Making A Living From What You Love: A Career In The Music Industry With Richard Borger

If you have loved music ever since you were little, you probably would think that you want to make a living out of it when you grow up. While gaining clarity for your purpose, you also want to take the risk and opportunity to grow in the music industry with your growing talent. The music industry was mysterious back in the days, so Richard Borger took a great leap in diving into it. In this episode, Richard shares his story after getting out of a relationship, figuring things out in his life, and monetizing from what he loves: music. Right now, he is the main producer/audio engineer of Voyce Memos, an indie group of three musicians. Tune in! Learn how to collaborate with people and make music a potential career so you can earn money while doing something you love!

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Making A Living From What You Love: A Career In The Music Industry With Richard Borger

Richard and I met a few years ago.

I started in 2012. When was your first?

2013.

I feel like it was pretty soon. It has been a few years. We were going through the thick of it in refining and chemicals at ExxonMobil and figuring out why we didn't like it then.

Now, out of nowhere, we parted ways. We were on the campus and I'm full-time coaching.

I'm a part-time music production, audio engineering, as well as band. I’m still working a job that's pretty much full-time but I still do have a lot of time to focus on the other things I'm doing.

I would love to unpack your journey. Let’s start first with your background. You are vibrant. I know your family has a Jamaican part of it.

My mom’s side. She was born in Jamaica. She's got, thirteen brothers and sisters. She comes from a very large family and those are full brothers and sisters. There are half brothers and sisters, too. It's a large family but it is so warm, loving and everything. A funny story because we are going to talk about music but there's some weird potential story that I have family connections to Bob Marley. When you try to find the family history of Jamaican heritage and stuff, good luck. Those documents may have never existed or they’ve got rolled into a joint somewhere.

It has been interesting. My aunt found this out, which was even funnier because she got chased after in a love relationship by Bob Marley. We found out that there was some potential that my mom's dad's aunt was Bob Marley's mother potentially. I can't confirm but I would love to believe it and I'm going to go with it. There's a little bit of bubble down there, that reggae vibe.

I’m Jamaican on one side and from what my brother and I have determined with Ancestry.com, it's a lot of UK and that's also my mom's dad as well. He's Scottish-Irish. My dad ended up being 40% to 45% UK in some way or another. Not knowing exactly where it was, he would have said French and German but we didn't see too much of that. I'm going to go with mostly UK, Jamaican, and then a whole 20% of randomness that I can’t tell you exactly what it is.

Creating a career in music is possible, even today.

I was born in Miami, Florida. I will say my tongue is Cuban and I love the food. I cannot wait. I have to go some time, too. I hear it's beautiful out there. I was born in Miami but only lived there for about three years before Hurricane Andrew came and wrecked everything down there. That was in ‘92. I was there for a little bit. One of my first vivid memories as a child is seeing all those orange Spanish shingles from the houses down in Miami. Instead of all the houses, all over the floor, everywhere in the city. I loved it but I also was freaked out of my mind. I didn't know what was going.

I moved around a little bit. I moved to South Carolina for one quick year, then to Atlanta for another year before finally settling in Orlando, Florida, specifically Winter Springs. I went most of the elementary school, all of middle and of high school in Winter Springs, and that was where I first started learning to play the bass guitar.

You started by then. What drove that interest?

It was one of those where you see bands playing and at that point, I was listening to a lot of Alternative Rock but also emo punk stuff like Rancid, AFI and all these older bands that I was getting into. The basslines were powerful, funky. I saw music and stuff. That was my whole crew. We were skater kids and listening to Grunge, Sky, emo, punk stuff. I was like, “Bass guitar, I can't wait to play it.”

Two of my other good friends played and I admire them for playing it, too. I’ve got one and started playing, then around the same time, I started getting into Classic Rock a lot like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and all these other bands. That was more cutting into high school but I’ve got heavy into it and so I started learning all those songs as much as possible.

Since being a child, you have had that passion and interest in music.

Music was always there. My mom and my dad weren't musicians by any means but they definitely impacted me on the music. My dad was the Classic Rock guy and the Alternative Rock guy. He is big on Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Metallica but he also loved Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and all that group. My mom was more on the ballad side. She was the one putting on the Disney ballads and I'm singing along with her. She put on Elton John, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, and all these other ballad style types of artists.

There was no Reggae though.

Not her, it was more of her family. My cousins are super big into Bob Marley and other reggae artists. It’s because I didn't listen to it as much either, I honestly didn't get super heavy into it, except for the off-brands side of things with the Rock-Reggae vibe. As a kid, you grow up and you listen to all new age. You are the one supposed to bring in the new music. We have Eminem, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, all these rappers, Hip hop and R&B. On the rock side, Blink 182, Staind and Incubus. All these bands that were continuing to push new edges and stuff like that.

