Getting Personal (And I Need Your Advice, Please!)

What Does The Future Hold For The Six Figure Home Studio Blog?

So on most articles, I try to provide helpful business and efficiency advice for you and your home studio.

Well…today is a bit different.

I want to pull back the curtains and share more of a personal update (along with a big update about this website).

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The Land of the Basics…

Fall is in full swing, the weather is cooling down, leaves are changing colors, and endless swarms of bachelor and bachelorette parties are flooding the streets of Nashville. 

I’ve been writing a lot of my articles and emails at coffee shops, which means I get to laugh at all of the ridiculous drink orders I overhear…

a basic b“I’d like a venti, half-whole milk, one quarter 1%, one quarter nonfat, extra hot, split quad shots (1 1/2 shots decaf, 2 1/2 shots regular), no foam pumpkin spice latte, with whip, 2 packets of splenda, 1 sugar in the raw, a touch of vanilla syrup and 3 short sprinkles of cinnamon please. K THANKS!”

ANYWAYS… Between this website, my studio, my mixing course, and a real estate project I’ve been trying to finalize, I’ve had a LOT of my mind the past couple of months.

Is This A Mid-Life Crisis?

I recently sat down for a burger with a friend, and he asked me how I felt about turning 30 (my birthday is tomorrow).

For some reason, I hadn’t put much thought into it until that moment. Birthdays have never been a huge deal to me, and I’ve always tried to keep things as low-key as possible.

I’ve never thrown a huge party for myself, and I never done anything overly extravagant (this year being no exception, even if it is “the big three zero”).

Despite my approach to birthdays, the one thing I have done every birthday for the past 5 years is use it as sort of a “personal new years.”

I think of it as a time to assess what I’ve accomplished the past year, what I’ve failed to do, what I want to change, what I need to cut out of my life, and most importantly, what I’ll be doing for the next 12 months.

Here are a few examples of goals I’ve made for myself in past years:

  • Travel more (I visited 5 countries in 5 weeks last year, and I’m gearing up to spend 6 weeks in southeast Asia in a couple of months)
  • Stay consistent at the gym (an easy goal to set, and hard one to accomplish)
  • Go to 3 to 4 conferences every year (expensive but worth it)
  • Read at least 1 book per month
  • stop cussing so damn much (yea, still working on that one)
  • Wake up earlier
  • Improve my golf handicap (actually got it down to a 6 at one point)
  • Invest in my first real estate deal (just accomplished that last month)
  • Work less
  • Eat healthier

…and the list goes on and on and on.

While some of the goals were big and some were small, all were for the same purpose of continual improvement in my life (and to keep things from getting boring).

Anyway, the main point of this whole story is that things have felt quite different now that I finally had a chance to sit down and think about what the next decade of my life is going to look like.

Have you ever sat down to really think about what you want to do for the next 10 years? It’s a daunting task, honestly.

I found myself having a huge paradigm shift in my life and the way I look at my businesses in general (and no, it’s not some sort of midlife crisis…that won’t be for another 10 years when I’m 40).

The Past 10 Years of My Life

I’ve personally gone through some massive life changes in the past 10 years.

I started a band, toured through 44 states and 8 countries, left a band (on not-so-great terms), broke a few hearts (and had mine broken), seen a couple of close friends die, started a career that would change my life forever (my home studio), moved to a new state to basically start a new life from scratch, and found a new passion for entrepreneurism (which, oddly, sparked from a random round of golf with a restaurateur).

Even within the past year, I’ve started multiple businesses, I’ve gone to some perspective-changing conferences, and I started surrounding myself with some amazing people (both in the music industry and in unrelated industries).

Maybe it’s all the conferences I’ve been going to or people I’ve been hanging around…or maybe it’s all the books I’ve been reading…or maybe it’s just something that comes when you start getting gray hairs…who knows!

While I’m not exactly sure what caused this shift in my thinking, I do know is that this year’s goals all revolve around you (well…as long as you have some sort of studio). 

Seriously.

Why I've Been Emailing You So Damn Much

As some of you may noticed lately, I’ve been putting out a lot more content on this blog, and you’ve been getting a lot more emails than usual from me (possibly to the point of annoyance).

There is a reason for this…

I started getting a ton of random “success stories” from people like you, and it started happening this year out of seemingly nowhere.

People have been sending me all sorts of success stories. Everything from small wins (like getting their first paid project), to big wins (like finally quitting their day job to pursue their passion of recording full time), to HUGE VICTORIES (like working with grammy nominated and billboard charting artists within the first full year of being in business).

It’s gotten to the point where I have an entire Dropbox folder (appropriately labeled “motivation”)  that is FULL of screenshots from people commenting on the blog, emailing me, messaging me, and tagging me in Facebook posts about their goals, struggles, and successes.

This has sparked a massive desire for me to put as much time into this blog as possible.

The past two years and a half years, I've seriously just piddled around aimlessly; only posting new articles once every few months when “inspiration” struck me.

There is SO much potential for this site, and I realize how selfish I’ve been in the past by not making this my main focus.

I Need Your Advice, Please!

The Six Figure Home StudioWhile I still love to mix and master bands, I know that I can only help a small number of people at a time when focusing on that sort of work. Like literally working for 2 weeks straight just to please the 5 people in that band.

When you compare my home studio (where I help 5 people at a time) to The Six Figure Home Studio Blog (where I can help potentially thousands of people at a time), the highest and best use of my time is this website…by far.

I have so many big plans for this site, and I’m already working on a few huge projects…things that will help a lot of you guys out.

I also started the hiring process for a couple full time employees (a fucking headache), and I’ve been working on a few massive new projects for this blog (part of the reason I’m having to hire people).

I can’t wait to show you what’s in store (You’ll see more in my next article).

BUT…(and this is a big ol’ but)

I need your help on some of this…just answer this one question in the comments:

What free product about running a home studio would you like me to create for you?

That's it! I just need your advice on what I can do to help more people.

While other websites may churn out endless paid material (ebooks, courses, videos, membership sites, etc.), my goal is to make the free material on this site better than 99% of the paid material out there.

So leave a comment and answer this question: what free product about running a home studio would you like me to create for you?

Raise Your Rates With Confidence

This free guide gives you rate benchmarks for a number of services–including recording, mixing, mastering, reamping, drum editing, guitar editing, and more!

Also included are The 5 Rules of Free Work. Follow these five rule EVERY SINGLE TIME you do free work, and you'll set yourself up for success.

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