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You are here: Home / Archives for Law of Attraction

Law of Attraction

Thoughts on the Road: Just Go For It!

By Adam Rafferty 3 Comments

Greets Gang!  I am on a morning train from Dresden to Osnabruck, Germany today…it’s a sunny morning, and my eyes are barely open…

I just finished 4 days in the Czech Republic playing for the “Guitar Across Styles” festival, and had a wonderful visit there.

Adam Rafferty - Fingerstyle Guitar in Prague October 9, 2011
Adam Rafferty - Fingerstyle Guitar in Prague October 9, 2011

As I sit on the train, I am feeling tired but very happy. As I reflect on that….

Quite often I get messages from younger fans who struggle with whether to go into music professionally or something more “stable”.

I am in no position to comment on what anyone should or shouldn’t do – so, this is not about choosing music or not.

However, it is important that you, I and everyone just “go for it” in our lives through a position of strength and courage – as opposed to a fearful, careful sense of living.

There was a time in my life that I knew I wanted to play guitar full time, but always had a “backup safety plan” which invariably became the “plan”.  (A little study of the “Law of Attraction” would explain why this happens! )

I had to have a lot of courage (cahones) to “go for it”.   This came after years of feeling a “dissonance” between my day to day life and my dreams – and living  a frustrating life for some years.

Each time I would shed a “steady” job (that I felt I needed for survival) it took an enormous amount of courage.

I would feel like the wheels were coming off, it was so stressful with each courageous step!  And like diving from a high diving board, I had to leap – and it was scary as hell.

This morning I am quite tired, sitting on a train, carrying heavy crapola on the road all over Europe…this is a job I’d do for no one if were it just for the money.  But it’s not – it’s for the love of what I do.

The warm feeling in my belly is exactly the opposite (and absence) of the gut wrenching aggravation I felt many years ago of having a dream, yet not having the courage to go for it.

Eventually I took the leap…with no safety net.  To my surprise, I am flying better than ever.  So can you!!!

When you have the courage to go for it, and actually do in fact go for it – it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

So – Swami Raffanada’s advice for the day is….whatever your dreams are, just go for it!  It’s worth it.

Garbage Bags and Inner Peace

By Adam Rafferty 8 Comments

Recently I found myself on tour in the Toronto airport, itching for a book to read.  I’m kind of a self-help motivational junkie, and the newsstand had a small book that jumped out at me called “How to Save an Hour a Day, Guaranteed” by Michael Heppell.

On first blush, it looked like a quick reference for this type of thing, and I felt “well I have read all this before, but I’ll use this as a quickie reminder.”  I figured for the $20 I’d spend, I’d make it back in saved time.

I needed a little “kick in the pants” and thought perhaps there would be at least one good idea in the book.

Actually, I am really knocked out by this simple little book.  Some organizational books are a real “geometry project.”  With those books, I find myself getting drawn in and then have a hard time following through with the full setup – even if they are more comprehensive.

This book had some quick, but real game changing ideas…here are a few:

1) Define why you want more time. This is a very clever way to get you on track with what you want.  This is the positive pre-cursor to eliminating negatives.  The stronger the motivation with the end in mind, the better you will do.  Hint – don’t skip this step!

2) For a week  track what you do every 15 minutes on a spreadsheet or some type of graph.  I’m 4 days into this, using Excel.  Like a diet, you see where you produce good things, and where you waste time.  The time sheet won’t lie!

This alone for me immediately translated into less time spent online.  The constant “blood letting” of checking email and Facebook got limited to 3 times per day, and I have got a TON more accomplished as an result.

3) Do a deep “clutter clean.”  I remember when I moved in to my place how organized and clean it was – I felt great, free and limitless.   Also, when I go to a hotel room on the road…I can THINK because I don’t have every loose end in my life staring at me.

I highly recommend a deep clutter clean…

  • Anything not used in 6 months…throw out.  Business cards you’ll never enter in the PC or Mac – throw out!!!  Old magazines, clothes you never wear (donate), crap in desk droors, coupons, all of it.  Be merciless and throw it all out.
  • Big things standing in corners?  Get em into a closet so you don’t look at them.
  • Things you use all the time?  Find a home for them, and take em out when you use them.
  • Instruction Manuals?  They can all be found online as PDFs…throw out!

And so on….

4) List your “Time Bandits”.  As I became aware of mine,  I “woke up” immediately and found I had more time. I set the phone to vibrate, put the computer in airplane mode, just to start.

To Sum it Up…

My whole being has simply melted and relaxed into a profoundly peaceful place since doing this.  (Mainly due to the deep clutter clean & purge) I feel it especially as a physical sensation in my solar plexus.  It’s not just “nice” – it’s profound.

This may sound odd, but musically I have grown since doing a deep clean…getting rid of crapola helps one (me) be clear and creative.   Suddenly new music ideas have the space to “pop” into my awareness.

It’s as if I am letting old things go to make room for the new, now that my environment is reflecting that.  Yummalicious!

There’s more in the book, but for now I highly recommend it….and hey – he offers a money back guarantee if you feel the book didn’t help you!

Lastly, the book is written in a way that is easy on the eyes, good subheads…he suggests skimming and scanning, so it need not be read cover to cover (even though I did).

