[TFA Career Day 2025] The 4% Rule – A Guide to Strategic Career Growth with Chris Still

Ask questions, interrupt me, raise your hand, or put things in the chat—whatever you need. I want to try and put one concept in your head, and I’m going to give you some sticky phrases and some tools that you can use. One of the things I find really frustrating with education systems in general, or any kind of mentorship really, is when somebody puts out a really great idea, and everybody gets fired up about it, and then there’s really no follow-through. There’s no actionable steps you can take, or any kind of metric that you can measure what it is that you did. Did you actually get anywhere?

This is sort of the crux of this presentation today, which I’m calling “The 4% Rule: One Hour a Week, No Excuses.” I’m going to talk about what that means in a minute. Think about the last time you had a big project. It might have been a recital, applications for a school or a job, or an audition. Or maybe you were going to start a YouTube channel or increase your studio—whatever that business part of your life is. Think about when you decided, “Okay, Monday morning, 8:00 AM, I’m gonna hit that and get to work.”

How’d that go for you? Not really great, probably, right? You probably got up and said, “You know, before I start today, I think I’m just gonna make a cup of coffee,” because who doesn’t like a cup of coffee? So you went over there and you realized, “Oh, there’s no mugs.” “I should probably just run the dishwasher.” And then when you opened the dishwasher, you were like, “Oh, some of these mugs I meant to give to Goodwill. I’m gonna put these in a box real quick and then put ’em out in the garage.” Then you head out to the garage, and the shelf where the Goodwill items go is disorganized. “You know what, before I get to work on my project, I’m just gonna quick clean the garage.”

You guys can relate to that, right? I know I have procrastinated like a champ. So, this idea is: Are you really aligning your efforts with your goals? I want you to really get kind of viscerally honest with yourself with that question. A lot of you might be doing a really good job. I’ve had clients with whiteboards and Google Planners and everything, doing a really great job. But there’s a lot of busywork that we get assigned in our subconscious that we think is important. Can you relate?

There’s another trap that I want to help you avoid today, which is what I call the shiny object trap. This is when, even if you are kind of aligning your efforts with your goals, you might not be very strategic about it. For example, “Do I need to create…?” Why am I calling you out? Yeah, sorry, hey, it’s called The Honesty Pill Podcast for a reason. Um, there’s this really tempting thing to do, like, “You know, before I launch that next program…” (I don’t know how many of you guys are doing online programs, I assume many of you since you’re sitting here in an online program) “…I’m just gonna redo my website real quick,” or, “I’m gonna have to buy a new camera,” or, “You know, I really should buy a new mic.”

By the way, I’m the worst hypocrite about this because if you could see the ridiculous amount of tech that I like to play with—it’s my drug of choice. I like technology; it’s fun for me. But it’s a massive distraction. You know what you need to start a successful podcast? A phone. That’s all you need. If you have a phone, you can have a podcast. You do not need a soundboard and all this stuff. Am I aligning my efforts with my goals when I’m chasing shiny objects? No. Am I aligning my efforts with my goals when I’m procrastinating by doing things out there? Natalie says, “This is me. Okay, on the self-discipline, but bad with strategy.”

Yeah, and this, by the way, applies to musicians taking auditions big time. This is why I’ve actually created that course on helping people with auditions. So let’s dig into this a little bit. A serious conservatory student—I’m sure all of you are musicians—you’ve all been through the practice room situation. Let’s say that you practice three to five hours a day when you’re in a conservatory, right? Which adds up to about 20 to 30 hours a week. That is a significant investment of time and energy, right? And hopefully, you’re in there doing work that makes sense.

Contrast that with most musicians who dedicate almost none of that time to their portfolio careers. What is that? Networking, project development, marketing, and visibility efforts outside the practice room that will actually propel their careers in different, impactful ways. For most people, that number is actually zero. Okay? Zero. Now, I’m not saying that practicing is not important. However, that mentality, listen to this, okay, really hear this: This mentality that we develop in conservatory—that spending all of your energy and time in a practice room to perfect your performance—carries over into our lives and our careers afterward. This is a problem because it is no longer okay to just be a really great trumpet player or a really great violist or really great pianist. You have to learn how to market yourself and become visible. I’m going to talk about that more later.

So, what would happen? Here’s my question. This is sort of the 4% thing. What would happen if you redirected—I did the math, it’s about 4% of your effort if you’re putting 20 to 30 hours in the practice room—what would happen if you redirected 4% of that practice time toward your career, your portfolio career? By the way, when I say career, I’m talking about all of it. Think about that for a minute.

When I first got my job at the LA Phil, I was all practice and no system. Unfortunately, I hit a big wall because the LA Phil is probably one of the busiest orchestras in America. We have an insane schedule. You would not believe what my Google Calendar looks like. I’m running out the door to do a premiere right after this is over. It’s crazy. I got endless repertoire pressure, and my practice focus started to crack. First came burnout and then boredom. This is a terrible place to be, you guys. I thought I had my dream job, and I’m burnt out and bored.

