In 2010 I turned 42 years old and had to admit things just weren't working out. I closed my business (Leighton Audio) and moved to Los Angeles to be near friends that in my estimation are living the dream. I figured it would be not exactly easy but I knew the alternative was to remain unsatisfied with this life which is amazing but could be better. I had money issues, seemed to be going around in circles and getting nowhere and my debt just kept growing no matter how hard I tried to change it.
I was freaked out.
The move was interesting. Took me 2 years to move out of my cluttered house and shop into my first really nice place in Portland, 2 days to pack when I moved out of that apartment to Los Angeles. I at least knew something was working out for the better.
The first 4 months in Los Angeles I had no job. Well, I made my job my vision which is to be a good and successful composer and get paid to write songs. Something was seriously flawed with my thinking around money though. I'd wake up every day, flip out and think "oh fuck, I have no job, I need a job, debt debt debt debt!!!!" Fear had me in it's awful grip. For me a job meant $5 an hour, minimum wage circa 1987. $200 a week. I could not envision anything better. I knew something was terribly wrong with my thinking, this was not reality. I charged $65 an hour to clients who were happy to pay at my shop. And vision work may pay, but there isn't a weekly check.
So after my morning panic I'd sit in my kitchen, eat my 1 hour oats (steel cut yo!) and watch the hummingbird outside my window and say to hell with the job search, I'm writing music all day. I did the every day pretty much that summer, bought ProTools and started to learn it. By the end of that summer I started selling pieces of music, not much money, but an affirmation that someone is willing to buy this, they think it's good. My friends who are successful composers and producers say this is simply how it works. Show up for your vision every day and it starts to grow on its own.
Then I ran out of money.
I got a job at Lon Cohen Studio Rentals doing my backup plan work, soldering amps back together. It was a good job, great job actually. Lon has the greatest staff and the greatest Cartage and storage business in Los Angeles and he's a great guy to work for. Trouble is I didn't want to do this work anymore. I was dis-honest in getting this job. Maybe I was smart, job that pays or the street, I'll take the job that pays. I was smart but scared to death and when I'm scared I lie to myself. When I fall into fear I fall out of faith. And what one focuses on becomes reality (debt debt debt debt rather than abundance. Focus on abundance and debt has a way of not being an issue! I create what I trip out on! That stuff is true!). I stopped writing music daily and focused in a state of bitterness and defeat on making a living fixing Van Halens amps. For me, I do enough of that work and that is what comes to me, there is a reason I stopped.
So I was hiding once again in plain sight. My friend Dave asked me while we were sitting at the table together "What do you want Jef? Cause if you don't know what you want I can't help you!"
My answer? "Gasp, choke, um um, well...."
The truth? I knew exactly what I wanted! I was just too terrified to admit it for fear of looking stupid.
My life took a turn for the worse in Los Angeles, I lost my lovely apartment, had a nervous break and decided to leave. Truth be known, every time I got on the dreaded Los Angeles freeway I felt this sense of freedom and possibility. This voice would say "you belong in New York, now go!"
I was sad to leave LA, and really ashamed for not following through with my commitments to Lon and some other beautiful folks there. Lon said something to me that stuck though. Something about living life like a buoy in the ocean. That's how I felt. Couldn't have said it better. I needed direction. I needed to make a clear vision and make clear plans and have a clear purpose. I needed to live life on purpose. Any other way felt like an insult to god, a slow suicide.
I've noticed something. When I make a clear decision, announce it out loud, life opens up. Indecision is torture.
After I left LA I kicked around Portland for a couple weeks and my dad flew out to collect my sad sack self so we could drive across the country together. On the way back I said out loud "dad, I'm moving to New York in 6 months! If I'm still in your house you and mom have to kick me out, no exceptions!"
It was exactly 6 months later that I moved to the "impossible" city of my dreams. The doors simply opened up. I had that burning desire to come here backed up with un swaying faith that it will happen.
I'm living in my vision now. Great band, expanding opportunities, I can see that I will earn my living doing what I love. It is completely possible.
How did I do this? Well, I didn't really but I did craft my vision, the rest is fallout from sticking to it. How did I craft a vision?
It's not difficult or time consuming at all. It may take an "I can't take this anymore!" stretch like it did for me, hitting rock bottom and all that dramatic stuff, or you can start right now.
I think all of us have a vision, but like me were just afraid to admit it. What makes you blissful? Joyous?
It's as simple as sitting down, setting a timer for 5-10 minutes and perhaps stating at the top of the page "I'm so grateful now that...." and write for those 10 minutes anything that comes to mind. If it seems impossible or silly, write it down, do not let that reptile mind talk you out of it!. I wrote mine saying "If all goes perfectly according to plan in 4 years I....." What are you doing? Where do you live? How much money do you earn? Are you married? Kids? Ride bikes? Have a cat? A turtle? Where do you vacation? Get it all down.
