Doing Too Much, Caring About Too Many People - How I Went From Humble to CEO
Taking a look back on everything since 2014, what has been on my shoulders?
In 2014, I prayed & cried to God for 45 minutes and expressed how passionate I was about helping others. In that prayer, I shared with God that I didn’t know how I could help people, or who I could help, I just knew that I had a dying passion in my heart to pour myself into others.
Less than a year later, God blessed me with an opportunity to fly to New York City to visit a music school… during this visit, I started to think of all of the things right & wrong with music education and made a promise (on video) that, “when I got back to LA, I would show music creatives how to be proper professionals in the music industry…” I spent the rest of my New York trip, which was about 2 additional weeks, sitting in a hotel, dreaming, fantasizing, drawing up ideas & plans on how I could start doing ‘small’ music workshops in LA, introducing aspiring music professionals to what it really takes to be successful in today’s music industry.
This wasn’t an idea to make money. I didn’t do this for notoriety. I did it because I wanted to help. I did it because I felt there was a dire need for it. I wanted to pour my ideas and passion for helping into people. I took this as, “God is showing me where and how I can help”, since this is what I asked him for back in 2014. I took this as a mission, a duty to provide a wholesome service to complete strangers.
My steps moving forward from this point were purely heart-driven and have been up until today, 8 years later.
So, let’s go back to the initial question:
Taking a look back on everything since 2014, what has been on my shoulders?
I requested something from God, he gave it to me, now I have to move forward as a serviceman.
I had to turn my passion into ideas, ideas into a physical concept, a concept into a product, create organizational structure behind this product, define who could benefit from this product, create the actual product, test the product with a particular audience, use the feedback from this audience then make the product live, set dates, create an environment for consumers of this product that provided results, and success, then repeat, scale and expand.
I had to learn how to share my ideas, vision and plan with people I trusted and respected.
I had to consult with my peers and use their feedback, both positive and negative to create sureties within myself.
I needed to gain more confidence.
I needed money.
In 2015, I applied to over 80 jobs and came up empty. I applied to a temp agency and they told me they would call me if something came up. In the meantime, I applied to other A level, B level & C level jobs, with C level jobs paying minimum wage and being the only companies who actually offered me opportunities being that I had spent my entire career in the music industry as a producer, with no current relevant experience to any of the jobs I was applying to. Albertsons called me and offered me a position as a Bagger, starting at $9.75. My pride was like “Hell no”, but I swallowed that pride and quickly accepted the position.
I bagged groceries. Retrieved grocery carts from the parking lot, swept store aisles and cleaned the store bathrooms once/twice a day.
I worked there for 10 days and they fired me, because I questioned a manager for training us to do one thing, and watching them practice another… I was confused, like what was the point in all of this, literally crying because now I’m back at square one, with no money… that’s when the temp agency called me 2 days later with a 60-day Internship at corporate relocation company in Huntington Beach. I quickly accepted, even though one of the requirements was having a car, and I didn’t at the time, but agreed to catch the Bus and never be late. I bought a mountain bike on Craigslist for $150 and rode 5.5 miles to work (one way) every day. I lost 20 lbs riding 11 miles to work and back everyday to this job, and looked at it as a blessing because I was in the best shape of my life.
As I approached the 60-day mark of this Internship, my worries started to re-visit me because this company only offered positions to 5% of their Interns… they offered me a full-time position with a starting salary of $58,000, and of course I accepted. Now I had the financial resources to pour into my ideas, vision and plans to “help others” in music. My plan was to use all of my money to start my music workshops, and I did, to a fault… this new job was HARD and demanded every minute of my time, and did not really allow for extra-curricular activities, especially in the first 6 months. They flew me to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a 7 day corporate training, all expenses paid, and what did I do? I used the trip as an opportunity to schedule Music Focus Groups at all of the local Universities in Pittsburgh through Facebook events months prior to going to Pittsburgh.
While all of the other employees who were also flown out to Pittsburgh for training were getting together after training to meet at bars and talk about the job, family and kids, I was taking Ubers to PITT & Duquesne University for Focus Groups I scheduled in their libraries, despite having no idea where the campuses were lol. 3 people showed up… I walked through the campuses and universities interviewing random students, asking them about their thoughts on college, chasing your passion, dropping out of school, dreams, etc, just to make sure I didn’t waste my time there. (I still have all of this footage and have never shared it. One day I will, especially after writing all of this.)
Here I am, in 8-hour corporate training classes, for one of the biggest corporate relocation companies in the world, in Pittsburgh for the first time, drawing up plans for music classes in the notebooks provided for writing notes about our corporate protocol & processes. I’m pretty sure you guys can all tell that I didn’t last long at this job.
I worked the internship from May - July of 2016, accepted the full time position and was officially hired in August of 2016, flew to Pittsburgh in September 2016, and was fired on December 12th/13th of 2016, because my mind was not there at all. I had already completed 2 of my music workshops by this time (September 2016 and November 12th 2016). I was printing copies and music workshop flyers on my jobs corporate printers. One day, they asked me why I printed 120 copies, and of what… smh. I was printing flyers to pass out in LA at all of the local music schools to promote my upcoming music workshops.
They gave me a $4,800 severance check 1 week before Christmas… I told myself that I was going to put the entire check into my new company, Monster Sessions and schedule classes in January, February & April of 2017. If the classes worked, I’d keep going, if they didn’t, I would find another job.
They worked. No one showed up to the January class though, so I moved it to February. 5 students came to the February class, with 2 students saying “this was the best music class I’ve ever been to in my life” and providing me with the ultimate confidence to schedule an even larger class for April 2017.
