Personal Developement

A Note from 10,000 Feet

Greets Friends!

I am writing you from about 10,000 feet just on the other side of the Atlantic in a Swiss Int’l Air Plane. I am embarking on a long 7 week tour in Europe. I can’t sleep, and guess what – I play hours after landing in Hamburg! .

Well, why not write a blog entry? 🙂

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As I chatted on the plane with my row companion, we discussed how artists are not taught business. Hmm, well in music school I learned NO business stuff -it has all been from life experience.

Years ago on my first tours I’d find that I had a fanny pack full of Austrian schillings and have no idea if I made money, lost money or what on a tour. Having money felt good, but it was so fuzzy….

This occurred to me when Mom & Dad would say, “how’d you make out?” and all I had was a blurry memory of beer, selling CD’s, buying train tickets and having a great time. But oh no – here comes the credit card bill with the plane tickets for a trio!

And then a voice spoke to me – “the numbers don’t lie”.

I’d love to teach this to young musicians. (And if anyone out there has any suggestions for me as to getting better at budgets & planning I am all ears! Maybe a good book?)

I realized that with a spreadsheet program (I use excel) I could easily enter expenses as negative numbers in one column, income in another and voila – have it do some fancy totaling and see how well I did at a glance, and update anytime I pop in new numbers.

I actually just spent some time here on the plane setting up the template and could semi – project the tour income. Ok, there will be meals, then who knows what the CD sales will be – but all I have to do now is pop in numbers every day (USD or EURO – I set up conversions & totaling ) and I have a nice red box at the bottom with my “bottom line” in USD.

Of course when you are building a career & following your passion money is not the only measure, but “the numbers do not lie”. It’s always worth it to get out and play – but it is nice to come home with some dough too!!!

A great thing about this process is that I can see more clearly now that if I’d like to up my overall income, I need to earn a certain amount each gig, which amounts to setting firm prices for concerts. This process makes clear what I’d have to say “no” to, and helps me navigate my negotiations more clearly!

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this…time to try and sleep some.

Stay tuned!

🙂

Eating Frogs…mmmm Yummy!

By Adam Rafferty Leave a Comment

Greetings friends. Wow, it has been a whirlwind of activity here on my end….so much to talk about.

I recently picked up a personal development & productivity book by Brian Tracy called “Eat That Frog” and it has been a life changer.

My most productive periods in life have been when I have essentially focused on something and allowed the rest of life to fall apart. Yet, I somehow would feel guilty when I did that. For example, when I dove into solo acoustic guitar I simply let EVERYTHING else fall apart.

And, I find that I have returned to my standard M.O. of feeling overwhelmed and spending my days taking care of little tasks trying to “put out little fires “. The problem is – the feeling of overwhelment and the hyper activity of taking care of little tasks like email, phone calls, laundry end up happening instead of the 2 most important things – practice guitar and organize gigs!

Brian Tracy’s message is unique – you can never get it all done, so do the big important stuff and just let the little stuff fall apart. WOW. In hindsight, I saw that’s what I have done in my most productive periods.

According to him – the most successful people have the ability to figure out which action is the most important to do at any given time. You may find you have “10 to-do’s” on you to-do list – but ONE action will be TEN TIMES as productive as the other 9.

He calls this “eating the biggest, ugliest frog first”.

Let’s see if you can spot the most productive task.

For example:

Go To Cleaners
Buy Cat Food
Call Mom
Sew Hole in Shorts
Wash Dishes
****SEND CD TO MAGAZINE FOR REVIEW ****
Go To Post Office
Jog
Send email to dad
Re-organize bookshelf

He approaches this basic premise from many different angles. I am reading, re-reading and highlighting.

How often I find myself getting stuck in the B.S. tasks!!!

Allow me to share a personal story. For years, I have had a dedicated web server. Yep, I was a hobbyist programmer / web geek designer and would do the occasional site for friends / family and then host them for a few bucks a month.

Well, multiply that by about 15 friends and before I knew It – I was accountable to 15 people. I’m a nice guy, have a hard time saying no – and I can’t tell you how much guitar playing got pre-empted due to being in charge of this server.

