How I Got Here...
From being a singer and voice teacher to entrepreneur and business coach.
It’s always a challenge to summarize the entirety of your life or career in a single post, but everyone usually wants to know the background story before they are interested in further content. I also often tell my clients who worry about oversharing that the more they can know about you, the more they can pay you—within reason, of course. Building a high level of trust is paramount in this day and age of artificial intelligence and more.
So let me start by mentioning that I grew up watching my father grow as a professor throughout his final 20 years on this earth. After nearly two decades of climbing from the low blue-collar ranks to near the top of the white-collar ranks of Ford Motor Co.’s Global Security division, he left to pursue his love for college teaching. I was fortunate to have witnessed him regularly inspire students to realize possibilities they had never before imagined. It planted a seed in me to want to likewise someday make such differences in my own students' lives. Though he taught criminal justice and security administration, he had always told me I could succeed in anything.
Long story short, my childhood was very musical and theatrical, and my high school years prepared me to want to major in vocal music. Part of me wanted to not only avoid regurgitating my father’s teaching but I was also motivated to pursue a field where I wasn’t 100% sure I’d actually become good enough to “make it” as a singer. I had teachers, directors and peers who told me or insinuated to me I wouldn't be good enough to sing opera, let alone major in performance. And then in college, I only became even more motivated to prove even more figures wrong when they told me I'd never be good enough to have any kind of a professional singing or teaching career. This motivated me to continue my journey and ultimately earn my Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance, with the aspiration to challenge the toxic culture within the academic and music industry that unnecessarily purges way too much of the world's talent.
Growing up, the expectation was that obtaining a doctorate in any field would secure a tenure-track job and set me for life. My father was one of the fortunate few who secured a tenure-track position in the city he lived—and some people in my life still believe I can simply present my doctoral diploma at any nearby college and get hired! I spent years feeling like a total failure for not immediately landing a tenure-track appointment after finishing my Doctorate. After my father passed away, I inherited just enough to where I thought I could afford to be a “starving artist” and take on singing and teaching gigs, including as an adjunct professor, which never paid enough. It was enough to know that only teaching collegiately, as well as only teaching traditional voice lessons, wasn’t the real career dream I thought I wanted.
The essence of my decision to let go of my traditional teaching career expectations can best be explained by quoting the late Wayne Dyer, who talked about his decision to leave his "guaranteed tenure for life" job at St. John's University in 1976. In an interview with Tony Robbins, Dyer said, "...I resigned from something I no longer wanted to do, despite being good at it. It had become monotonous, like a repetitive drill. You know, after you've drilled enough, it's just enough. Drill is drill, and you don't need to keep doing it. I learned that in the military... So, as I drove home on the Long Island Expressway that day, I felt like the freest man I'd ever been. I knew I was about to follow my bliss." He added, "I didn't have any guarantee of income or anything... In the following year and a half, I made more money than I had in the previous 35 years of my life, by a factor of ten."
I often say that if you're qualified to be a professor, you're qualified to earn a comfortable living by teaching, mentoring, or leveraging your knowledge and skills outside of the academy. The surge in home-schooling and the online course industry means there are many options to generate income from teaching outside the traditional spaces—like this Substack! But after I finished my last adjunct job, I focused on expanding my private vocal studio on the north side of Chicago. Those of us in the arts have an advantage over other fields, as there's a significant portion of the population already willing to invest in music lessons and related services. Replacing and exceeding the income from a college teaching position or any other “day job” is not difficult, but the self-employed route comes with its challenges. In my case, one challenge was trying to serve former college students who were broke or not accustomed to incurring the cost all by themselves without their parents or financial aid. So I stumbled initially by not clearly identifying the best students for my situation and teaching context, and I grappled with insecurities about what to charge and feeling guilty about asking for payments. If only I had known I should have hired a business coach back then!
Similar to Dyer, I also realized that I had "drilled enough" when it came to teaching vocal technique and repertoire. The personal development aspect is what really drew me to the line of work, and so I began shifting my private teaching to include career development support and related services. I wanted to help my former students who had graduated and felt lost in life. However, I soon grew weary of helping them find jobs they didn't want., and so I wanted to pivot towards assisting them in creating jobs they did want as entrepreneurs. This marked the transition from voice teaching to business coaching. Yet, I still faced the challenge of primarily trying to serve too many who couldn't afford to pay enough to where I would have a sustainable business. Combined with significant stock market losses in 2018, this led me down a precarious financial path. Failing in my entrepreneurial journey led to some serious introspection and a need for further study on business and money mindset.
One of my most significant lessons learned is that most money problems are often asking-for-the-money problems. Like most people, I didn't have a serious spending problem as much as I had a serious earning problem. Every earning problem could have been at least partially solved by overcoming the fear of simply asking for more money or asking for more help to get more. I could have negotiated for more per semester if I simply asked, and more of my private students would have been willing to pay closer to the $100+/lesson my resume justified if I had asked without making assumptions about their financial status. I could have avoided bankruptcy and more if I had been unafraid to advocate for myself and my work and ask for more help from others. I learned the hard way that true financial freedom isn't having a magical pile of money saved up; it could disappear or become worthless without notice. The only real financial freedom we can depend on is realizing our innate ability to be of value to others through service whenever we need to generate income or an equivalent.
So today, it's like I am fulfilling my original voice teaching dreams in a broader and equally exciting—and maybe even more daring—capacity by helping clients learn to actually earn more by growing their inner voices—as well as outer voices—as entrepreneurs. Part of that process is first getting clear on who you’re serving and why and understanding the true value proposition so you can ask with faith and confidence. Much of my work involves helping people overcome the martyrdom types of mindsets prevalent in the academy and artistic industries. Far too prevalent is this deep-seeded fear of your career being “over” because you’ll be considered “difficult to work with” if you dare to even ask for what you need just to survive! There is really no defense for a system that may not even pay enough to cover basic expenses, let alone qualify for a modest home mortgage. The only way to fight back is to understand the value we bring and be prepared to walk away whenever it's not being recognized. A significant part of the entrepreneurial growth journey involves moving beyond people in our lives who are stuck in an echo chamber and are more inclined to validate the current circumstances than to seek change.
I often remind my ex-academic clients that if they have the tenacity to navigate the challenges of earning their degrees, appointments, and promotions, they can apply that same tenacity to overcome the challenges of being an entrepreneur. Likewise for other artists jumping through the erratic hoops you have to jump through just to have a modest performing career. Just as every search committee, HR office, or audition panel says "No" more than "Yes," every business gets told "No" more than "Yes." We must train ourselves not to take it personally and remember that there are people who still need what we have to offer. When we focus on doing the work we are most meant to do for the people we are most meant to serve, abundance can continue to generate more abundance in all aspects of life and work. My mission is to help as many people as possible position themselves, their skill sets, and their mindset to realize their infinite potential.
Let me conclude this initial post with these questions I often ask people who are worried about going after creating their dreams: If money and pleasing others were not concerns, what would you really, REALLY WANT to do with your life or career? What purpose in this life would you want to fulfill? The opportunities to realize your dreams are likely more significant than what most others may lead you to believe. But if you can have the ability to desire it, you can have the ability to make it happen. Dare to dream big and go after the dreams you most desire.