You grow up on it and because it's new and everybody in your school is listening to it, you are catching some of that. It's cool to say how much random influence I have had in music because as I’m reflecting on it, I can say all the music we are making has these very unique vibes to it sometimes. It's probably this overall blend of things you have learned about growing up and things you have listened to. I can point to any specific song we have made and be like, “This has a little bit of this vibe to me, this vocal or this piece of instrument.” I like being able to name off random artists.

 You started as a child with an interest in music. What did you study? What was your bothering thought?

Growing up, I was always good at Math and Science. I naturally became an engineer as we found out together. It was one of those decisions that were made out of pure things like, “I'm good at these things. I have been told I'm good at these things. I have been showing that I'm good at them.” Since I'm getting into college at seventeen without knowing what I want to do in the first place, I didn't have necessarily the dream of being a musician at that point or being in music at all, except casually and on the side.

It was one of those, “I'm going to take what I'm good at. I hear good-paying jobs are coming out of it. I'm sure I will pass these classes. I passed them in high school. I'm sure I will pass them here.” I went to the University of Florida in 2007 and looked to start my engineering life there. Right around that time, I didn't get into music as much right off the bat. When you live in a dorm, you don't have too many options in that and you don't have time in engineering.

What I did was get into new music a lot. There were some of my friends from high school who I had known and I’ve finally got to become better friends with them. They turned me on to a bunch of Indie Rock music like My Morning Jacket. There’s this one of my favorite bands The Arcs band, Tokyo Police Club and Tame Impala. It’s all this stuff that I had never heard before. They turned me on to all this new music.

I was being blown away and in college about new music that was heading my way, but not getting too heavy into playing it until my sophomore and junior year. I did the engineering thing. I decided to keep going with engineering. I didn't have any reason to switch out of it quite yet and check out anything else. I remember taking a world music class, rock and roll history or something.

I wanted to take Music Theory and for some reason, I remember getting denied and I don't know why. They said I didn't have a prerequisite, which was weird because it was an Intro Music Theory class. It’s like Music Theory 101 or something basic but they were like, “You never signed up to be a musician or you didn't do music in high school so we can't let you in into these classes.”

I gave up on it, to be honest. I was doing it on the side with my friends and learning some stuff but I wasn't learning the way I wanted to. I regretted that I gave up on it early then. I don't regret anything but I try not to regret it. I’ve got to make a habit of not looking back at me but it would have been nice to learn a little more about music theory early on. That way, I could have developed the way I play music now a little differently but I'm not going to be upset about it because we have clearly been able to do things without it.

You graduated from engineering. You started your career in oil and gas. When was the time where you started to think of music as a potential career?

Right at the end of college, graduating, and then getting into ExxonMobil, it was not in my mind to even think about a music career or even making money off of it in any way at all. I was in a committed relationship at that time. We both started working at ExxonMobil. It was one of those, “We are both on this trajectory together. Let's figure this thing out and we are going to keep going down this path because it seems like the normal thing to do.” There's nothing to question about it. It's secure, it's stable. Our friends are around, too. It seems like a cushy lifestyle. I'm not going to complain about it.

To people who do it, it's totally fine. I commend them for knowing what they want. At the same time, it took a big change-up in life to realize like, “I'm not loving this. I'm not feeling driven. I'm not feeling something is pushing me to do like wake up excited or be excited about what I'm doing.” That was ringing true to me for a very long time. It took a little bit later before it finally manifested itself in a decision of like, “What would I do instead of it since this is all I have known.”

You may not know where you’re headed, but you have to take action.

Technically as far as making a job and making a living, I have only known to do engineering and be working a full-time job. Are there other possibilities at this a few years down the road? After working with ExxonMobil, you are like, “This is a career-long lifetime thing that I would never give up.” I didn't immediately leave it, even when I started thinking about this but it was one of those, “How would you ever leave something like this?” It's so stable and comfortable.

We get very complacent in those types of situations because it's all we have ever thought about. When you are with someone else who is going down that path, you are like, “It's comfy. It's relaxing.” Maybe it's not that exciting or pursuing an entrepreneurial spirit but you don't know any better because you have never seen the other side. You don't have anything to compare it to.

The main driver of staying in a place where you may not be passionate or fulfilled, do you think it's financial, a lot of times?

Financial for sure. There's definitely no doubt about it. I talk about security, and one of them is financial. One of them is the benefits of health insurance and all those other things. You get locked down in this whole idea of, “I'm not going to find this if I start pursuing my own job right away or pursuing my own things. You might have a little bit of money saved up to make it for a little bit but then you are going to start going, “What am I doing? If things don't take off, what's going to happen?” The next part of that is the fear of losing stability. It's not necessarily like financial directly, sometimes it's the fear of losing it versus anything else. You never know what's going to happen if you stop working altogether and what you are going to do. It's very scary.

