my head in awe, and then, I remembered that a few weeks ago I'd started thinking that it might be a good place to look, a good practice to take on, to think of my music not as a luxury, but as a necessity. As something people need as much as they need the services of a lawyer, or a plumber, or of a PR consultant like my girlfriend (god I love her so much). 

So after reading this passage, and remembering that idea, I thought, hm, why, given the beautiful truth of this new idea, was I attracted to the old idea that music could be a necessity, not a luxury?

Because it allowed me to remove all my own worth from the equation. 

If music is something people need, they'll go out looking for it, and find me, and because I'm good at it, they might hire me. They might be fooled into hiring me, little old me, for this thing because they need it in such a way that they don't care who delivers it. You don't go to a restaurant because you admire the waiter, you know. You need food, so you go get it. Based on the food, not on the people serving or even making it. If the same food was made by a machine or a robot, you'd be fine. (Well, theoretically. Following this logic that I've just made up. Just go with me here.)

And I get to write myself out. Because surely no one would ever care about me, what I do, what I love to do, no one would hire me because I've put myself vulnerably out there, saying "this is what I do, this is what I love, are you interested?"

And it's funny because as I write that it doesn't really seem to make sense. And what I mean by that is IT'S SO GODDAMN SELFISH! It's speaking directly from fear. Indeed, no one hires me for me – or at least, for the part of me that is scared in this way. 

Music, art, is, in Liz Gilbert's words, "blessedly, refreshingly nonessential." Non essential. That doesn't mean wrong, or unwanted. Step out of your artist's fear for just a second and you'll see the blindingly obvious truth that people LOVE art, NEED it, not to live, but to LIVE. Whether it's a deep beautiful novel or a cheap trashy TV show, it's all art, and people don't require it, but they love it.

Where am I going with this, to counter the idea that I wanted it to be essential so as to write out my own self worth? Something about the responsibility you have to accept how great you are, that you are worth making art. And maybe something about Liz Gilbert's point, which I love so so so so so much, that you should make art for yourself only, without any concern at all for anyone seeing it, hearing it, loving it. And maybe that the takeaway for a professional artist in that case is that if you relate to your work that way, as daring and crazy and counterintuitive and illogical as that seems, that's when your fear dissolves, and your life takes off and becomes unbelievably amazing and perfect (and your career too, but inside this attitude career almost doesn't matter anymore and just takes care of itself).

Maybe. I've given up thinking that my ideas like this are the answer or key to anything.

But, I will say, that's what's been happening to me in the past week or two.

Go make something.

Inspiration from... You know what, who cares about post titles!

I love inspiration. I love reading. Since I finished my coach training I've been reading even more of what I like to call "transformational" reading. Right now I'm reading four or five books, off and on (thank God for the Kindle which lets me add to my reading load no matter how much room is left in my backpack and without adding any weight to my body!). Let's see:

I'll fill in the authors later

"Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert

"Conversations with God" by Neil Donald Walshe (my second reading)

"The Way of the Superior Man"

"The Prosperous Coach" (my second reading)

"Different Seasons" by Stephen King

"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow

Let me make this quick for now so I can stop sweating. (I just got back from the gym and am headed to the shower but I couldn't let inspiration's words go forgotten or unwritten.)

I keep reading the same things over and over. God keeps sending me the same inspirations, about inspiration and creativity. Liz Gilbert, in "Big Magic," is saying things my heart, the universe, God, has been trying to tell me with varying (and increasing) success in the past week or so. The kind of things I want to write about here.

Fear would say "why write about them here? They've already been written about, in so many ways, in so many places. Nobody is going to want to read them from you when they can read them other places. And certainly don't go telling people about these other places!"

But LOVE says, truth says, creativity says, God says: These things speak to you. You are meant to share them. The fact that they are all over the place speaks to their power, their truth, their beauty, and the fact that they are being thrown at you means that you get to be included in sharing them with the world, and sharing their other sources with the world, and changing lives – yours, your readers', and everyone's.

Yes, everyone's.

Join me.

Snowed In and Breaking Through

Well, it's January 24, and I'm sitting in my girlfriend's house in DC in the middle of a crazy big snowstorm. The snow has stopped falling, the sun is bright and some streets are somewhat plowed, but everything is still pretty much shut down.

It's beautiful. It's an amazing vacation. It's time to enjoy being with the people you love and doing nothing, just being. Movies, coffee, crosswords, relaxing.

