For a long time I struggled with walking a complicated path between my identity and practice as a musician, and my identity as a person working a "day job" - that necessary evil of employment that I sustained to pay my bills. I felt I was bouncing between the two extremes: the musician in me was creating things, playing songs, working on my art and honing my craft in honor of my muse, the music. I felt that my success in business was a fluke, that somehow I kept re-inventing myself in ways that would keep the regular paycheck coming in to support my family, my mortgage, and all the other thing we accrue through time, like life insurance, cars, and retirement accounts. I thought having a business career was a sacrifice because I never felt that the music and the day job could exist together in one body. I often felt like a person outside of myself while working from both sides of my brain, the creative and the critical/analytical. Many days I went from my office directly to a gig.
My creative side frequently butted in to my business career. I worked on a software application by designing a user interface. I taught a business class that focused on design and user experience. I resuscitated a rock band at work that featured employees at the R&D campus of my company. The band was featured at town-hall meetings, at conventions, and on one occasion, was flown across the country to host a party thrown in honor of a company's sale to my company.
The interesting thing was, that as time passed, we attracted many other employees who were also fantastic musicians. It became enough of a practice that I began to ask myself why so many of the company people were pretty great musicians. What about them was the common denominator between their musical practice and their thriving technical careers in software? Did they have any special talents? Were they lucky? Unlucky? How could they achieve the level of success they had in their careers, and at the same time, obvious mastery of their musical instrument? When I began to reconcile those questions, I discovered that there was quite a lot to digest; so much that I started writing down my ideas and my findings. Answers led to more questions and eventually, to my book project called "Plays Well with Others." The book documents things I learned from music that are applicable to any other art, and any business.
These posts live outside the maturing book. They are long-winded, short, direct, roundabout, philosophical, opiniated, somewhat educated, biographical, and frequently messy answers to those questions. I'll write thoughts and ideas about my relationships with music and business, my family, my friends, and my chosen instrument.
I hope you will enjoy the journey as much as I do.