Most of the time, the thing ran fine – and I had months and months where I did not have to think about it – but nonetheless, it was there.

Recently I had to decide (since I was in need of an upgrade) to keep it or not. After reading “Eat That Frog” I realized that the low-level, unproductive task of all the talking, energy, emails TOOK THE SAME TIME that a VERY productive task such as writing music or recording does.

From the book – “RULE: Don’t spend time doing something very well that needn’t be done at all”.

So this was and is a big “letting go”. Silly as it sounds, I had to admit that I like the feeling of controlling the server and of being the “go to” guy for people. Time to let go – and really decide what activities will accomplish my goals and what won’t.

And yes, I remember being on tour in Vienna years ago doing web tech support across the Atlantic right before a gig. Ridiculous!!! Well, I am proud to say that I have made the right choice now – and I urge you to do the same so that you may reach your goals.

Eat the big frogs FIRST, not the little ones.

I highly recommend this book if you feel that anything I have said here resonates with you!!!!

Introducing the Human Web Browser

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

I saw a youtube vid the other night which talked about quantum physics, spirituality and self realization. That’s my late night tv fix…since I have no TV, I tune in youtube. Sometimes I get very kooky stuff, and sometimes I stumble onto very profound information.

One video dealt with perception. Let’s say we see a bird out there. But wait – a small portion of the inside of our brain is showing us a bird. The eye is a camera lens letting in photons. So the image of a bird is in our brain, not out there. Better said if I say “when you think you see a bird out there, you actually see the image of a bird inside your brain.”

Likewise, the words you are reading now are not out there, they are “in your brain.”

Just think, a flavor or odor is not out there. It is only when it hits your taste buds, it sends a signal “to your brain”. That’s more understandable than sight, in a way. But if 2 people smell perfume, or a fart, they think it is out there in the air. Really all they know about is what is in their 2 brains.

Isn’t there something comical about always saying “YOUR BRAIN” over and over ?:-) Hang in there, let’s see where this goes.

When you hear something molecules move in the air and hit your eardrum. The sound is in your brain. And, the sense of distance – like “I hear the bus outside” or “I see the bird 50 feet away” – the sense of distance is – yep, you guessed it – in your brain!

The point is this – we get signals as input – and then de-code them into sights, smells, sounds, flavors and more. Then from there we experience feelings and emotions based on what we experience.

We know that our senses are limited. Blow a dog whistle – and to us it is virtually silent, so we see our hearing is deficient. Examples for all the senses like this could be given. Just think of how many radio signals and wi-fi networks are going, and we do not have the perception to even know they are there, further proof that there is more out there than “meets the eye”, ear, smell, taste or touch.

WE HUMANS ARE LIKE “WEB BROWSERS”

Then the thought occurred to me – as a person who has worked with coding for the web, if you look at “the source” of a web page it looks like total gobbledy gook. Please, do this as an experiment, go to View>Source in your browser menu. Look at the code. Then notice how the browser turns “information” into colors, fonts, images and more.

Yet, a web browser is a magical little program that “interprets” or makes sense of this gobbledy gook.

So, if we humans look out there and see shapes, colors, people, hear sounds, etc – that is akin to viewing a web page through a browser. (By the way, colors exist in our brain – they are not really there)

Just imagine this unbelievable electrical “matrix” out there – and we make sense of it, just the way a web browser makes a page of code intelligible.

You are like a web browser looking out into this unbelievable “field” of energy (code) and in your brain you are able to separate, identify and sense things. For the sake of total redundance – what you see is interpreted, just like a page of code is interpreted by a web browser.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

To see profound truth always sets us a little more free, and to see through the eyes of the creator always makes us more and more blissful. So, I sit in wonder and awe as I think about this. And then I sip more coffee….my brain likes that.

Don’t think there is a creator? Well just think about the incredible engineering it has taken to come up with a MAC G5 computer that can surf the nt and have a web browser. That was no accident, right? Can you really say that we are a random accident? Just as we created computers and are greater than them, something or someone greater than us must have created us.

As well….can a computer know the human? No. Imagine, a G5 as complex and unbelievable a piece of machinery as it is, cannot know love. I believe there are many things we can’t know much in the same way. However, through quiet and meditation we can know much more than what our senses tell us.

