I feel a bit like I’m beating a dead horse, but allow me to remind you that I have a book coming out on Monday. I’m ridiculously proud of it, and I hope it does wonders for those of you meant to have it.
In addition to a ton of typing I did myself – a bunch of people I absolutely love have contributed. To see the words others have provided me, for you, was an incredibly humbling experience.
Should you buy it?
I wrote it for you, if you:
- Want to get into game audio
- Have low self-confidence
- Feel like you have no idea what you’re doing
- Stay up all night with huge dreams and not a lot to show for it
- Have a hard time finishing the awesome things your mind dreams up
- Know you’re capable of a hell of a lot more than you actually do.
If that struck a chord in you – go buy it. If not, please don’t. You’ll save us both a lot of hassle if you read that and don’t buy it (unless you’re just a generous soul who loves me – in which case thank you from the bottom of my heart).
This leads me to a story. If you identified with the above – you and I are a lot more alike than you know.
5 Months
Around 5 months ago, give or take a few weeks, I was helping a bunch of people younger than myself. I was mentoring a super brilliant kid, and giving advice to others via Twitter DMs.
(By “giving advice” I mean I was sending them long rants about how they can be better… it’s kind of what I do. Look at what you’re reading…)
There was a thread in every one of these conversations which kept smacking me in the face and pissing me off. I kid you not, I would get super frustrated because I wanted every one of these people to succeed.
Every single one of them qualified themselves as somehow “not worthy” of holding a game audio job. All of them.
They used terms like “aspiring (sound designer)” or “I’m a dialogue editor trying to learn game audio” or “I’m a student hoping to get into game audio”.
At face value – using these as titles seems pretty innocent. But it’s not. 110% it’s not. If you’re like this, you’ve lost and failed before you ever gave your dream a shot.
What the individual saying these things is trying to do is appear humble, innocent, and not piss anyone off. They put those who do what they dream on a pedestal. It doesn’t have to be a big pedestal at all!
I know very well, I’ve done this.
These people are scared of doing bad work. They’re scared of saying something that’s wrong and being called out by someone with more experience. They’re afraid if they use a title, that they’re going to look like an idiot or (even worse!) an imposter because they aren’t good enough yet!
So to prevent any of that, they take a written knife to themselves and throw a qualifier in front of their title.
(Before you go to tweet me, email me, or whatever – no, I’m not saying non-professionals should just start calling themselves professionals when they don’t know what they’re doing. Keep reading.)
You might be able to tell – this drove me freaking insane.
I’ve been there, I’ve done this, I can’t tell you how maddening it is to watch someone with a ton of potential give up on themselves before they start.
Ugh.
But much like right now, where writing all of that drove a lot of energy out of me, I knew ranting at people was unsustainable. It also was only helpful to one person at a time, and it was killing me every time I did it.
So, one night I snapped and said (I literally did this)
“Fuck it, I’m writing another book!”
The Book
Business-wise, this book was a stupid idea.
If you’re into this sort of thing, there’s no “target market” for a book like this. The primary group this book is helpful for are college students, maybe high schoolers, and those trying to make a career change. I’m being generous to myself with that last group.
Students usually don’t have a ton of money, and they don’t spend what they do have on books like this.
Considering I’ve been working towards having my work be a sustainable self-owned business – me writing this book could be described really politely as a complete f&@*#ing waste of my time.
But, I couldn’t help it. I had to get the words out. So I committed to it.
I have one book already. It’s a little over 40 pages. I figured I could do another that would be like… 60 pages. I could get it done “quickly” (in 3 months was my guess), put it out as a PDF and move on to writing software again.
5 months and change later, it’s 137 pages and counting (yes, I’m still adding a bit more)
What the (BLEEP). Right? Apparently I had a lot to say.
It’s also not just going to be a PDF – at the encouragement of others I committed to making a Kindle version. I’m also trying my hardest to record 2 interviews that can go along with the package as a bonus.
Yep – you can call me crazy now. But I have a point, I promise.