What triggered that decision to start working on music part-time?

In 2016 is when that relationship that I was with that got out of college ended. When that door closed and the other ones were starting to open up, it started making me realize how much I was in work for the stability of not only financial and all those other things but it was staying in there and the stability of the relationship.

There was pressure to perform in a way that was equal footing with your partner in this side of things and at work. You are trying to make it as far as they are making it and there was this, “Why would I do something different? We both go to the same place.” It makes a lot of sense. As soon as it's separated and there was no expectation of going back to it. It was those triggering moments not only from the thing that is keeping the relationship stable. It was like, “What's keeping me stable? What's keeping me happy with what I'm doing?”

I started asking myself. I didn't like what I was doing that much. I was doing it for comfy stability life. I started asking myself like, “What would I do if I wasn't doing this?” It was a simple question. I remember sitting in a car with some friends of mine from work and going through this thought process. I had a very systematic way of thinking about it. I was like, “I have three things that I like doing and that I'm decent at, that I could pursue. The first one was running.”

I used to run a lot in high school. I did track and cross country. I loved running the 800 and a mile. I was like, “I like running but I wasn't great at it. I liked doing it but I'm not going to coach or not interested in creating shoes or some apparel. That wasn't necessarily what I was thinking.” It quickly fell off. The next thing I was super passionate about is rock climbing. I do a lot of rock climbing. I go out to mountains all over the world. I'm hanging off the side of cliffs and people question my thoughts on why I'm doing that. It's the risk it for the biscuit mentality. It’s the view at the top. As you get to the top, you feel accomplished and you get the best visuals in the world.

It's a great reason to travel. People travel for diving and stuff. I can travel to these amazing places and climb in those locations. I love climbing. I do it very often and I go out of my way to do it. It's definitely my main sport, main workout and everything. I definitely post and it's like, “There's some music stuff, then there is a lot of climbing stuff.”

I can't stop now. I only want to do more and see new places. That's part of the thing. It's such an enjoyable, separating mindset. In climbing, the best part about it is you are so hyper-focused on what's going on, especially when you are climbing up 1,000-foot to 2,000-foot mountains and you’ve got to make sure you are staying alive.

Generally, the hard challenges. It's a problem you have to figure out physically and mentally. I love being in the moment so much with it that I wasn't thinking that I wanted to change it into some financial or monetizing. I love helping people climbing. One of my favorite things to do is coach people in climbing. I will take new people in climbing all the time and help them get better.

I used to coach kids. I went to rock gyms around here. Whenever you want to go, we will go. It's going to take more than one time to go. I have been doing it since 2007. I have learned a lot, maybe my skill cap isn't super high as it should be after many years. Injuries have unfortunately plagued that but I can say that I have learned a lot in terms of technique, how to climb and what to do.

I love helping people in that realm too but I don't like doing it from like, “I want to get paid.” I like keeping it a hobby. When your mind is climbing, I don't have time to think about anything else. I should not be thinking about anything else because, either I'm not going to climb as hard as I want or I'm not going to be safe. I love that about it. It is a great separation. The last thing that I finally came to was music. I thought about it very thoughtfully. Not only do I love making music at this point but I love the idea of getting more into the industry.

For me, the industry seemed a little mysterious. This was 2017. I was getting fresh out of a relationship and figuring things out in my life like how this goes afterward. It was interesting to start peering into the music industry and saying, “Not only is making music an option but making it from production, studio standpoint and producing music. There's scouting and looking for new talent that can go on a label or something.

There was also live mixing. There will be people sitting in the back of the house. The band’s up on stage but somebody is making sure that it doesn't sound crap for everybody. I go to concerts all the time where I'm like, “Is anybody listening to this? They could fix some of this music up.” Unfortunately, I'm not the one behind the wheel, so I can't change anything but I have learned how to do a little bit of that, too.

I saw it as a nice spread of things that I could get into, as well as I love making music. I love music in general. It makes me feel a certain way. I want to make people feel that way. I want to feel that way and getting into it makes the most sense. I have seen success personally in my brother. Did you know who my brother is?

No, but I know it's possible. Everything is possible if you put your mind to it.

One of the biggest inspirations for me is my brother. He is an EDM DJ. His name is DJ Borgeous. He made a song Tsunami back in 2011, 2012 that got pretty big. He continued to play a lot of shows and has been very popular around the world. He was playing around the US a lot. He's definitely made it and he's super successful.

One of the best things about him is that he did it out of nothing. He didn't have the good high school career that got him into college. They send him off to be an engineer or a successful businessman in the traditional mindset. He barely passed high school. He went to a community college for three months. He’s like “Not for me. I don't want to do this.”