Notice I said in mine "if all goes according to plan". I had no plan, had no concept of a plan. My friend Dave just said "Jef, you need a plan." So I decided to trust that a plan would unfold if I started my page like this. And, a plan is unfolding, one day at a time.
Feel resistance? Enlist a trusted positive friend. Shoot em' a text saying "hey for the next 10 minutes I'm doing this thing!" And time it, afterward shoot em' another text saying 'DONE!' This is a powerful tool for getting things done. I do this when I clean my room otherwise my reptile mind will say "for the rest of my goddamn life I have to clean this goddamn room!" and I won't do a thing. I shoot a text, set a timer for 45 minutes and I'm amazed at the results. Why enlist a trusted friend? Simply cause we need each other us humans. It's more fun!
Vision not perfect? Let go of perfectionism, right now. You will revise this piece of paper many times as your amazing life unfolds before you. And I need to share this LA story as well. It's about the diversity of vision.
When I lost my apartment I got to experience the kindness and love of people. Such a gift. One fellow, Michael Jacob Rochlin let me stay in his basement in his Echo Park writers retreat for a month. It was his office space. I had decided to leave by then but just needed to tie up loose ends with my job and my friends. We'd walk down the street and pick oranges in this old lady's yard, leave her some and make orange juice. We'd talk every day over breakfast. He asked me what my vision was. By this point I could answer more clearly, and maybe cause he wasn't intimidating to me like my other friend (my headtrip! Putting people above or below me!). I said stuff about touring Europe, earning my living through music composition, grants etc. I asked him and his simply was "for my stepson to come and see me play one gig. Yeah, that would make me happy."
Point is, every vision is completely valid. There is no room for "compare" in vision. It's yours, you own it. You deserve whatever you need for joy. Hearing him say that melted my heart.
(Photo of Michael by me, 2011 for whom this piece is dedicated to.)
So what next? Goals. If you have written down those things you want to do and enjoy, there are goals in that statement. I'll write about that next. For now write what you have written in the present tense, put it on a little piece of paper. Read it aloud in the morning and right before you go to bed. Carry it around with you, keep it alive. When you are at work and you are dis-satisfied, read it to yourself. Read it many times a day. Re-assemble that DNA, that sub atomic structure. Hear any doubt and say 'thank you for sharing but this is happening despite your opinion!'
You can do this. You deserve a life of love and happiness. Or like a hippy lady said to me: Scrap deserve! You NEED a life of love and happiness!
All love, JB
I was freaked out.
The move was interesting. Took me 2 years to move out of my cluttered house and shop into my first really nice place in Portland, 2 days to pack when I moved out of that apartment to Los Angeles. I at least knew something was working out for the better.
The first 4 months in Los Angeles I had no job. Well, I made my job my vision which is to be a good and successful composer and get paid to write songs. Something was seriously flawed with my thinking around money though. I'd wake up every day, flip out and think "oh fuck, I have no job, I need a job, debt debt debt debt!!!!" Fear had me in it's awful grip. For me a job meant $5 an hour, minimum wage circa 1987. $200 a week. I could not envision anything better. I knew something was terribly wrong with my thinking, this was not reality. I charged $65 an hour to clients who were happy to pay at my shop. And vision work may pay, but there isn't a weekly check.
So after my morning panic I'd sit in my kitchen, eat my 1 hour oats (steel cut yo!) and watch the hummingbird outside my window and say to hell with the job search, I'm writing music all day. I did the every day pretty much that summer, bought ProTools and started to learn it. By the end of that summer I started selling pieces of music, not much money, but an affirmation that someone is willing to buy this, they think it's good. My friends who are successful composers and producers say this is simply how it works. Show up for your vision every day and it starts to grow on its own.
Then I ran out of money.
I got a job at Lon Cohen Studio Rentals doing my backup plan work, soldering amps back together. It was a good job, great job actually. Lon has the greatest staff and the greatest Cartage and storage business in Los Angeles and he's a great guy to work for. Trouble is I didn't want to do this work anymore. I was dis-honest in getting this job. Maybe I was smart, job that pays or the street, I'll take the job that pays. I was smart but scared to death and when I'm scared I lie to myself. When I fall into fear I fall out of faith. And what one focuses on becomes reality (debt debt debt debt rather than abundance. Focus on abundance and debt has a way of not being an issue! I create what I trip out on! That stuff is true!). I stopped writing music daily and focused in a state of bitterness and defeat on making a living fixing Van Halens amps. For me, I do enough of that work and that is what comes to me, there is a reason I stopped.
