against slowly forgetting yourself...
Have I Become a Lame?
a square?
would my younger self look at me today and say “what happened?… you used to be cool… you used to have dreams and this intense passion to explore all your creative ideas and projects…”
but now… it seems like all you care about is making money and staying ahead of the “AI DOOM curve”…
The Night I Realized I’d Traded My Identity for a Revenue Target
it was 3:22am… it was one of those nights where i woke up at 1:40am and I was sleepless, looking up at the ceiling, thinking about how long it had been since i opened up Ableton Live to finish one of the many songs i had sitting on my hard drive collecting dust…
I had gotten so lost in this pursuit of money trying to build and scale my newly formed agency that nothing else mattered… and in that process i lost a big part of myself.
My entire identity up until i was 28 years old was being the “music producer guy”… or more precisely that ‘80s Synth-wave Dude.”
Although i was making a decent income already (NETting around $65k/year in a country where the average salary is $7k/year) i still felt like i wasn’t making enough… like i should be making more. After that COVID spectacle, I spent too much time consuming content on geo-politics, economics, and entrepreneurship — and i became susceptible to this DOOMER mentality that the world was ending soon and the window of opportunity to get rich was closing in on us.
It was at this point in 2022 that I decided to explore a new industry to pivot into. I saw Creator & Talent Management as something i could do… it was a perfect storm of all this red-pill content peaking in 2021–2022, convincing me i had what it takes — and so i decided fuck it… let’s go into that…
Well… long story short. I found some success. i am talking about my income jumping from sub-$70k/year to, in my first year, NETting more than double that — and the year after, double again.
It was insane… i had never experienced this kind of money before. I didn’t think this kind of money was even possible… but… i kept comparing myself to other big players in this space… the guys that were making $500k and $1M/month… they were in a whole different league and i kept thinking to myself… why was I so far behind?… wtf was I doing wrong?… not taking in and reflecting on how far i’ve already come from my early humble beginnings of entrepreneurship — charging $25 CAD/hr (really only NETting half of that due to studio rental fees) and doing mixes and masters for $100 CAD for my artists… to now… literally being at a point where if i only made $1k NET in the day, that was considered a shit day and i would begin to panic a bit and wonder wtf was wrong with the business?…
And so, as the old adage goes, “comparison is the thief of joy”… and i too got lost in this endless hustle culture that truly leads nowhere…
It had been over 2 years since i last opened up Ableton Live…
why?
GUILT.
It felt IRRESPONSIBLE to open Ableton Live and indulge in one of my “passions” and “joys” in life. Yes, i’m talking about my childhood “hobby” turned “business.” The one that financially backed this new enterprise, which was now responsible for the livelihood of 5 other full-time employees. I could never enjoy a moment to myself again since i always felt this pressure to be continuously looking for new tactics, strategies or any information that could take my business to the next level of hitting $100k months and eventually $1M months… even when i DID have free time in the afternoon… this insane guilt that i wasn’t doing enough would overwhelm me and i would stop what i was doing and go back to consuming some Alex Hormozi or Global Economics video to “stay on top of things” and to “always be ready” and “prepared for the worst to come”…
Year after year i felt myself forgetting who I was and finding life to be quite dull and bland…
How Steven Pressfield’s Two Books Snapped Me Out of It
I was about to turn 30 years old and i can only describe this as being some weird mid-life crisis while i was on a little vacation in Santa Marta, Colombia…
something felt off…
i kept thinking to myself… is this it?
Is my life simply going to be “pursue more money?”
when is enough considered enough?
truthfully… i reached a point where i wasn’t motivated by making any more money…
NETting over $300k in a year in a country like Colombia basically makes you a millionaire… i was already eating at all the finest restaurants and staying at the best hotels and Airbnbs… and it all felt meaningless…
the WOW factor and the dopamine wore off quicker than i thought it would…
How much better could my life be if i was making $500k NET?… or a million? would i even give a fuck?