Keep branching out into new things. 

He’s living in Orlando and working at a carwash at the time. His first idea was that he would go to California and be an actor or something like that. He got up, not a lot of money to his name and went out to LA and was like, “I'm going to figure things out.” For about 4 or 5 years while he was there, he was figuring it out and slowly started meeting the right people and getting his name around. He started doing club promotions for some big places in LA and eventually found the right people who were in the music.

 He has always been a big musician too or a music-inclined person. He liked mixing around on some of the old programmings like Fruity Loops and things like that. He also loved dancing, modeling, and all this other stuff. In general, it was the right space for him to be for that thing. He made it out of nothing. Every time I see him on stage and seeing people look at him the way that he's made it, it’s very inspiring.

One of the things that I'm obsessed with is gaining clarity because I mentioned so many people have the drive to do something else or they don't know how to gain clarity. If they see a glimpse of clarity, they are afraid to take action and move forward. I love that you thought about yourself and your brother that you both experimented with. Part of gaining clarity is experimenting. You’ve got to go out there, take action and experiment. Tell me more about that journey for you on experimenting with the idea of music might be to literally start a business and doing all that you are doing now. What have you learned?

I'm not done learning clearly. There is a lot more to learn. It's funny because I'm not even sure if it's fully clear yet, except that I do have a thing I'm striving for overall. That thing is eventually owning a standalone music studio. I have my own home studio that I work, produce, and mix out of, and doing that. I do some live venue mixing for some bands around. I will even edit podcasts. I love making music too if that were to take off as far as our band would take off but I enjoy being in the studio, working in Pro Tools, editing, mixing, engineering, producing, things like that and working live venues. That's where I find the most enjoyment.

I love that immediate satisfaction of being able to manipulate things in a way that I like to manipulate them. It's like being the artist. You are the one with the paintbrush. As much as you are like when you are making music, there's something even with engineering and in a technical format that feels even more controlling. Dialed in is the word I like to use a lot.

My mentor would have told me that as well, he used to dial in all the time. I picked that up like, “We are going to dial that in a little bit.” I like the idea of getting things nicely tuned and making them sound the way you want. It's pretty cool to be able to figure out how to do that and take something that you didn't think would sound that way and make it the way you want.

I love that you mentioned, “I have gained clarity. I'm clear about one thing. There are so many other things that I'm gaining clarity about.” Sometimes people expect that clarity is a thing that will come up to you in your whole life moving forward. It’s an ascetic state that evolves. Even with this idea of recording these interviews, I don't know where it's going to go but I decided to take action. I feel that's part of a lot of entrepreneurship and owning your business. Have you experienced the same?

It reminded me of how spreading this has been as far as like, “I'm going to learn how to make some recordings but I was going to do it alone. Now, two other people got involved and I made a band out of it and it's not just me anymore.” There are a lot more variety in new sounds that are coming my way and new people to work with, in general. That automatically opens up your horizons a little bit, and you hear their stories and what they are doing or what they have heard from people. You keep branching out into new things.

First, it's making one song and making a bunch of songs. It's collaborating with people and then, “We have these cool songs.” In high school, I did TV productions for four years. I learned how to make music videos, record, make movies like news telecasts and things like that. I did every aspect of it, at least in high school. I didn't take it on as much going forward after that. There has always been this cinematography type of thing that I like.

The natural next development was like, “I liked that song,” because it has this meaning to me. I have a vision for what it could be to make a music video. The first one was a nice experiment but I put a lot of thought and effort into it. I filmed it out in Las Vegas, out in the Boonies and made this whole thing happen. With orchestrating and coordinating it and getting the right people involved, not only monetarily involved but stressfully like, “How do I make this all work?”

Continue to flash forward to one back in February with the ballet dancer from the Houston Ballet, Mackenzie Richter. An amazing soloist and beautiful dancer. You should definitely check her out. If you ever get a chance to go out there to go see the Houston Ballet in any form or look for her specifically because she's fantastic. A random spark of, “This song has a lot of this passion. It’s a very intense cord of being OCD and a perfectionist. Especially an artist, how that can manifest itself in a lot of ways. I had this vision of like, “This is how I want to represent it.” I called her and she was totally down to be a part of it.

All that to say is you take one thing, you keep going down the road and you realize, “There are a couple of other things that come from doing this thing.” The branching out of what you get into, making merchandise, doing music videos, doing interviews, being on an entrepreneurial podcast or video. These things you never thought you would ever get sprout up as you don't stop.

The coolest part is if you don't stop, you will see that even as much as you might think you are not making any progress, which is something I battle with all the time. I always think I'm not doing anything. It's the craziest thing because somebody will be like, “Are you kidding me?” I know I released some music. I know I have been doing this but you can look at yourself all day and be like, “I don't know if I did anything.”