Thumbs up for ” “How to Save an Hour a Day, Guaranteed” by Michael Heppell.

Michael Jackson Guitar

By Adam Rafferty Leave a Comment

Hi Gang!

I just wanted to share this little interview with you – it’s the EPK for the new Michael Jackson Guitar Tribute CD “I REMEMBER MICHAEL”.

I speak a little here about my inspiration from MJ & hearing his music as a kid growing up in New York City in the 80’s.

Enjoy!

– Adam

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiwdQcqSqw]

Nerves and Gigs: Particles or Waves?

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

Greets Gang! I’ve just returned from an uplifting week teaching at the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina.

It was exhausting, but it feels great to inspire students and be around a large group of people all fired up and excited about music.

The topic of how to deal with nerves in performance up in a few conversations, and somehow I found corollary to quantum physics.

People asked me if I got nervous. Sometimes I do – but these days it’s less and less. I myself wondered, “why am I less nervous than I used to be?”

In quantum physics, there’s a nifty experiment called “the double slit” experiment.

Physicists became awestruck at the fact that when light was shot at photograhic paper one photon particle at a time, it still printed on the paper as if it were a wave, not individual light particles.

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho”]

What this raised in my mind was the idea that any singular event in our life may look like a “particle” but is really part of a larger “wave.”

If you don’t perform on stage very often, it may feel like a very important singular event (a particle) of your life.

You want everything to be perfect – the sound, your performance, and so on. There’s a lot of pressure there for that one particle of time to be perfect!

When you perform on stage 100 times, you naturally encounter things such as:

  • the sound wasn’t perfect
  • the monitors were not loud enough
  • the guitar was out of tune, the lights blinded me
  • I botched a few notes

But on the positive side you will experience things like:

  • wow that was a great performance
  • they loved it
  • the soundman did a great job
  • everything fell into place just right
  • man it felt really good, etc.
  • I got offered another gig at this one

I am illustrating the following – that over the course of 100 gigs (or any semi large number) you will experience a host of scenarios, ups, downs, good, bad – and by gig number 101 you feel all the gigs to be a “wave” of events.

Each gig is still important, but now each gig is part of of a whole, and you can actually enjoy yourself more because there is less pressure on any single gig “particle” for everything to be perfect.

The same holds true for anything you do regularly whether it’s practicing your instrument, exercising, meditating, eating right, and so on.

The more you do it, the easier it gets because the behavior becomes a “wave” of activity in your life rather than a singular “particle.”

Some thoughts on Music “Success”, “Making It” and “PR”

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

A fellow musician recently asked to pick my brain about how I’ve been promoting myself, achieving some modicum of success on YouTube and keeping a busy tour schedule going.

I think they are looking for a technique that they can add on to what they currently do rather than change what they do from the inside out.

There are a million gurus out there who are teaching techniques and social media techniques, but I will tell you something that’s maybe scarier.

There is no one magic bullet, no one activity that will be a “fix it” add on for music career success. The reality is that the answer you seek comes from the inside, not the outside.

People have to like what it is you do (your music), and you can’t buy that. Once you have a viable “product” (again, your music) that people honestly and truly LOVE yes it makes sense to pay for PR, promo – but first you must see if what you have is actually working, and be honest with yourself.

  • At a certain point around 2006 I realized that what I was doing musically was not working spiritually, musically and financially. This was frightening, but at least it was honest.
  • I got quiet and did some “zero based thinking.” Meaning, I said “if I could clear the table and start over, what would I do or not do?”
  • I have gotten totally honest with myself about music that I love to listen to and love play, regardless of who approves of my choices (this is a biggie and it could change your entire social circle, relationships and life!)
  • I’ve gotten quiet regularly and listened to my intuition and gut.
  • From the silence, I have allowed new creative ideas to come to me rather than force ideas.
  • When I tossed the first videos up on Youtube, I paid attention to what people liked. I did nothing crafty to make videos “get hits” – it just happened.
  • I constantly pay attention to what people like in general – not that I copy or do it, but I watch people, take notes.
  • An audience is 2% musicians, 98% regular folks, so I stopped caring what musicians thought of me.
  • I pay attention to and seek out the perfect intersection of my personal integrity and what people like.
  • I play from the heart and am committed 100% to it, but I pay attention to my world inside AND the world outside like a martial artist.
  • Like Thomas Edison, who failed over and over and over with the invention of the light bulb, I’ve kept trying different things until I see what works – as opposed to forcing one thing that does not work.
  • I am ready to adapt at any moment.

People who honestly love what I do has contributed more to the touring, magazine articles, etc than anything I could do one a technical level to “promote myself.”

This being said, I’ve now “tested the waters” and made sure that what I do is worthy of some PR, which I plan to do on the upcoming CD release of “I REMEMBER MICHAEL” – my Michael Jackson Guitar Tribute.

PR is expensive, but that’s how you get more eyeballs. That comes after you’ve tested the “product” – not before.

Doing PR for something people don’t like could be financial suicide, so test, test, test and first make sure that you and your audience love what you do. If a restaurant has sucky food, all the advertising in the world won’t make people love the menu! So – audience first….test…then, PR.

Do people really and truly love what you do? Be honest! You may need to “clear the table” and start over rather than persist in something that does not work.

Yes it is scary and yes it takes guts.

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