You’re Not Trying Hard Enough
Yep, that big text is the point.
A good number of you – my friends included – are probably going to misread what I mean. Please keep reading.
Going back to the book –
It’s made me more money than I ever imagined it would (technically I imagined zero, but still… oh, and I’m not rich, don’t worry).
It has opened a bunch more doors than I could’ve thought it would (I’m always super surprised by this)
It has also given me a ton of confidence. Who knew I had a tome inside of me to write???
This comes from a guy who, 3-4 years ago, had a bunch of lofty goals and could never finish anything (I swear this is true, ask my wife). I’m not joking, I’ve started more albums, Pro Tools sessions, videos, blogs, “businesses”, etc. than I know what to do with. Every time, I would hit a wall that required me to actually sit down and work.
It was at that moment that I’d find another new shiny idea to follow, research about on the internet, buy equipment and things for – and promptly not commit myself to all over again.
What’s the antidote?
You must quit aspiring, and commit to yourself. Commit to actually doing the thing, and actually being the person who does the thing.
This next sentence I literally command you.
YOU CAN DO IT.
No excuses, no half-commitment, nothing. I 100% legitimately believe you can do the awesome thing you have in your mind. You can do it as the person you are.
Yes, you’ll need to learn. Yes, you’ll need to work for it. Yes, it will probably suck at points.
But you actually can do it. If you don’t believe in yourself, I’m doing it for you right now – don’t worry.
Push
This all requires pushing yourself. For some of you it will require pushing yourself a lot.
(A bunch of you are playing devil’s advocate to me your head right now and complaining about how “not everyone can do the thing they dream of because -” hold it…)
Let’s take two scenarios. One, you dream of winning a GRAMMY. Second, you dream of having a super athletic amazing body (and let’s assume you’re a human with full physical motor functions intact).
If you love music and you’ve only written some hobby tunes, or recorded on your laptop a few times – what does pushing yourself look like?
It sure as hell probably doesn’t mean you’re winning that GRAMMY in two years.
It might mean pulling up your laptop and updating your DAW. Maybe it means putting new strings on your guitar. I’d say it means committing to a regular practice or self-recording schedule, but that might be too much. If you go too big, too fast, you’ll probably fail!
If you can’t run without losing your breath, or can’t lift more than a 5-10lb weight – pushing yourself probably doesn’t mean hitting the gym 4-5 times a week starting Monday.
It probably means finding your gym clothes. It might mean going for a walk around the neighborhood.
That’s where you start.
If you keep pushing yourself, you make bigger strides by making only slightly larger strides over time.
So, a few weeks after you changed your guitar strings you’ve written a lick. A bit after that you re-learn your recording software. A bit after that, you record the lick. Even longer, you write a song, put out an album, put out more, get that GRAMMY.
After you found your gym clothes, you walked around the block. Then you ran half that time. Then you ran the whole thing. Then you added a few pushups. Then you started a gym routine. Then you kept it up, fixed your diet permanently, and got six pack abs.
I make all this sound super easy written. But you probably missed a part, or forgot it…
I said 3-4 years ago that I jumped from project to project. I hardly ever fully committed to anything long term. I was full of ideas, and short on execution.
I learned how to change that. That’s one of the differences between me and you – but I used to be you.
Now I have a book that’s nearly 150 pages coming out on Monday. It’s going to be a PDF, it’s going to be on Kindle (my mother was blown away when I told her that), I’ve now written that there are going to be interviews so there are going to be interviews…
But I’m just a guy. I’m a guy who learned and will, until the day I die, keep learning. I fail, and will keep failing.
Because I’m just a guy, and I know that you’re just a seemingly non-special individual who wants to do more awesome things (like me) – I know you can.
So if you’re feeling it, go elsewhere on this page and get on my email list for updates about the book. If it’s after March 14th, 2018 then just go buy the freaking book.
You can get this job, you can do the things you are dying to do. You just have to do it, and I’d love to help you.
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