I don't feel like I'm doing anything now either. I don't know how much progress I have made or how much it matters but people continue to assure me that I have done a lot. They reassure me that I'm doing something pretty cool. It's cool to see it come together. When you are in the middle of the filming aspect and you see it on the little camera, “That looks cool. I can't wait.” You are hoping the editing brings it together and it did. I was like, “This turned out so much cooler than I would have thought.”

An important element that you talked about in this journey of entrepreneurship and of life, is faith. Not faith in the religious sense but faith that whatever you are putting into, it will be solved at the end of the day, your desired outcome or something similar. It’s knowing that things will work out.

What I said that you perked up to was, “Don't stop.” If you don't stop, you will keep realizing that there are new doors, new paths and branches. You can get hung up for sure. I'm still hung up on certain things. We are not quite there yet where everything we think of, it's like, “Do,” and I've got it. It's going to get done. I will think about it so much that I will prohibit myself from doing it. That's probably one of the biggest challenges is overanalyzing and overthinking like, “What are the steps? What should I do?”

I love how you gained clarity because music is something that you have always loved as a kid. You analyze your interests and you said, “This is a thing that I would love to monetize.” You had faith. You took action. You are not stopping. You are going. One of the elements that are so important that you mentioned is having someone that you know that you have done this, that it's possible. Role models and mentors, tell me about that part.

I mentioned my brother, hands-on, first-person connection success that clearly shows. He made it and as much as when I was in my engineering job, he was like, “You've got a stable thing. Why don't you keep working on it?” It comes from a good place in his heart. He's like, “I see you in a stable thing. Don't ruin that.” He didn't have stability. It was scary for him. I'm sure he's like, “Don't jump into instability. Don't quit your job and you will try to figure it out.”

He's definitely one whose back was up against the wall. He didn't have anything else to shoot for so it made sense for him to move into that. That's always an inspiring thing but it's also the biggest difference between us and him. He had the, “I don't have any other option,” type of mentality. That has always been something I think about a lot. I wonder if I had not had the same type of opportunity to feel stable that it would make me think like, “I should have done this earlier.” I should still try to even balance it, working a little bit and trying to stabilize myself versus putting all of my time into it.

There's some interesting balance that comes with that. Back to your question on influences, he's definitely one of the biggest hands-on first-person experiences that I can relate to and that I love to use as an inspiration of where I can go. I have a mentor. He's not so formalized as a mentor anymore but right around late 2017, I was doing this on my own. I’m trying to figure it out on my own.

“Knowledge is potential power, but action is real power.”

One of the things I know about myself from college and everywhere else is that I learned better when I went to class and the problem was I didn't always go. Even sometimes when I went to class, I might have fallen asleep, I’m talking to my friends or something. If I paid attention in class and got to write down the notes and ask the questions as I wanted to, I always retain that information better.

I know this about myself. If I get hands-on, one-on-one, especially experience with someone telling me how to do something and let me ask the questions of, “What does this do? Why are you doing that? What if we did this instead?” I will retain so much more than information. Right around the time, I realized I was hitting a roadblock on my own, I was like, “I need to figure out something here because I need guidance.”

At first, I looked at schooling. There were these six-month programs that I was looking into but they were $13,000 for six months. I was like, “That is so pricey. Let me talk to somebody around here who's got some good reputation around Houston.” I met up with one of the people who is very reputable in Houston. He is one of the persons that I admire and look up to in terms of what you can do in the city for your own means and everything. His name's John Allen Stephens. He's a great artist and producer, he's produced for great names like The Suffers and a lot of people around Houston. Some fantastic local artists and people who are making their names big. He was willing to take me on in a one-on-one situation.

Did you call him? How did that happen?

I went to a studio to meet up with some producers to figure things out. We started talking and at the end of it, he was like, “If you are interested, let me know what the situation is. We can talk about a price that makes sense. It sounds like you were going to spend a lot of money. I don't think you will have to spend as much if we did it one-on-one.” He had his own home studio, which is something that I was trying to do in the first place. He was the perfect role model, the perfect person to help me get off the ground and running. I called him pretty shortly after that and was like, “Let's do this.”

In late 2017, we started going over to his home studio in Kingwood, where he was living at the time. He started from the basics, he also referenced textbooks. Pro Tools is one of the software that I use and that's the one he was using primarily. Getting the hands-on experience of touching, seeing it, setting it up and him letting me set it up and showing him my work saying, “Let's try these things.” Working on the plugins, the software and everything.