Unless that's not where your mind is at. If you're a musician, today may be a day that your church gig was cancelled (like mine). Maybe Friday or Saturday night you had a club date, or a theater performance, or a private party gig, that was cancelled because of the snow. I myself am waiting to see what happens with a school concert I'm playing on Tuesday morning, not to mention my band auditioning some new bass players Tuesday night as well as playing for a handful of prospective clients, a night that could turn into a few thousand dollars in bookings.

When most of the jobs you do only pay if you show up – which is how most artists live, it can be hard to enjoy an unexpected snow vacation (or any time off for that matter). When you come from a mindset of scarcity then every job you've booked is precious, and could be the last, and every job that is cancelled is a disaster, a huge wrench thrown into the works of your life, and a sign of just how hard it is to make a living doing this thing we say we love. Choose a mindset of abundance, though, and you will know that the money that is meant to come to you will come in the way that it's meant to, and that there is plenty of money out there for you, for everyone.

For me, this weekend has become transformational. I spent a few hours feeling quite stressed about the gigs that would hopefully not, then maybe, then probably, then almost definitely be cancelled. As that progression...um...progressed, it became clear that what I was doing with all the stress was trying to control what happened. I got an email about snow cancellation policies from my church and responded saying that the policy was confusing, and asking about what kind of compensation would be given if church was cancelled with this much notice, or that much notice.

I was trying to control what happened. But it was out of my control. The policy was pretty much out of my control, but the policy didn't really matter anyway: 2 feet of snow were coming, and there is no convincing or figuring out I can do to make gigs happen that are clearly going to be cancelled.

This attempt to control is resistance, and it is what causes all pain in the universe, all stress. The opposite of resistance is acceptance, and this is where the transformation is.

In accepting that gigs would be cancelled, that the money from those gigs wouldn't be coming to me, I started being able to truly enjoy this new moment. I realized that, when someone asks me how I'm doing, the measure of how I'm doing doesn't have to be how much I'm working and how much money I'm making. That in fact, there doesn't have to be any measure of how I'm doing, how my experience of life is.

I can experience life as GREAT, by choosing to, no matter the circumstances. Life isn't about gigs, work, money, business or busy-ness. They are a part of life but they are not what life is about.

You get to say what life is about! It is your CHOICE! 

If you are reading this and having trouble taking in that gigs and money aren't what life is about, that life can be experienced however you choose; if what I'm saying offends you, scares you, or makes you upset, my challenge to you is to look at what you are choosing to make your life about, how your are choosing experience life, and make a different choice.

These snowed in days are an AMAZING opportunity to have a breakthrough in your experience of life and your relationship to your work and yourself. And the more gigs that have been cancelled, the more money you've "lost" from this snow, the bigger the opportunity is the bigger breakthrough.

I choose for this weekend to be a celebration of time with the love of my life, time with myself, a celebration of relaxing, doing creative projects for myself (even just writing some music on GarageBand on my iPad), of simply enjoying life on its own terms, without measuring it by the amount of work I'm doing or money I'm making, any more than I'm measuring it by how many pages of a book I read each day or how many shrimps I eat each week.

What experience of life will you choose? What will you learn from this amazing weekend and how will you take it into your life going forward?

What if nothing was off limits?

I recently posted on Facebook to celebrate my happiness at how well I did in business in 2015. After what felt like a slower year, I had cleared $60,000 for the third year in a row. I posted:

Cleared $60k this year and it ain't over yet! Whoo hoo! ‪#‎nonstarvingartist‬

I got a good number of likes, one or two congratulatory comments, and then 3 or 4 more comments. The additional comments were from friends and colleagues, other artists, who considered it wrong, impolite, tacky, or inappropriate to discuss money. One posted an article where Emily Post (I think) broached the subject about whether money is still a taboo conversation topic, wondering if maybe that time had passed, only to confirm that it is, indeed, still not cool to talk about money. And there were a few "You tell 'em, sister!" and "haha, just desserts" replies and likes to those comments.

(Okay, those were not direct quotes that I just put in there but that was the spirit I read from them. I'd hate to use quotation marks when I'm not actually quoting without being clear about it.)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to disagree with anyone else's, so I'm not going to be defending myself or attacking anyone else, even faux-nicely. What I will do, since as a coach and an artist I'm interested in possibility, is get curious.

What would be possible if nothing was off limits?

What if, when you had a success you wanted to celebrate, you could share it, no matter what it was?

What if, when you had a fear that was weighing on you, you could voice it, whatever it was?

What if, when you had a creative idea burning inside you, you could let it out, no matter what it concerned?

What if you could be your true self and truly share and connect?

