The Learner Identity

What's up gigging pros. It's Jared. And today I want to chat a bit about identity. But before we dive in, first, I want to let you know, if you haven't gotten your Gigging Secrets, copy your book, now's the time to do it, it is free. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep it free. But if you've ever wanted to learn the business of our art, the step by step, how do we book gigs for ourselves. So we don't have to rely on other band leaders to hand us gigs when they're able to book them. Or how do we not have to rely on orchestra audition committees, to like are playing better than the other 100 applicants. And you just want to book your own gigs, get your copy, and GiggingSecrets.com, it's literally free. If you don't like gigs, don't get it. If you'd like gigs, go ahead and get it. Alright, so that's my pitch for the for the day, I want to chat about identity because I recently joined a coaching program. It's a business coaching program, I have a coach now, I'm not a coach, like coach a lot of musicians, but I am being coached by some of the top business leaders in the marketing world. And one of the things that they start out their program by talking about is identity. And identity is so important because it literally is how we define ourselves or how we let other people define ourselves. identity, you know, it's as simple as one word like I am a musician. But that one word puts us into a box that comes with a lot of baggage. And so one of the videos that I was watching today that my coach put together was one by Tom bill you who is in the personal development space, but he's also you know, he's literally made over a billion dollars by building his own nutritional supplement company quest nutrition, and then he sold it. So this guy really is made a lot of money. And so he was talking about identity and the box that you put yourself in the baggage. And he was talking about the problem with identity. Like the problem with most traditional identities, you know, the ones that most of us would call ourselves is that if we ever have a bad showing, as that identity, like say, my identities, I am a good musician, if there's ever a gig where we, I don't know, miss a couple notes, or we just completely screw up one song, or whatever. The problem is that that shatters our identity from underneath us. You know, if you say I am a top athlete, I am in a, you know, Olympic quality gymnast. And all of a sudden you show up to the Olympics and you're unable to play or not play but you know, be do gymnastics, then all of a sudden, your identity doesn't hold up. It crumbles beneath you. So then is there an identity that doesn't crumble when you fail? Because let's be real, we all fail here, I I fail on a daily basis, I make mistakes. I make even bigger ones, sometimes at gigs, but hey, I still still get back up and book more of them and play more of them. But is there an identity that in the words of Tom bill, you is anti fragile? anti fragile means it doesn't break. And he said that in all of his years of thinking about this, and he's got a lot of time to think being a billionaire and everything. He has only found one identity, which he's open to being wrong about. But the one identity that he has found that does not break ever is the identity of the learner. And I love that. I feel like I am constantly on this quest for more knowledge. How can I play my music better, but also, how can I build my business as a gigging bandleader that I can book more gigs, provide more work for the people who I employ, and get to play more music myself. And that is a game of learning. And so I've been on this path for a while, you know, everybody starts out as learners. We all go through the same public education school system were homeschooled. And then once you get to, you know, your last year of high school, many people choose to stay learners and go off to college, or stay learners and take private lessons. And we continue to do that for a little bit. But for many people, that's kind of about where the learning stops. You know, once once you get to a certain part in your career, you feel like you know it all or you don't need to learn anymore. And what happens is you put yourself into that identity box, and that box gets stronger and stronger and instead of just being anti fragile, it's now made out of steel. Which means if you If you want to do something new if you want to, if you've always relied on band leaders to hand you gigs, and you all of a sudden want to start booking your own gigs, you have to assume a new identity, you have to become the learner again. And I was in that spot too. You specifically for me, I feel like, I feel like music school kind of damaged me a little bit. And I apologize about the wind, it's pretty windy where I'm walking right now. But music school kind of damaged me to a point where I started to lose faith in my teachers. I wasn't seeing the results that they had promised to me. And I don't know, I just became very skeptical that they could teach me more. Unfortunately, for me, that also meant that I was less receptive to coaching, not just in music, but in other areas of my life. I started to think, Well, I know more about this than other people, like, why should I learn from somebody else. And that is a very dangerous and narrow way of thinking and it feels bad, like reflecting back on that. I shouldn't have thought that like I shouldn't have let certain experiences tarnish my view of coaching. Because I really do feel like that held me back, it took me When did I start Dream City Strings back in 2016. It's now 2021, it took me five years to get a coach for my business. Had I done that five years ago, I can't even imagine how much further I would have come now compared to where I am, which I'm happy with my progress. Don't get me wrong about that. But I do believe I could have gone much further, much faster. So now it's it's a game of catch up. But as a learner, I will do whatever it takes to learn as much as possible. If I make mistakes, there's nothing negative about that. Because as a learner mistakes are learning opportunities. So you know, if you're in your, if you're practicing a piece of music, and you make some mistakes, and if you get frustrated about that, try to reshift your focus, instead of being you know, having the identity of I am a great musician, which I'm sure many of you are, adopt the identity of I am a learner. And those mistakes, were opportunities for me to learn. How do I practice this section better? How do I understand the theory behind this better? How do I this, that and the other. And so that's just kind of my thoughts about the identity of a learner and why I agree with Tom bill you that being a learner is the only anti fragile identity. And I feel like it's very healthy. Like once you adopt that learning mindset, all of a sudden, you know you have fewer problems in life because problems are learning problems are learning opportunities, and we can take advantage of those. Alright, well thanks for tuning in. Make sure to be a learner and learn all about the business of gigging by getting your free copy of the Gigging Secrets book at GiggingSecrets.com. Just remember you are one gig away.