I couldn't have asked for a more rapid way of learning it, as well as a more way that I would retain it because I could take it home immediately and use it right away. I was trying to make music already. I wanted to use everything I learned the day that I learned it. That's another thing, it’s because I was passionate about music, not only learning how to do it from the production and recording standpoint but I wanted to make sure my stuff was sounding good. I would go and take what he told me and immediately apply it.

I'm taking a lot of notes and being like, “Now I know where the microphone should go. I'm going to use this plugin this way. I know what it's doing now. I can actually manipulate it the way I want to.” It encouraged you to go look for new things because the best thing about music production is that it's constantly evolving.

There's new software, new opportunities. You go on YouTube and type in “Processing vocals,” you will find 18,000 different videos of artists or producers. This is how I do it. Each one of them is probably a little bit different. They might have some overarching similarities but the plot from the plugin they use, the type of thing they are doing, they will do it a little bit differently.

I love that you mentioned that after you’ve got the knowledge, you immediately applied it. That reminded me of this quote, “Knowledge is potential power but action is real power.” You mentioned that you have a full-time job and this side hustle that hopefully, your aspiration is that you own the studio. What keeps you going? What keeps you going and having these full-time and part-time? How do you manage to do both things at the same time?

 I will say from the moment I started managing, it has been the fun part of that. Sleep gets thrown to the side sometimes. I can't tell you how many countless 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM nights I have had. When I'm caught up in it because I love it so much, especially working on my own music, I can stay up until 3:00 AM creating, mixing, and working on my own stuff as we' ae working on our own music. At the same time, I made time always for my friends who were coming to record, people working on podcasts or whatever it was, going to do these live venue mixes on a Saturday night or something.

What kept me going is the idea that I figured out something that I cared a lot about. I knew it meant more to me because of my investment in time. I was interested in music so I put time into it. I then realized because I was putting so much time into it that I knew this was my passion and my interest. Otherwise, I would have grown so tired of it a long time ago. One started the other but the other one keeps reinforcing the other. I liked that cycle that keeps me motivated in a way to continue down some path of it, whether it's the right one. We will find out.

As I said, things keep branching off. First, it was, “Let's do this in my home.” Now I'm like, “I want to start an actual standalone studio. I have some money that I can do that with.” You should figure that out. My music needs to be not played locally or the small facet of my own mind like, “Let's submit it out to Apple, Spotify. Let's get it on Playlist, in front of people. Let's get it in soon into some shows.”

It's part of that learning and branching thing. You keep learning a little more as you keep working with people and understanding there's a lot more to this industry than just like, “I make music.” One, you have to work. Having talent is great but learning how to have that talent and learning how to expose that talent or get it out there is probably the more important part. It's not being talented. Unfortunately, sometimes in music, it's knowing how to get it out there. That's the hustle part of it and that's exciting, too.

You mentioned something about not sleeping as much. Whenever we have goals and have these big aspirations, it always helps to think upfront of what we are willing to sacrifice to get there. I did that when I left my corporate job and because of that, I have had a smaller transition because I knew that I wasn't willing to sacrifice my paycheck.

It wasn’t a surprise. When you did that, did you start slowly weaning yourself off and paying? You are like, “What if I didn’t have this? How much money would I be spending?”

I plan everything. It is interesting when you stop that check and not seeing it in your account.

That's one of the things and knowing what I have to do and how much it takes. One thing I have learned through music production is that things are not cheap. All the equipment and getting it is unfortunately pretty pricey but there are ways to do it methodically. Thankfully, I did have a nice few years with ExxonMobil before leaving, where I have been able to make and save some money. I was in a position where I'm able to hopefully get things off the ground and running a little bit faster than someone who didn't have that luxury of having a well-paying job over the years.

Get sleep and money. Anything else that you have sacrificed due to this journey that you are in.

There have been the times. I’m a very social butterfly type of person. I like to get out and have fun with people. Those times where things would normally be going on either on a weekday or on a weekend and if I'm into something, or I've got people coming over to work on something, my band wants to get together and do some jamming or working on the music, I have definitely given up those times where I could have gone on a trip.

Analyze your interests, have faith, and take action.

Those experiences of going out and about. I still travel and traveling is another important part of me living and getting the most out of life as I can, especially traveling for rock climbing. I definitely have learned to be like, “This is something that I’ve got to work on.” I devoted a whole weekend to certain music videos because I'm passionate about it instead of making that time to do something else or chill and relax.

It's weird because if you give up that lackadaisical mindset, it's something that you don't think you feel bad giving up. Most people would probably say like, “I would rather be productive.” You think about giving up that time where you could be sitting there doing nothing. Sometimes you are like, “I don't want to do that. I like being chill. I don't want to give that up. I like hanging out on the couch and watching TV.”