So I was hiding once again in plain sight. My friend Dave asked me while we were sitting at the table together "What do you want Jef? Cause if you don't know what you want I can't help you!"
My answer? "Gasp, choke, um um, well...."
The truth? I knew exactly what I wanted! I was just too terrified to admit it for fear of looking stupid.
My life took a turn for the worse in Los Angeles, I lost my lovely apartment, had a nervous break and decided to leave. Truth be known, every time I got on the dreaded Los Angeles freeway I felt this sense of freedom and possibility. This voice would say "you belong in New York, now go!"
I was sad to leave LA, and really ashamed for not following through with my commitments to Lon and some other beautiful folks there. Lon said something to me that stuck though. Something about living life like a buoy in the ocean. That's how I felt. Couldn't have said it better. I needed direction. I needed to make a clear vision and make clear plans and have a clear purpose. I needed to live life on purpose. Any other way felt like an insult to god, a slow suicide.
I've noticed something. When I make a clear decision, announce it out loud, life opens up. Indecision is torture.
After I left LA I kicked around Portland for a couple weeks and my dad flew out to collect my sad sack self so we could drive across the country together. On the way back I said out loud "dad, I'm moving to New York in 6 months! If I'm still in your house you and mom have to kick me out, no exceptions!"
It was exactly 6 months later that I moved to the "impossible" city of my dreams. The doors simply opened up. I had that burning desire to come here backed up with un swaying faith that it will happen.
I'm living in my vision now. Great band, expanding opportunities, I can see that I will earn my living doing what I love. It is completely possible.
How did I do this? Well, I didn't really but I did craft my vision, the rest is fallout from sticking to it. How did I craft a vision?
It's not difficult or time consuming at all. It may take an "I can't take this anymore!" stretch like it did for me, hitting rock bottom and all that dramatic stuff, or you can start right now.
I think all of us have a vision, but like me were just afraid to admit it. What makes you blissful? Joyous?
It's as simple as sitting down, setting a timer for 5-10 minutes and perhaps stating at the top of the page "I'm so grateful now that...." and write for those 10 minutes anything that comes to mind. If it seems impossible or silly, write it down, do not let that reptile mind talk you out of it!. I wrote mine saying "If all goes perfectly according to plan in 4 years I....." What are you doing? Where do you live? How much money do you earn? Are you married? Kids? Ride bikes? Have a cat? A turtle? Where do you vacation? Get it all down.
Notice I said in mine "if all goes according to plan". I had no plan, had no concept of a plan. My friend Dave just said "Jef, you need a plan." So I decided to trust that a plan would unfold if I started my page like this. And, a plan is unfolding, one day at a time.
Feel resistance? Enlist a trusted positive friend. Shoot em' a text saying "hey for the next 10 minutes I'm doing this thing!" And time it, afterward shoot em' another text saying 'DONE!' This is a powerful tool for getting things done. I do this when I clean my room otherwise my reptile mind will say "for the rest of my goddamn life I have to clean this goddamn room!" and I won't do a thing. I shoot a text, set a timer for 45 minutes and I'm amazed at the results. Why enlist a trusted friend? Simply cause we need each other us humans. It's more fun!
Vision not perfect? Let go of perfectionism, right now. You will revise this piece of paper many times as your amazing life unfolds before you. And I need to share this LA story as well. It's about the diversity of vision.
When I lost my apartment I got to experience the kindness and love of people. Such a gift. One fellow, Michael Jacob Rochlin let me stay in his basement in his Echo Park writers retreat for a month. It was his office space. I had decided to leave by then but just needed to tie up loose ends with my job and my friends. We'd walk down the street and pick oranges in this old lady's yard, leave her some and make orange juice. We'd talk every day over breakfast. He asked me what my vision was. By this point I could answer more clearly, and maybe cause he wasn't intimidating to me like my other friend (my headtrip! Putting people above or below me!). I said stuff about touring Europe, earning my living through music composition, grants etc. I asked him and his simply was "for my stepson to come and see me play one gig. Yeah, that would make me happy."
Point is, every vision is completely valid. There is no room for "compare" in vision. It's yours, you own it. You deserve whatever you need for joy. Hearing him say that melted my heart.
So what next? Goals. If you have written down those things you want to do and enjoy, there are goals in that statement. I'll write about that next. For now write what you have written in the present tense, put it on a little piece of paper. Read it aloud in the morning and right before you go to bed. Carry it around with you, keep it alive. When you are at work and you are dis-satisfied, read it to yourself. Read it many times a day. Re-assemble that DNA, that sub atomic structure. Hear any doubt and say 'thank you for sharing but this is happening despite your opinion!'
You can do this. You deserve a life of love and happiness. Or like a hippy lady said to me: Scrap deserve! You NEED a life of love and happiness!
All love, JB
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