I found this quote and heard Dr. Dyer tell his personal stories on PBS years after I’d already fulfilled one of my passions—creating and self-publishing an instrumental music album. I discussed the entire creative process below in a personal story. After the CD, I published a fiction and am working on several books at the moment. Writing, for me is passion and a career that I’m building. Music publishing was totally a passionate affair.
What is your passion?
I believe everyone has a passion and sometimes people don’t know what it is. Life happens and we get buried in obligations and that special dream and passion remains dormant until it’s too late. A lot of people expressed their regrets in the deathbed of not following their passions. “If only I had the time.”
I remember after I’d published my music album years ago, my elder brother expressed his desire to learn film-making. Although his career had taken most of his time, I believed that if he wanted to he could’ve made time to take a class or two and then venture out on making film-shorts for a start. I told him, “Make a decision and go take a class.” Needless to say, fourteen years have gone by, but he hadn’t tried. I’m not sure if this is his greatest passion. Probably not.
Well, whatever is yours, I hope that you’d pursue it before it’s too late.
My story…..
In the year 2001-2002, I was gainfully employed in Silicon Valley, California as a technical writer for a startup company. I was earning well over six-figure as in those days, a lot of people did. Even with that kind of money, I couldn’t find a decent place to live in the Bay Area. Apartment buildings were over-crowded and I didn’t want to pay that much money and not have my peace and quiet. So before I took my last contract there, I asked the manager if he would allow two days of telecommuting, so I could get a nice place out of town. He granted me working from home two days a week and commuting to the office every other day. Roundtrip from Pebble Beach to Mountain View was about 164 miles. I didn’t have to leave home until 9 a.m. Scenic drive all the way through and hardly any traffic. Life was sweet, for a little while.
I called around and found a private apartment in Pebble Beach on the back of a home. It was located on the top of the garage and the apartment had large windows all around. The house had a lovely garden. My landlord, a Russian guy and his wife were successful sales people for BMW and Pebble Beach Golf Company respectively, and they had a teenage daughter. All the homes around me were hardly occupied. Some of them were holiday homes of rich people living elsewhere. You can imagine the quietness I finally got. At night, all I could hear was the sound of the ocean. Living among millionaires, I felt like one.
Everything was going well, then life took a U-turn and the computer industry collapsed. My company didn’t renew my contract and was running out of venture capital money. No one else was hiring. There was a possibility of a permanent position with Intel, but they went into hiring freeze one week before they’re going to make me an offer.
When your luck runs out, it really does! I remained unemployed for two years until I moved out of the area.
I went from six-figure a year to zero dollar/year, but in the beginning of my unemployed status, I wasn’t all that concerned as I had savings and I figured, a job in a few months would materialize. When it didn’t, I started applying for jobs out of state to no avail. Then I decided to take road trips and attended a few concerts and it hit me—why not publish an album and sell on Amazon and CD Baby and places alike?
The desire started to take over me and I found myself visiting music stores for a possible multi-track digital recorder. I’d speak to the men working there and was learning a lot about various aspects of recording, mixing, and related things. I also needed a decent keyboard synthesizer. I ended up spending about $3000 dollars on my passion before doing any recording yet. Many people would think I was crazy. At that time, I basically wanted to take my mind off worries regarding my job and the future and find a way to let go. Music happened to be my way.
I decided on doing instrumental rendition on a famous musician’s songs for which I needed to get permission. First I selected the songs, then looked for the music publishers of those songs and sent out applications. It took maybe 2-3 weeks. In the meantime, I’d been learning the recording machine and getting to know my keyboard synthesizer.
Up until then, everything I was doing, was new to me. I had an idea about multi-track recording and getting permission to do cover on other people’s music, etc., was all new to me. I knew nothing about arrangements and mixing. So, I taught myself everything along the way.
I worked relentlessly from ten in the morning till two in the morning each day. I left home and went to the next town once a week to get food and check my mailbox. Once a day, I did go out brisk walking by the ocean for an hour to stay fit and be inspired by the beauty of the place.
It was resort living—ocean and golf courses, serene and tranquil.
While doing music of another musician, I ended up composing a couple of tunes of my own and I decided to add them to the album as well. Three months later, I was ready to take my mixed tracks to a professional place for mastering and printing with a professional cover, barcode, etc. When I held my finished CD in my hand, I can’t describe how I felt. That great sense of accomplishment can only come from going crazy on one’s passion.
Did I make money on it? Not really. Fans of that musician bought some initially and gave me nice reviews, my friends bought some, and till today, it sells online every now and then. I had shared copies with a couple of previous band members of that musician and they were astonished at my doing all the work. I still don’t know how I did it and where the inspirations came from and why I never got inspired to do anything like this again?
I mean, I write and am publishing books now, but I don’t work obsessively like I did for that album. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could write like mad for hours every day? J I never worked like that on anything. But you know, it doesn’t matter. I am grateful for those moments of inspirations that still bring me joy after all these years especially when I fall short of joy.
Whatever music is playing in you, bring it out before the daylight escapes you.
If you enjoyed this article, would you mind sharing it and subscribing to my blog?
Thanks for reading.