This April 2017 class shattered all plans and projections with 21 students paying for the class and 16 of them flying/driving to LA to attend. Monster Sessions became an official company by August 2017.
Now I am a “CEO” by default, but I still have the mind of a humble servant of God that just wants to help music creatives.
Now all classes are full, an hour after posting them online. Now it’s real… really real.
I don’t have any income coming in, and I’m not business minded or money driven… but it had to be God, because now I have people offering me hundreds of thousands of dollars to do classes away from Monster Sessions, I have people offering me hundreds of thousands of dollars to expand Monster Sessions, to the point where I stopped doing Monster Sessions classes by the end of 2017.
In September of 2017, a German company paid me $185,000 to stop doing Monster Sessions classes, and to start filming virtual classes for a new dead project called “The Elite Producer”, or something like that. This was a disaster and was not worth any of the money they paid me. All momentum I had built up for Monster Sessions over a year had been halted and never rolled the same, ever. But these type of money opportunities did not stop coming, I just refused to accept any after The Elite Producer.
I now have a large core of loyal students and subscribers who believed in Monster Sessions, aspiring music professionals from all over the world, that I catered to on my hands & knees. I cared about them because I felt they cared about me.
I stopped publicly promoting Monster Sessions and just offered classes to our internal group of students who had already been to workshops and classes. Remember, my vision was small to begin with, so I shifted to helping this small group, instead of expanding, because the unknown was scary.
But Idk. I’m thinking that it was how accessible I was to my students, how much opportunity I provided them for free or for barely any money, how much advice I lended them all, how much I empowered everyone, I started to feel taken advantage of, unappreciated, walked over and stepped on, by the same people I gave my life towards helping. Because of this, I kept coming up with ways to give more, thinking this would make people finally appreciate me. I’d draw up clearer roadmaps for students to reach their ‘goals’ as subscribers to my services, because it didn’t seem like they really understood what it took, even after attending multiple classes… but it all just got worse.
Once again, “taking a look back on everything since 2014, what has been on my shoulders?”
I am now a teacher.
I provide REAL placement opportunities, but none of the students (with the exception of maybe 2-3, out of hundreds) have the talent or ability to secure them, but people are judging the legitimacy of the company and service on how many placements I secure, not the current state, or lack of talent in the music community and pool of music creatives subscribing to services like mine, that actually deserve REAL opportunities, or my help, advice or time.
… but I committed to this, so I have to do what I asked God for back in 2014.
Now I need help. I need to build a team. Now I’m creating Internship programs with local high schools and universities (USC, UCLA, LMU, LBSU, UCI, etc), while allowing current Monster Sessions students to fly to LA to work for me. Now I have a different responsibility. I have to make sure people who are flying in to help me, are good mentally, physically, financially…
I’m helping students with everything but music, their resumes, with moving to LA, finding apartments, jobs, family counseling, talking them out of depression, out of suicide, offering financial advice, helping them to learn which music gear they should invest in, all while helping them to be music professionals as students of Monster Sessions.
I am fielding partnership opportunities with corporate music companies: AVID, Arturia, Native Instruments, Focusrite, Waves Audio, Ableton and others. I am now friends with Presidents of these companies and music products I used as a kid, because they believe in Monster Sessions, like what??!
I am responsible for all Marketing efforts. Web design. Flyers. Promo. If we set a date for a music class, all seats need to be filled. How, with no marketing budget? Photoshoots, camera equipment, camera angles, picture & video editing… now I need Photoshop & Final Cut, AND I need to learn how to use them, while I’m on 1-2 hour personal phone calls with music students from around the world.
Students in other countries can talk at 3pm their time, which is 4am my time, so I have to schedule Skype calls to teach them how to effectively sell beats online, only for them to totally not listening to anything I said during our 1.5 hour free call, them not see any results, as I predicted, now their depressed and want me to give them advice on how not to take their own life…
Now I have a migraine because I’m thinking about a producer in Switzerland, hoping he doesn’t die because he told me he wanted to.
Taking a look back on everything since 2014, what has been on my shoulders?
Now it’s 2019, and I’ve totally forgotten about, ME. I’m sick. I’m in the hospital twice a month because, I’m overwhelmed but can never show it because, I need to be there for them… the people I asked God to allow me to help back in 2014. I can’t complain because I asked for this.
I made a commitment to “die over this” if I needed to, and I was planning that… I felt like, my honor, integrity and commitment to my prayers is what would carry my “legacy” if I were to drive myself into a grave… but I’m now realizing, that is not at all how any of this works.
Let’s just totally skip 2019, COVID, post-COVID…
Today, September 22, 2022:
Taking a look back on everything since 2014, what should be on my shoulders going forward?
Exploring and discovering what “I” actually want for myself.
My health.
My happiness.
Still honoring my commitment to God, but with all that I’ve endured and experienced, learning how to honor my commitment as a true CEO and Director of a successful company, without the void of feeling like I need to give myself as a sacrifice for the betterment of complete strangers who don’t give a flying frick about ME.
Learning how to be human, and not feeling like I need to be a selfless robot to make God proud.
Learning how to be selfish.
Saying “NO”.
Caring less about what people think.
Finding and walking in the confidence I keep trying to bury.
Embracing my different.
Setting a price for myself and making people pay above and beyond that.
As incomplete as this blog may be, I feel a lot better for not stopping halfway through and publishing 70% of how I feel about the answer to this self-provoked question, “Taking a look back on everything since 2014, what has been on my shoulders?”
Thank you, God, for everything.
I know I will live for many years healthy and well, and I look forward to the next steps that you place in front of me.
Monster Sessions is still the future, and I look forward to it helping THOUSANDS of music creatives who need it, but don’t realize it yet. I also look forward to working with future business partners and creatives.