What if, when you just booked a commercial that will pay your rent for two months, you could say exactly that to your friends? What if that job paid $3000 for a day of work, and you could say exactly that to your friends? What if, instead of the conversation going on inside your head and in your community being about struggle and scarcity, you were to share yourself as a shining example of success? To open up possibility to those around you? To show them what's possible, from abundance, because from a context of abundance, your success doesn't lessen or make more difficult anyone else's, but in fact pulls it closer to yourself and those around you?

Might you shake your community? Might you inspire others to see that maybe what's possible for you doesn't point to what's impossible for them but instead toward what is possible for them? Might you start to transform your world and theirs, one small (or huge) step toward more success and happiness for everyone?

What if, when you were afraid or sad about the big project you're working on, you could say exactly that to a friend? Or a loved one? Or a colleague? Or someone you just met? What if, instead of feeling the pressure of pretending that everything's okay, and the self-loathing that comes with thinking you're the only one who doesn't have it together, you shared honestly? 

Might you discover that you're not alone? Might they discover that they're not alone? That it's okay to be scared sometimes (or much of the time)? That we can accept and love ourselves in all our fears and successes, in all our breakdowns and breakthroughs? 

Might you find a new closeness with this person, and then with that access, to every person? Might you cause that possibility in the person you're talking to?

Might you have a breakthrough where you realize that fear or undesirable feelings don't mean failure, don't mean stop, and that you can in fact keep working on this next great project of yours? Or even that the discomfort and fear you're feeling are actually the signs that you're going in exactly the right direction? That they are telling you that you are right up against your comfort zone, about to break into the unknown, where possibility and breakthroughs live?

What if nothing was off limits? 

What if you could talk about sex, shake off repression, live more freely, have more fun and funny conversations, accept yourself and others for being a human in a sexual body, and feel more self-love (and maybe have more sex)? 

What if you could talk about religion, learn about people who are different than you and accept them, find useful kernels of wisdom in other traditions, find new sources of inspiration and connection, foster appreciation one person and group at a time, and be the cause for world peace?

What if you simply knew that every part of every person, including you, was okay? That nothing was taboo, shameful, or wrong? 

That you're not alone. Not the only one feeling what you're feeling, or dealing with what you're dealing with.

What could you create then? Move past? Conquer? Transform?

Try it out this week. Be brave. See how the world changes.

One passion, different skills

When I thought about how to make more money, my old predictable fear-based objection came up: "But I'm just a musician! I'm doing everything I can!" When I finally started to move past that, those life-long thoughts of unworthiness, to think about actually, for real, making more money, and realized it probably included doing more things – or, rather, marketing and sharing more products and services – I thought, "But I just do music!"

When you think about different ways to make money, maybe you think "but I just act!" Or "I just make sculptures!" Or "I just write weird little stories!" 

Well there are two things I want you to think about.

1. You've been doing this for your whole life. It's your passion. So it may look to you like just one thing. To me, it occurs as "I just do music!" But the truth is, there are probably a dozen distinct skills I have as a musician, distinct and separate things I can do: play piano, sing, play guitar, accompany singers and instrumentalists, arrange music, play solo, play in a band, lead a band, program a synthesizer, orchestrate music, make piano recordings, produce orchestral mock-ups. That's just off the top of my head – and it wound up actually being a dozen, how's that for divine guidance? – and there are probably a dozen more. 

And that's just the list of skills. Many of those skills that I have, those things that I can do (which, again, when I'm coming from fear, just look to me like ONE thing I do, the only thing I'm worth, a vague idea that's cool but not really tangible or value-able), can be broken down into a handful of different products and services, marketed in different ways to different people. Just look at my website, www.yourpianobar.com, which takes one or two skills – playing solo, and singing – and markets them as 5 or 6 different services or products. 

It's not just about realizing the things you can do. It's about seeing the blocks in your way to realizing these things and moving them out of the way: I worked so long in theater that I started to define myself as a theater pianist, and so those were the only possibilities I could see. So when I thought about marketing myself as an vocal coach/accompanist, working one-on-one with singers, the only work I thought I could do was with adult theater singers. If you asked me who else might want to hire me, I'd probably say I had no idea, and I'd probably get really scared, which is a sign that there's some amazing possibility I'm not letting myself see, probably because I feel unworthy of success, or just plain unworthy. If you are an intellectual rationalizer like me, you probably see what I just wrote and dismiss it – doesn't make sense, too touchy feely – but it's only when you acknowledge that fear, that limiting belief, that you can stop resisting it, stop denying it, let it just be, and move it out of the way. What's waiting behind it? Confidence, ideas, possibility, self-love. For me, it wasn't until I could separate my own self-worth from my business and my music that I could see that, for instance, I can market my accompanying (and recording) services to high school students auditioning for colleges, and make serious bank by providing a seriously valuable service to people who seriously want it, doing something that for me is easy and enjoyable.