It's like, “I’ve got to stop that for a second, go and make it happen.” Instead of sitting there like, “Why don't I get on the computer, open up this thing and start working on it? Why don't I research this topic and get a little bit familiar with it? I’ve got to do that budgeting and scoping cost analysis for the studio.” That's my homework. I have done some but it's one of those like I keep pacing at it instead of sitting down and getting into it. The hard thing is getting a focus sometimes.

I had this question that popped up and I'm like, “I need to throw out this question.” You did mention that in music, there are a lot of working with people, organizing and all these stuff. In life, whenever we are in childhood, we are dependent. We go to be independent. The next evolution is being interdependent on knowing how to work with people. That's something that I feel in the next level of my business is where I want to go, being interdependent and relying on people. What have you learned from it? In your business, what have you learned from working with people?

One is that everybody has an opinion, which is great because that's how you get new thoughts and processes but that's also where a lot of the butting heads can come. It's nice when you find people that you can do that within a productive way. That's what our band is. We all came together and while we have our different styles, expectations, and wants, we have learned to accept majority rules. If everybody wants this, I will accept it for the band or that mindset of like, “I'm going to speak my mind. This is what I think is right.” Everybody is like, “I don't want it.” I will say sometimes I'm a little stubborn.

In a group or a team, who are you working at first?

If it's something I care about, then I'm a little more stubborn. If it's something I have a creative image for in my head, I’m definitely open to comments, criticisms and suggestions. There are some moments where I'm like, “That was nice but so sorry.” That's an artist mindset sometimes too if you have your vision.

Even for me, working with more people and partners in the future, you are giving up autonomy.

That's a big part of it. It’s learning to trust other people in terms of what they are going to do for you and to find the right people. I try to do as much research and vetting as I can for certain things, especially in music videos or something. I want to make sure I'm getting someone who can do the job right or someone who I respect, see their work and can be like, “That's what I want.”

In general, you have to let some of your egos go, especially when it comes to making music part of it. I am not Led Zeppelin. I'm not some famous band that has the pole to say like, “I need to be on Rolling Stones.” If I'm getting PR done for myself, I'm not expecting to be on some amazing website right away. As much as I think our music is the best or you want to believe that you've got some quality product, I also know how to let go of the fact that not everybody else thinks that way or not everybody else is going to believe it the way I believe it but at least, I believe or we believe it.

A part of entrepreneurship and owning your business is deciding to take action.

I'm very excited about it, and at the same time, I balance that with the, “I know we can get better and we can improve in a lot of areas.” It's this weird like, “I want to be the best. I want to have very impactful music. I want to produce for people that are very high-end and going to be amazing at the same time.” I'm not there yet. I need to be humble about what's going on and start in a position that makes more sense. That's where it's going to keep building.

It's starting from ground zero and working it up from there. I have never thought there was anybody I shouldn't work with because of anything or I never thought there was some publication that didn't make sense to let ourselves get put out to or something that didn't make sense for us to get on there. I was humbled usually when it was allowed or offered to be as part of something. It has always been nice to get any recognition for what we are doing. It's something I would have never thought I was doing in the first place. It's cool to see any bit of recognition in some form or another.

As we conclude, I have three more questions I have in mind. This has been so enlightening. For me, as I go through this journey and you are sharing experiences and seeing how you have them.

I'm sure it has been as challenging for you and thought-provoking. That's what's cool about it because you can highlight your experiences to connect with anybody else’s experiences, too.

Going into that train of thought, someone that is going through a process of gaining clarity on his interest and in his journey of entrepreneurship, which we are going through, what are the things that you can give us advice to this person? Maybe the top three things.

Having that full-on conversation with yourself from the very beginning of what it is you want to do is super important. It's weird because I find so many people that might not be happy with where they are but they also don't have any idea what they would do otherwise. They get stuck in there like, “I don't have anything else to do or anything I want to do otherwise,” or they just haven't figured it out yet.

As I said, I sat down with myself and said, “Here are three things that I liked doing. Are they plausible? Are they feasible?” Every time I hear somebody start that in their mind, they go, “I like this thing. I just would never see myself doing it.” Don't naysay yourself right away. Don't say that won't work. I was talking with my roommate about this. Sorry, I'm mixing up my entrepreneurial conversations now but were talking about, “Why does anybody open up a restaurant?” In Houston, there are one million restaurants. What makes yours special? It could be, “I'm going to start a podcast on the entrepreneur.” What makes yours more impactful than anybody else?

It has been a problem for me, too. “What's going to make my studio, amongst Houston studios or what's going to make my offering in music more impactful than anybody else or make it worth standing out?” It's a negative thought to have that you need to squash and say, “It doesn't matter if nobody likes it. If they do like it, great. I will have impacted some amount of people.” That's one of the hardest things to let go of like, “I don't need to change the world. I don't need to do anything in particular like to make a statement but if I do it because I want to, I'm going to be happy with it regardless.”

