Well, maybe they did tell me, but I wasn’t hearing them.
Maybe they did, and I just wasn’t willing to agree that they had a valid point, or opinion, because I was young and woke and knew absolutely everything and they didn’t.
But the truth is, the only way you’ll ever be happy, and succeed beyond your wildest dreams, is to be 100% natural unspoiled pure as hell you. The “OG” you, the original operating system that accepts upgrades only to make sure that your pure voice gets louder, not to make it a more commercially acceptable, or politically correct, or tribally cool…you.
Consider this; Musical instruments – every single one ever made – are as stupid as a box of hammers. Every instrument in history relies on the player to produce a sound through it that the listener finds pleasant.
The listener then supports the player, attends concerts and buys what the player creates using that instrument to give sound to their voice, and the making of their music.
Emphasis on their music.
The instruments are silent, soulless assemblies of wood and metal, that sit waiting for someone to create magic through them.
Music that’s based on life, given sound, and pitch, telling stories of pain and joy and suffering and loss and victory and tears and hugs and life and death and hope and sorrow.
All this through countless hours of practice, learning rhythm and cadence, color, and tone, and where to pause for silence and when to howl for elation or grief.
How to tell your story with soul and honesty.
The way nobody else ever lived it or could ever sing it.
That’s why they come to listen. For the purity and expression of your “real”.
This isn’t just for music or art, it’s for everything.
And anything.
And a computer, a mouse and Adobe software are the same.
Dumb as a box of hammers.
If you can sit down at the interview table as your one true self, knowing all the chords of your instrument, having done the hours of work that grant you the legit entry, with shaking hands and stiff fingers callused from endless hours of practice.
Then add to that the passion and soul your unspoiled voice.
The voice that you’ve seasoned with failure, and wonder, and play, and the endless possibilities that exist in the endless opportunities that all begin with “no, no seriously shut the fuck up, wait, wait what if we do it this way…?”
Then.
THEN.
You’re unstoppable.
There’s no more time for ordinary, or common, or just OK.
The only thing left standing is you.
And then it gets harder.
Because when it’s only you, the naked, vulnerable, what the hell am I doing here...you.
That’s when you must believe.
That’s the hard part…
Realizing that the most groundbreaking things are the simplest. The things that are right there in front of us, the connections that we disregard because they look way too easy.
Easy. We figure if we can see these things everyone else can…right?
But they can’t.
And that’s what makes it hard. Believing that we have something unique and valuable for the benefit of the world. We can’t see it because we don’t value ourselves.
Simple is so, so hard.
But it’s easy if we believe.
That the effortless creations in the moment are the purest.
They are the most beautiful and timeless.
And then, and this is even harder; we need the wisdom to leave it alone.
To not change a thing. To believe that it’s just as it should be.
Don’t try to justify the solution by the hours of labor and gallons of tears to create it, but to look at the solution for what it is.
In that moment and that moment only.
And then to create this way purely, loudly, and often.
That’s what innovation needs to make its appearance.
And when it arrives, and believe me, it will, to honor its journey by not critiquing it until it’s fully formed, and you can see it.
If it’s wonderful then let it be, and if it’s not, then know that its purpose is to make way for something extraordinary that will be coming along right behind it.
Believe that because it’s 100% true.
Whatever you choose to do for a living, learn to play the instrument your way.
Then, people will find you.
Your people.
And they’re all you’ll ever need.
