Author Archives: hellomynameisscott

Happiness only real when shared

When we find something that has existential resonance for us, the essential next step is sharing that discovery with another person.

It makes it more real.

Otherwise we’re just living inside our own heads, winking in the dark, playing basketball without a backboard.

I remember the first time I played music in the tunnel under the arch by my house. I came back home a changed man.

And I told everybody.

Because when you finally find the physical conditions that elicit your best work, you want to shout it from the rooftops.

How often are you sharing what really matters to you?

The byproduct of creating value

Raising your fee is moot point.

A more strategic approach is to wonder, what could I create, that would enhance my offering and diversify my identity and upgrade my context and grow my skillset and raise my credibility and strengthen my leverage, that would earn me the right to command a higher fee for my work?

That’s how value is created. You keep adding to the collection. You continually engage in new projects worth pointing to. You seek opportunities that make yourself more attractive, regardless of the outcome. And your fee changes as a natural byproduct.

If you want to get to the next level, you have to raise your game.

That’s why I made this movie.

If you were arrested and charged with creating value for people, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Make whatever you feel like you’re missing

Treat others as you’d want to be treated. Be the change you want to see in the world. Two sides of the same philosophical coin.

Interestingly, artists have their own version of these maxims. They create what they want to see in the world. The write the book they’d want to write. They make the movie they’d want to watch. They paint the murals they’d want to see.

I’m reminded of a podcast with the principal songwriter of a multiplatinum rock band. Fascinating origin story. Back in the late nineties, Mike finally got fed up of flipping through the radio dial and never hearing the hard, aggressive rap music he so badly craved.

And so, he started a band and created just that. He made exactly what he felt he was missing in the world. Because he knew that he wasn’t alone.

Sixty million albums later, his audience proved him right.

And so, if we’re not happy with the art we see around us, it’s our responsibility to try and do better. To let our work do the talking, not our words. Because the best way to complain is to make things. To invent the world we want to live in.

How could you leverage your frustration in the world as motivation to grow into the artist you’ve always wanted to be?

Your niche is you

Through our unique combination of capabilities and attitudes, we can become the go to guy. We can position our talents to create an entirely new product category.

Like my mentor used to say, the best way to beat the competition is to not have any. That the best way to bring home the bacon is to raise your own pigs.

Something my mentor also used to say, your niche is you. Because it is our work that creates the market, not the other way around. We are the ones signing the paychecks, not the ones waiting around to see if we’ll get one.

Yes, it takes confidence and courage and perseverance to open a boutique, but if we can do it successful, people won’t just buy from us, they’ll congratulate us for cracking the code and getting into the club.

How can you change the rules so you can win at your own game?

This is what you’ve waited for

Once is my favorite music.

The first time I saw it, it became responsible for kickstarting a creative transformation in my own life.

The story inspired me to finally publish my original music online. Which urged me to crawl out of music hibernation. Which compelled me to start performing in public again. Which gave me a platform to play weekly concerts in my neighborhood park. Which provided me with a source of power I did not have before. Which inspired me write music that was more muscular and soulful. Which inspired me to write, produce, direct and score in this documentary.

Which art inspires your art?