Greetings Friends!
It’s been a busy month over here at Adam Rafferty’s humble home / office / studio. This past month we all witnessed the launch of the Stevie Wonder DVD so it’s been BUSY. Things are calming down now that the initial rush is over. Talk about exciting! I am catching my breath.
A bunch of my musician buddies are asking me how I got my stuff out there on youtube and am having this guerilla success in terms of making a whole lotta friends, fans and making noise in general about gigs, tours, DVDs and the like. In fact, my buddy Peter Mazza and I had lunch the other day to discuss this.
I’d love to do a book or course on this stuff. While it reeks of “success guru” crapola, it works. And I vow to never spew info unless I can back it up 100%.
There is a combo of “heaven and earth” in success, I am finding. What I mean is that there has to be a spiritual element. You can’t fool the universe. You can’t bulls–t people, or yourself. Whatever it is you do or offer should hook into your integrity and be intelligent.
Ok, there are guys who sell toilet paper and fill a need, but I am talking about being a musician or an artist. Just look at any musician who has to play music where the soul disconnects – usually that type of musician is miserable. So, I play music that really feels good to me. That’s step 1.
Before I get to step 2 (and I am improvising this step by step method…) let’s go quantum. I listened to a Greg Braden (author, philosopher, and very cool dude) interview, and he mentioned an experiment in which photons in a vaccum “lined” up in the presence of human DNA. Yep, light particles assumed form in the presence of human DNA. This suggests on a quantum level that we create our reality.
This truly fascinates me. And hey, a Stevie Wonder DVD was first a vision, and now it’s real. That’s just lotsa little photons lining up….
So – step 2 would be to retrain the mind to look for, find and create success. Rather than tell my buddy about the step by step actions, I gave him my favorite book titles to learn about the mind.
When you learn that we have 4 billion bits of info available to us at any second, but “see” only 4000 – you learn that we see what we train ourselves to see. Insane. The mind and the universe are more mysterious than we’ll ever know.
In my case, I have truly had to re-program my mind to see and live success. The choices I make – whether it’s song choices, design work, who I hire for my team, what I spend time on – all these choices are now aligned with a deep, subconcious “problem solving” mechanism of achieving success. Each action is merely a metal shaving being pulled by a bigger magnet, which is the subconcious.
Bottom line – I love people. I want to make ’em happy and bring ’em music. The success I speak of is multi dimensional, and has “money” as a sliver of the pie. Jeez, what do I do with money anyway? Put out another CD! Of course it helps survival also. The real joy I get is to brighten people’s lives, for real, yo!
Well, this is just coming attractions of some type of course I hope to teach on day. I find it to be utterly upside down that there are so many gifted talented people out there who can’t “get out there” and figure their business stuff out. Maybe I can turn some people on to the good stuff now that I am finally discovering what works.
Until next time!
– AR
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Adam,
My 12 year old grandson and I enjoyed your show, discussion, and the “Cole Clark” guitar at World Music this Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee. There is something I noticed about yourself and Tommy Emmanuel. You “Hear” the music. The average person hears the notes, feels the beat, and attaches an emotion. You and Tommy “Hear” the music and its possibilities, then you act on those possibilities. My father pointed out something years ago. “Son, there are music players and “musicians.” Liberace was a piano player. Vladimir Horowitz was a “pianist.” It was a pleasure to meet a “guitarist.”
Brother James
The “Rev”
Hi Adam,
I can’t stop thinking about how you have come into my life and are such a beautiful person in every way. I enjoy all your talents, and am joyful that you are sharing so much wisdom with us struggling musicians. You have a huge shining light that I know you will keep on shinning for all of us. After having read this blog today, I really, really wish I would have remembered to sing, “Surrounded by Gold” as you touch upon what some of my song is about…the soul of an artist.
Much love, Nomi