That’s when I discovered something that I actually love to do, which is audition coaching. It’s interesting; I always thought I wanted an orchestra job. Turns out what I like to do is create community. I figured this out because I discovered what it is that I have to focus on that can make the biggest change. What moves the needle for me in the practice room and in my business? Here’s something you’re probably not going to like the sound of, but I’m going to say it anyway. For me, the thing that moved the needle in my business and in my practice room was Money Making Activities (MMAs). And if that phrase made you cringe, good. Here’s a news flash: If you’re a musician, you are in sales. You have to learn how to market yourself. You have to learn how to become visible. You have to convince people why they should care.

So all of this is to say, this is not about practicing less. It’s not about working less. It’s about working with more focus and avoiding the pitfalls of distraction, shiny objects, and knowing that you can maintain this level of activity without getting burnt out.

Alright, I want to give you a key phrase here. Actually, we already talked about this a little bit, but this is basically what we just talked about: 15 to 30 hours of practice, and practically nothing for portfolio careers. Here’s your phrase: One hour equals one open door. By the way, one of the things… oh, let me just got to admit this to you. So, one of the ways that I focus my actions with my goals for this presentation is I used AI to help me generate this slideshow. I don’t want to talk about whether AI is good or bad; that’s another conversation for a different session. However, the photos that this thing created for this are absolutely hilarious, and I can’t wait to show you the three-handed violist or violinist. It’s some good stuff. So that’s your humor right there.

One hour equals one open door. So, what I’m suggesting is that maybe you can spend that one hour in 10-minute increments over six days. Possible, right? Totally easy. So here’s a question for you guys: What is the fear that comes up in terms of becoming visible? If I asked you to get out there and really become visible 10 minutes a day, six days a week, one hour a week, what sort of fears come about? Talking about social media, coming out as a coach? What’s fearful? Why are you hearing, “Uh-oh, no”? Is somebody frozen? Oh dear. “No, it’s ‘The Love is an Open Door’ song.” Oh, awesome. Dana writes, “Being judged.” Oh, wow. Holy cow. Esther wrote, “Judgment.” Grenadine wrote, “Rejection.” Totally. Guys, if people think that you’re posting about yourself, it means you’re bragging. Or if you’re sharing something that’s not perfect, people will think less of you.

I actually, somebody told me, get this, you want to hear this? When I had principal and associate principal jobs my whole career, when I got my second trumpet job in the LA Phil, I had a colleague tell me that I was “quitting the trumpet” by becoming a section player. That’s the level of lunacy and scrutiny people will put on you if you step outside your box. You know that crabs-in-a-pot thing, right? If there’s a bunch of crabs in a pot, and one crab starts to crawl out and get to the top, the other crabs will actually pull that crab back down. It’s a real thing. Why do they do that? Because they don’t want anything to change. They’re fearful. “Keep the status quo. Everybody stay where they belong. You’re not gonna climb out.”

So I guarantee you right now, if you start to step into this visibility, align your efforts with your goals, and really start to get something done, guess what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna start moving. Your colleagues—some of ’em aren’t gonna like it. I had so many people give me a hard time about becoming a coach. “Hey, Chris, are you a life coach now? What’s The Honesty Pill?” Literally, I got so much rousing. Trumpet players are real special, so I got a lot of rousing from my colleagues. Guess what? During the pandemic, when the LA Phil shut down and we had a massive pay cut, guess who was working 40 hours a week from a cabin in Colorado because I had created this online thing? Not only that, not only was it my actual lifeline, I had the best time. I had so much fun. That’s where my business actually took off, was during the pandemic. So, I want you to just put this all into context as we keep talking about this stuff.

Okay, let’s do a quick experiment. Oh wow, it’s already 12 after. Um, I’m gonna flip the script. And by the way, I have a really good PDF on flipping the script on a limiting assumption. If you guys want it, I’ll send it to Michelle. Let’s flip the script on a fear sentence. I’ll give you the example: “If I post about myself, people will think I’m bragging.” I’m gonna give you the counter belief, ready? “Sharing is progress. It helps people connect. It’s not bragging, it’s inviting them in.”

How about this one? I saw somebody write this in the chat: “I’ll be judged.” Okay, here’s your example fear sentence: “If I share something imperfect, people will notice and think less of me.” Okay, counter belief: And by the way, Michelle knows this totally. “People are busy. No one is actually thinking about you this much. They’ll either appreciate what you did or scroll past. Either way, you have lost nothing.” Michelle, I know you, you’re, you’re, you’re my hero. You post so often and so, like, walking down the street with a cup of coffee. That is getting over that fear.

Okay, here’s one more, and then we’re gonna move on. “I don’t have time to align my efforts with my goals. If I add career work, it’s gonna cut into my practice or my family time or my sleep or whatever.” I’m asking you for one hour, less than 1% of your actual week. You can find that if you’re willing to calibrate that and make it work.