It's something that I'm at least somewhat interested in or can get behind for some amount of time, then at least you tried. Giving up that idea that what you are doing is no different than anybody else's is maybe one of the biggest things. Sitting down with yourself and having that conversation of what it is that you could do is probably a great thing because it helped me negate two things quickly, and then get onto the one in some form like, “I'm going to jump into it somehow.” The last thing is, once you have attacked, at least one thing that you think the tiniest way.

For me, it was that I made that decision. I said, “I want to get into music.” I spent $150 to $200 on one microphone and a little two audio interface. I had a computer already and bought a free version of Ableton, which is a mixing software and started randomly recording some stuff. I never stopped working in it and get the mentorship. It's that evolving process. Taking that first step, it's so cool to look back after a few years almost and say, “Holy crap.”

Every year, every few months, I was able to look back and say, “I hadn't done that before. That's new. That's an addition. Now, I have 2 or 4 of those songs or whatever it was. I have never worked at this venue before and now I'm working on this thing. Now, I have this piece of equipment.” It keeps steamrolling. Taking that first step, and then not stopping to learn and figure out what might be the next step in the process is huge.

I love what you said, that whatever business you are in, let go of the belief that this is for everyone or everyone has to buy into it like with the restaurant because, with entrepreneurship, something to be comfortable with is rejection. Some people call it rejection or people not buying your services. Something that has helped me is I was in network marketing a few years ago and they would say every ten people that you present the opportunity, one of them will buy.

That brings to mind sales. In sales, you are presenting the opportunity. It's not for everyone and it's okay for that person not to see it firsthand or maybe you need to put yourself several times in front of that person for them to realize the value. In consulting, I saw it all the time. How do you work through that? The sales or maybe people not buying into your services, have you experienced a lot of that or not?

As I said, I’m on the PR side of things trying to get our music out there. I have definitely faced much like, “We don't like this. You are not quite hitting the vibe we' ae hitting.” At first, it might have bugged me like, “What do you mean? What are you saying this is the problem?” I don't feel that way about it and taking it to heart. It's more to what I was alluding to before. Maybe it's not for everybody, especially music. Of all artistic tastes and things, people have their own things that they like. It's working through it in that way.

Realizing that you are not going to be for everybody potentially. Your thing might not be for everybody, but staying true to it, regardless because when it is right for the right person, it's going to hit from a production and studio standpoint. I probably run into it a little less because I haven't had as many clients from a studio perspective come through. Sometimes they work with you continuously. Sometimes they will work with you once and then they don't come back.

You can paint the picture like, “Maybe things weren't clicking as much.” It's a matter of, “I have my style of producing. I have my style of making music and what works for me. If it's something that clicks, then we can make something productive together. I can help you get what you need to be done. If you like the end product, awesome. If not, thank you very much. I'm glad you came in. Hopefully, I’ve got you something. I hope you didn't waste your time and money. Hopefully, there’s some positive element that came out of this.” One of the greatest things to realize is you are not going to be for everybody or whatever it is.

If someone wants to find you on social media, what are your services?

You can find me and the band on Instagram @Voyce_Memos. I post a lot of things about music there. I also have a website, VoyceMemos.com where you can contact me via email and it's [email protected]. That's where I mostly operate. As anybody who reaches out to me, it's easier through the band because I will do the mixing and music production stuff through that, too. My studio is called Meraki Recordings. That's what I'm going to continue to advertise.

I liked the words. It's Greek and it means to do something with passion and do something well. It's a nice word. I came across it in some random videos. They say there's no equivalent for English, it's got a little deeper meaning than like to do something with passion but it's pretty much that mindset. I do editing, recording, mixing and mastering services for music or podcasts. If you want to do voiceovers for anything completely in the realm of things, I do live venue mixing as well. If you are having a concert and want it to sound good, we can definitely help in that vein. We make music, so you can listen to it on Spotify. The videos are on YouTube.

Thank you so much for being here. It was so exciting and I feel I learned so much. Selfishly, I was absorbing all the information.

It’s good to get it out. It realigns me back into what I need to focus on and keep in the front of my mind. It's good to have these conversations and talk with inspirational people. You have always been a good inspiration for me, too. There have been a few other people that were working in Exxon specifically that have always turned my mind into a new way of thinking and you were one of them always.

It was always in my mind since my first year but I didn’t know-how. I have to figure it out.

We are going to have a connection somewhere and here it is.

 Important Links:

• Ancestry.com
• @Voyce_Memos - Instagram
• VoyceMemos.com
• [email protected]
• Meraki Recordings
• Pro Tools
• Ableton
• Spotify – Voyce Memos
• YouTube – Voice Memos

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