SHOWS THIS WEEK:
Thursday 2/8 - Flinchy’s in Camp Hill, PA 8-11pm
Friday 2/9 - Bourbon Tavern in Freeland, MD 7-10pm
Saturday 2/10 - Lebanon Valley Craft Brewing in Lebanon, PA 5:30-8:30pm
Thursday thoughts……
“Allow yourself to be proud of yourself and all the progress you’ve made. Especially the progress that no one else can see.” ~ Anonymous
This week, I want to talk about PROGRESS. About my views on making progress, and how the simple act of being aware and grateful of the progress that we make in our lives will lead to more progress. I’ve come to find that most progress in my life is the direct result of my actions, and retrogression has been the direct result of my inaction. The only thing that makes me different from a solo musician just starting out is time, and the willingness to be terrible at something long enough to get good at it. With enough time and dedication, I believe we are capable of doing anything we aspire to. The biggest barrier to achieving our goals is not giving up, and sometimes that’s extremely hard to do. I’ve found that by being aware and celebrating every moment of progress, no matter how small, I’ve been able to steadily progress at anything I set out to do.
There was a moment in my early 20’s where I found myself standing in my kitchen, bundled up in layers of clothing in front of my open stove just trying to stay warm. My pipes had burst in my bathroom, and my daughter’s guinea pig, Momo, had died from being frozen to death on my second floor because I couldn’t afford oil for heat. It was usually below 40 degrees in my living room. Thankfully my daughter lived with her mother at the time, because I barely survived that winter myself.
I think of that moment now when I’m at house with my girlfriend and we have the fireplace going and the dogs are all snuggled up on the couch. I think about how far I’ve come from that kitchen. How many times I’ve tried, and failed, and tried again to put myself in a better financial situation. At the time, I knew nothing about budgeting and saving, but the more I Iearned, the more progress I made towards never having to use an oven for heat again. I find that by taking a moment to be aware of where I came from, I’m able to celebrate the fact that I’m no longer in that situation now. Due to my actions.
In 2015, my best friend Mike Lelli aka “Chunk” and I made a New Years Resolution to lose weight. We were both overweight, he much more than I. I needed to lose around 60 lbs, he needed to lose around 225. We made a pact to go to the gym together and finally get our lives back in order, to commence on the following Tuesday. So, Tuesday came and I was at the gym bright and early. Chunk was no where to be seen. I text him, called him and left voicemails, but no answer. He called me 2 days later with an excuse, and promised to meet me there the following week. So the following week, I showed up expecting to see him, and he was nowhere to be found again. This would be the pattern for the next month, until he finally told me he had no interest in losing the weight. He said it was just too hard. He died on October 29th, 2016 from heart failure at the age of 38.
I think of him a lot these days, as I am now 38 myself. I often wonder if there’s anything I could’ve said to get him motivated to do something about his weight. Following his death, I got really serious about changing my health. At the time I was on blood pressure and heart arrhythmia medicine. My dad had passed at 51 from a heart attack, and I didn’t want to meet his same fate. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I needed to do something. So I just started. I would go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for an hour, or meander through the weight section hating on everyone who looked effortless in their workouts. I would just show up, every day, and do something until I learned how to do it better. As of today, I’m down 70 lbs from where I was in 2016, and I’ve been off all of my medications for almost 4 years. I ran a 5k in 2021 and came in 3rd place for my age group, averaging almost 7 minute miles. I’m proof that if you are physically able to do it, then the only thing standing in your way is you doing it. I just had to start, and then continue no matter what. I had to be comfortable being uncomfortable at the beginning of my weight loss journey to be able to make progress. My new health status was due to my actions.
When I was learning to play guitar, I would get so frustrated at how terrible I was at everything. There were a million times where I wanted to just give up. It was too much to learn, and I remember thinking I was too old and too busy with life to even try to figure it out. Basic strumming, chord formations, tempo, and even changing guitar strings were a real challenge for me. I stumbled my way along, slowly learning a little bit more each day. I would go to open mics and play my practiced songs for a live audience, and then go home and obsess about correcting every mistake I made. For the first year, it wasn’t really fun at all, it was more of a daily reminder about how much I just didn’t know. I would compare myself to other musicians and think to myself that it would be impossible to do what they do. I remember feeling downright hopeless at times.
I think about those early days of my music career all the time. They remind me just how far I’ve come to get to where I am today. The idea of being a professional musician was not even a distant reality for me just 5 years ago; but because I was willing to be terrible at playing guitar, I was able to progress and gain the knowledge needed to do it. As of this podcast, I’ve performed in 7 different states at over 600 performances. I’ve been making a very good living just off of performing for over 2 years now. I have met, and continue to meet, some of the best people on this planet. And all of this has been due to my actions.
I’m not superhuman, or any different from anyone else. I’ve merely started to understand a pattern of repeatable things I can do that will produce the same results when applied to anything. All of these short stories I’ve told you today have followed the same progression. They started with me realizing I had to make a change in an area of my life. The next step was admitting that I knew nothing about the thing I was trying to change. The third step was ACTION. Taking action is the only way to progress. If you don’t do anything, you will not get the opportunity to change anything. Even if you don’t know what your doing, it is really important to just start doing something. The fourth step was learning, sometimes through books and YouTube, other times through trial and error. And the fifth step is being aware of and grateful for the progress, no matter how small, and to keep trying to get better at whatever it is you’re trying to do.
Celebrating small victories has given me the ability to keep progressing in all areas of my life. Instead of beating myself up about the quality of my workout at the gym, I acknowledge how many more exercises I can do now and celebrate the fact I even went. Which keeps me going back. Instead of being frustrated and jealous watching other musicians that are better than me, I think about how far I’ve come from where I was, and I know that if I continue to invest my time I will continue to progress towards their level. Progression is a very simple thing in my mind. It’s just perseverance. Perseverance for another day when you want to quit, another hour when you can’t understand why you’re even doing something so hard, and another minute when you feel like you’re a complete failure. If you’re alive, which I expect most of my listeners are, and you are thinking about making a change, I hope you find the courage to believe in yourself enough to just START. And if you’re in the middle of making a change, I hope you find strength from this episode to keep it going. I’m always here for a pep talk if you need one, you can reach out to me at SoloMusicianPodcast@gmail.com. Thanks again for listening and I’ll see you next week for the “People’s Choice” episode of the Solo Musician Podcast.