(I absolutely must confess – which I do gladly – that playing for college applicants was actually my brilliant and beautiful girlfriend's idea. But if she had mentioned the idea to me a month or so earlier – and she is always mentioning ideas like this to me – I would have gotten scared, actually feeling scared, getting quiet and uncomfortable, and dismissed the idea, believing it impossible for little old me. Only from being in this place of possibility, seeing and accepting my fears and choosing freely to do and be something different, was I able to see how great an idea it was and act on it.)

2. Like I said earlier, this thing you do, your art, you've been doing for so long, and you may define yourself completely by it. But really it's just an action you take, a thing you do, that comes out of your passions, your desires, your interests and skills. It's time to explore what those interests and skills are that have nothing to do with your art. Trust me, I know this is scary. It's scary for me just writing it. (After writing that sentence, I've just been sitting for a few minutes, distracted. See?) If I think about doing something besides music, or even besides the music jobs I've done in the past, my default response is "I don't have any other skills." And that's because I'm so attached to music being how I define myself and my worth that it's like if I imagine myself, my life, as a word cloud or something, it's just a big white space with "music" in the middle. 

But what's possible when you consider that your art, this thing that may be the only way you know how to define yourself, is just one possible manifestation of various skills, passions, interests, desires, that you have? That maybe they're there and always have been but all you can see is "acting" or "painting" or "music" or "architecture." 

To be honest, I'm just beginning this inquiry myself, so I'm speaking from more toward the middle or even beginning of this idea, rather than speaking from somewhere maybe three-quarters of the way down the path, as I was in the first part of this post. I've been getting curious about, what are the things that really light me up? And pushing past my ego-based answer of "music, that's it, stop asking already, jeez!" Here's some things I see:

-Geeking out about music theory is REALLY invigorating for me. Like explaining to the kids in my high school pit orchestra the differences between, and purposes of, cut time vs. 4/4, and how 6/8 is 2 and not 6, because they asked about it and are actually interested in the answer. Or one of the singers in my wedding band asking what's up with "slash chords" and getting into the difference between an inversion (like C/E) and a chord like G/A, which I prefer to call A11 because the chord is actually an A chord not a G chord and I always prefer to refer to a chord in a way where I see the root it's based on, what the chord is actually about rather than the most logical way to explain all the notes in it.

See how geeked out I just got about that!?!?! You probably have no idea what most of that means but it activates every soul of my being to talk about that, which is probably just another way to say that it's FUN! Something I'm good at, knowledgeable about, that ignites passion – actually ignites passion, not just corresponds to the thing I always tell myself and others I'm passionate about.

-Writing. Stuff like I'm doing now (like, right now, as I'm, you know, writing this). I enjoy it, and I've been told lately that I'm really good and inspiring and eloquent at it. And even to say "I enjoy it" makes me a little uncomfortable, because my ego says "All I enjoy is music! There's nothing else!"

So those are two places I can look to find ways to make money doing what I love. And, that's just the beginning, because what I was actually talking about was getting curious about what are the passions behind those things? Maybe talking about music theory is actually about a passion for connecting with people, and a great direction to pursue around my career in general is to find work that allows me to connect with people and make tons of money for it. Maybe I like being a copyist – entering handwritten music into the computer to be printed, or re-entering music so that it can be transposed and reprinted, which by the way is the full effort that transposing your song takes – so much because it's organized and methodical and sort of like problem or puzzle solving. Maybe it's the same passion that's behind my love for crossword puzzles. So maybe looking at the passion instead of the action can lead me to consistent, lucrative work, that looks nothing like music (maybe it's filing papers for all I know!) but is still doing something I absolutely LOVE doing.

It can be hard, weird, or scary to peek behind the curtain of what it is we do, what we have always done and who we have always known ourselves to be. Our attachment to "I'm a pianist" or "I'm a dancer" can be a security blanket, and it can a box that keeps us trapped. Get curious about what's behind outside that box! Journal about the things you love to do and what you love about them. Talk to a coach to get your fears and blocks out of the way and discover what your deep passions are. Not only might you find new ways to make more money than you ever imagined, but you could find the thing or things that have been missing in your life that can really light you up, which I guarantee will have you experiencing your art in a whole new way, a way that brings your more joy, peace, confidence, abundance, and cash, than you ever thought possible.