There was a lot of talk about “Have-Nots & Have Yachts” in 2023… but i don’t want a yacht… or a Lambo really…
i don’t really even want that big of a house… too much of a liability, it’s costly to maintain and it makes you a TARGET… All i ever wanted was ultimate freedom… and in my mind… and from a spectator looking in… i already got it…
…so what the fuck was i stressing out for?
i’m not sure who or what YouTube channel led me to Steven Pressfield’s work — The War of Art and Turning Pro…
I was bored and my mind was in a receptive state looking for answers to this meaning crisis i was experiencing. These books didn’t look like long books so i thought fuck it. Let’s read these and see what they are about… and something in these books deeply spoke to me and resonated with me.
This idea of RESISTANCE was what was stopping me from opening Ableton Live every day.
RESISTANCE is that voice in my head telling me i am being an irresponsible CEO and leader if i continue to pursue my art.
This book made me realize i wasn’t alone in this. There were many others like me who felt life calling them to abandon all their joys and stay in “survival” mode…
I realized… i couldn’t go on living the rest of my life like this… and so…
i decided…
It was time to reclaim MY TIME.
Pressfield writes that professionals have a dedicated time and place for their work — and so for me… i knew… the only time i could create without disruption was early in the morning. I already had a pretty sweet music studio setup just waiting for me to get back at it.
I knew that any time between 8am and 8pm it would always be some kind of fire i needed to put out, some problem to solve for my team… and so…
I started waking up early as fuck…
i’m talking 4am — sometimes as early as 3:30am — out of sheer excitement to create.
I gave myself a 2-hour time limit and after that i was not allowed to go back and open Ableton for the rest of the day…
these were my rules… and what i knew i could realistically sustain.
and what were the results?
Two Years In — What Actually Changed
2 years into this 2-hour creative morning routine and i can honestly say… i’m still going strong.
I did multiple BEATS EVERY DAY CHALLENGES where i went 132 days straight making a new beat and posting a behind-the-scenes on social media. I also find myself with added joy and a bounce to my step whenever i start the day off creating something beautiful that i am proud of.
I’m also more present for my team — since i already CREATED something that day, i could just focus on the work in front of me that needed to be done for my business, and not have that “guilt” slowly creep in as the days would go by without creating anything new.
I also stopped consuming YouTube.
This was definitely the hardest thing to let go of.
I found this to be my only vice and i justified it for so many years because i thought it was a far higher quality platform compared to brain-rot content on TikTok or IG.
Since uninstalling it, my clarity has returned.
i’m no longer “fearful” of the future.
I still remember everyone shitting their pants in late 2022, early 2023 when ChatGPT was made public and everyone was saying my industry — as well as many others — would be obsolete by now… and i only see the opposite happening.
I understand now that these AI DOOMERS have a financial vested interest to continue posting this fearful content.
Since abandoning old vices and waking up a little earlier… as it turns out… I always had the time…
i just didn’t allocate it correctly and made excuses that it would be irresponsible of me to continue my artistic pursuits, passions, and expressions.
Since “Turning Pro,” my 2-hour creative time block has evolved beyond just making music — into now studying philosophy and even writing these Substack articles.
I never would have imagined calling myself a “writer” and i still would not consider myself a writer in the traditional sense. But here we are.
The muse was calling me for years and i ignored her.
This abandonment of my creative pursuits was eating away at my soul… i was becoming a shell of who i once was…
I wasn’t present for my team or even my loved ones.
I was in constant dread, living in my head, dwelling on the past and being nihilistic about the future.
Give Yourself Back Your Hours
4am works for me.
It might not work for you.
You might thrive around 11pm or 1am when the world is fast asleep.
the point is.
make an intentional effort to give YOURSELF time to revisit old projects, hobbies, interests… your true authentic self…
don’t get lost in the pursuit of money like i did…
forgetting to nourish your spirit while in the pursuit of wealth will make your soul POOR.
every year that goes by, you believe your time will “eventually” free up, but it never does — and it only gets scarcer as your obligations increase…
and uninstall apps like YouTube that are disguised as productivity — that instead take up not just your precious limited time, but BANDWIDTH in your mind that could be better used to CREATE and bring BEAUTY back into the world.
BRB…going back to make some art.