The point is this – can we look at our reactions to things and can start to take ownership, and know – beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are responsible for our life experience, out emotions and they are inside us, not outside?

Just like the bird image is in our brain, and sound is in our brain, so are the notions of success, happiness, spiritual connectedness…it’s all an inner game. Can we take responsibility for interpreting things the way we do and know it is not “out there” but inside us?

Have fun in your brain today.

Stillness at 7am and Pervading Peace

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Greetings Friends.

It’s about 7 am, and I am enjoying my first sips of hot fresh coffee…the streets of Queens are quiet and only half of the street is seeing the first rays of today’s sun….

This past week was fabulous. I had a knockout gig at Acoustic Long Island, spent time with my family, had some “working musician” type gigs, and today I leave for Nashville to hang out at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society yearly gathering.

Life is good. I am at peace. I am fortunate to wake up every day to infinite possibilities. I am blessed to have a worthwhile goal of playing this guitar as good as I can.

It’s really not all about “guitar” though. I am lucky and fortunate in life to see meaningful goals ahead of me, and I get to spend my time and energy every day realizing those goals. I have made decisions and sacrifices to set up that type of lifestyle.

To witness the unfolding of it all is breathtaking. To see that I, as a human, have the ability to visualize something and bring it into being is an awesome feeling.

A few years ago I envisioned playing solo acoustic guitar for people and knocking ’em out. To see that the “vision” has materialized means I can create my reality, I can do it – whether it is a house, car, career – anything – I can do it. And, I’ll never “get there”…it’s all a delicious process.

Success is the “delicious unfolding” of one’s desires. Success is living on purpose, rather than default.

I get to wake up every day and feel this good. That is wealth, abundance and success. I wish this for everyone.

When I talk to friends and family, and I see their confusion, not knowing the career direction they want, or frustration, the comparing to others and feeling like they are falling short, not looking good enough, and all the typical psycho spiritual ailments of common folks, I want to tell them……

Turn the TV off.
Turn the laptop off.
Get quiet.
Be still.
Breathe.
Allow restlessness to arise, but stay there.
Allow the chatter to go on, it is it’s own thing. It’s not you.
Watch what happens when it stops.
Bathe in the silence.
Breathe.
Listen.

Do this twice a day for 30 minutes and watch your life change.

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Time to pack…see you in Nashville!!!

Letting Seeds Grow

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

Greetings Friends!

Wow, so much has happened in the last week, I don’t know were to begin.

A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of a Tony Robbins CD (sorry Tony, don’t worry – I’ll be buying stuff from you soon!) and I gotta say – the man is a genius.

The expression “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” was exemplified when I heard this cd.

A typical frustration that I bump into (and many of us do) is “why can’t I be further along than I am”. Whether it is financial, career, family, skill at something, one’s physical appearance – it is easy to be dissatisfied with the present circmstances.

Eckhart Tolle would say it is the experience of saying “no” and pushing against what is that brings us unhappiness. Absolutely true.

But Tony said something so real, so obvious that I just perked up.

He said, “maybe you’ve planted seeds and just have to wait until they grow”.

Bingo. This really chilled me out!

I often get comments on youtube and audience comments amounting to “why aren’t you more famous, you’re as good as ……(pick a well know guitarist)”. And then, I find that I am walking around, irritated slightly at the perfect unerring response of the universe. I am where I am, but want to be “further ahead”.

Add to that the financial pressures of life, a little bit of ego…and away we go!!! 🙂 The frustrated ideas bring about frustrated emotions, and then I roll down the slippery slope of negativity. Hmm….how can I avoid this?

Now I see. My little seeds of my acoustic guitar direction have had much less time underground than some other people’s “seeds”. It is natural, perfect for me to be right where I am. The seeds are sprouting, and I gotta “keep on keepin on” to make sure the water and sunlight is consistent. That means ongoing touring, practicing, writing – and WAITING PATIENTLY to let nature “do it’s thing”!

I am writing about this so that you can take a look at your life and see if you are frustrated that “little seedlings” are causing you upset because you want them to be more grown up than they are.

A farmer knows if he want’s a harvest that he has to prepare months ahead…..