I’ve had a lot of wins, a lot of losses, and learned many painful lessons.

Being a creative can be difficult. Every day is an emotional roller coaster of thinking, I’m not good enough. Even to this day.

It’s been 35 years of obsession and determination. However, I’m in a better creative and career situation than I’ve ever been in my life.

I’ll tell you this: If I had known back then what I know now, I would have gotten here in a fraction of the time.

Years ago, I wanted to be a famous violinist…

I practiced hard in music school and quickly developed my violin skills, but then I hit two major hurdles.

The first was repetitive strain injuries in both arms that quickly made playing violin for more than a few minutes impossible. Thankfully, I found the Alexander Technique. It not only helped me permanently relieve my physical tension and pain, but made my technique effortless, my sound resonant, and my expression spine-tingling.

The second was that, upon graduating, I felt completely lost. Here I was, an aspiring professional musician, and I had no entrepreneurial skills, no structure to keep me accountable to my goals, and no more community to keep me company in the often lonely road of freelance.

I had hoped to consistently be a part of fun musical projects, to create soulful recordings, and develop a successful career – but none of that was happening.

So, I had to get serious about hitting some goals.

I tried recording albums, pursuing gigs and teaching students, and even tried creating a platform to help other musicians like me recover from their injuries. None of these ever got off the ground.

Mostly, this was because I had a terrible time “selling myself” and struggled with developing a clear vision to help my projects flourish.

For a long time, I felt defeated, but then I realized that the pain of not reaching my potential as a musician and teacher was greater than the pain of fully facing my issues.

The real change came when I discovered the idea of “Soulforce,” the transformative creative energy that comes from facing life’s challenges, whether creative or otherwise, from a place of wholeness, aliveness, and connection, rather than the separation, force, and control so common in our society (and even the arts world).

Soulforce helped me face my challenges – the physical tension and pain, self-doubt, performance anxiety, loneliness, lack of financial and career success – with greater confidence, ease, and inspiration. It made me so much more creative, productive, and free than ever before!

I’m not saying you’ll win awards, write ten symphonies, or make millions as an artist. It takes an obsessive person to achieve the biggest creative goals, and it also takes luck.

I wish I could tell you that what I’ve learned along the way – what I call the “inner secrets” of the arts –  came from a certain guru or lineage. For sure, I learned a lot from my teachers, the hundreds of books I’ve read, the dozens of courses I’ve taken, all the silent meditation retreats I’ve completed…

But most of what I’ve learned has come from the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve poured into achieving difficult creative goals from a place of personal well-being and inspiration. It’s been countless thousands of hours, lost nights of sleep, and dedication to my craft. I love this stuff!

So much so that I recently published an award-winning book on the subject in record time!