The Michael Jackson Fingerstyle Guitar Sessions

My buddy Paul Beaudry and I started doing 2 person “mastermind” sessions in 2007. Even though we are musicians, we realized that chatting in the car rides after gigs was not enough, and that we needed non-music time to sharpen our minds and lives.

“Mastermind” meetings have been done by the greatest businessmen of all time like Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie and other great leaders. They are described and recommended in many of today’s success books by authors like Jack Canfield and Brian Tracy.

The concept of a “Mastermind” meeting is that the group, collectively harnesses divine, cosmic intelligence to bear on a problem or issue and helps solve it.

Each member gets to take a turn presenting their problem and hearing about a possible solution. It’s more than a think tank though. Very special forces come into play when intelligent minds come together as one, in a cosmic focus, and are open to the power of the divine.

Advice can be personal, financial, psychological, informational – and in our case, musical.

This is very different from someone giving you a flip opinion about what you should do. Mastermind meetings take a spiritual aspect into account, and the minds present work as one and connect in ways we can’t comprehend intellectually. Egos have to step aside while the cosmic mind gets to speak through the group, which can be as small as 2.

Paul and I start each weekly meeting (yes, in the middle of Starbucks, usually) with a prayer, or incantation if you will. One of us says this out loud while we both hold our hands in prayer:

“We now ask to be filled and surrounded with light, and our hearts be open to receive guidance from the higher power.”

It’s from these meetings with Paul that all my DVD and CD ideas came into focus. I can remember coming into meetings with 10 ideas about what to accomplish next, and Paul might say “well the next order of business is the MJ CD.” Also – it is thanks to Paul that I went to a real recording studio to record this, and didn’t set up mics at home and do a hack, homemade job.

Even what appears to be mundane advice as shown above has a spiritual essence, just behind it. To leap into courageous actions brings up issues of one’s self worth, self esteem, vision of what life will be like, and goal setting.

A Musical Mastermind Mixing Session

Yesterday Paul came down to my 2nd mix session for my Michael Jackson Fingerstyle Guitar CD, so we had 4 people in the studio: Paul, Gene Paul (Les Paul’s son and mix / master genius) and his partner Jamie Polaski. Jamie has been appreniticng with Gene for years, and is just awesome with the ears and the tools. (Check them out at gandjaudio.com)

Paul and I stepped out for lunch, and I said to him “Wow this is a helluva mastermind session. 4 sets of ears and intelligent musical minds all bearing down on the problems and subtleties of this music. I’m lucky.”

We looked at eachother and laughed, because this was a textbook definition of the “Mastermind.” The group was harnessing the power of the cosmic mind, and revealing a “true” solution to each little song on this record. Every person brought a little piece of truth and intelligence to the sound.

I stepped back, and saw that this would be impossible to do as one person. Too much can slip past one guy or gal. I then gave thanks to God, realizing how lucky I was to be there and have these guys help make the next CD be the most excellent CD it can be.