Okay, I’m gonna give you some micro-actions you can actually do now. Okay, we did that. So here’s your micro-actions. I want you to—and you can do this offline if you’re watching this recording later—break your career goals down into small, manageable tasks that you can actually measure. For example, “Did I send a single email to my list today?” “Did I post something on social media?” It doesn’t even have to be social, by the way. You could post a practice clip on Instagram with like a sentence: “Hey, working on the ‘Don Juan’ again today,” or “Trying to get my sixteenths in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ ironed out.” That right there is increasing your visibility, but I promise you, you’re gonna run into those fears, so just get used to it.

Here’s another micro-action you can do: Email a past teacher or mentor just to check in, share an update. Just talking to that person is gonna infuse you with energy and help you focus. You can share a behind-the-scenes photo. Everybody loves behind-the-scenes stuff; share that on social media. You can call a colleague and talk about collaborating on a chamber piece. Maybe light some candles around your piano, right? Do something that people can recognize. Here’s my favorite one: Send gratitude back and forth. Just to remind you, I’m talking about aligning your actions with your goals, and I’m talking about sending a thank-you note to somebody who supported you recently. There’s a fluency and a currency in this type of energy, and I want to talk about you getting aligned in that as you’re doing this work.

Okay, here’s another sticky sentence for you: One action can create three outcomes. So if I am practicing and I am using a practice chart, and then I post that on Instagram, I’ve done one thing and I’ve recycled it three times. This is really important too: Consistency beats intensity. That’s another sticky phrase for you; that might be the biggest takeaway I can give you today.

I want you to create a reality check, career edition, playlist where you’re saying, “Here’s what I want to accomplish. Here’s what I actually accomplished.” What’s a good example of that? You can do this right now. Write down your last five things you did for your career, for your portfolio career. What are the last five things you did? Okay: “I wrote an email.” “I made a post on Instagram.” “I had a conversation.” Write it down on a piece of paper. Now look at that piece of paper. If it’s blank, your visibility is blank. Let me repeat that: Write down the last five things you did for your business, maybe this week, maybe this month. Look at it. If it’s blank, your visibility is blank. In fact, if you can’t name five people right now who know what you are working on right now, you’re invisible. I know people who are on my mailing list that don’t know about the Audition Accelerator. Man, I, I really try hard to get that communicated, but it sometimes there’s a lot going on. Like I said, people are busy.

Here’s another key phrase for you. Write this down: Tracking creates traction. Michelle says, “I have people complaining when they don’t know I’m performing in their city.” Hey, look, when I was principal trumpet in the Charleston Symphony, there was a Starbucks next to the concert hall. We used to wear tails, and I went in there with my tails to get a coffee before the show one night, and the barista said, “Hey, are you getting married?” I said, “No, there’s a concert starting in 20 minutes.” He’s like, “What concert?” I said, “The Charleston Symphony.” He said, “Oh, I didn’t realize we had an orchestra.” I’m like, “We share a wall with you guys.”

Anyway, you gotta be visible to people, okay? It’s your job. Nobody’s coming to find you, by the way. It’s your job to be an advocate. This is part of your portfolio career. This is part of your 4% work every day. Be visible. Be an advocate. Tell people why they should care. They’re not gonna come looking for you. You know that “if you build it, they will come” thing. How many of you guys have created a group program and then had terrible enrollment? That could be because you had a terrible idea. I doubt it. I bet you had a really great idea. I just bet you didn’t actually do the work to make people know about it.

I just want to say one more thing about this “one effort, three results” thing. Let me see, I already talked about this: recycle. Okay. If you want to align your efforts with your goals and spend less time and get more done, remember I’m asking you for 10 focused, strategic, impactful work a day, 10 minutes a day on your business over six days. If you actually recycle a lot of the work that you’re doing, this is gonna become so easy. I do office hours every week in Audition Accelerator. When somebody asks me a great question, like, “How should I know if I should take this audition or not? I’m scared. I’m not sure I’m ready for it,” I turn that into a blog. I turn that into a post on Instagram. I, I turn that into a PDF that I can hand out to everybody at the next session. By the way, yeah, Bernhard says, “You need to talk to people about what’s going on, even your barista.” Especially your barista; they’re the ones that are making the concert work because you got the caffeine.

Okay, so one effort for results. That’s good. Alright, let me see, how are we doing on time? I think I’m gonna skip over to this. This is a final question here, which is, “You’re doing so great. You can take all the time you need.” “Okay. Well, I want, I want to hear from people too though, ’cause I want to see how this was bouncing off of you.” So let’s, let’s take a, a, a minute or two just to journal for a second. Okay. And I’m gonna stop talking for a full… I’m gonna start a timer. I’m gonna start a timer for myself. I’m gonna sit here for a full two minutes, and I want you to answer the question, “If you had one hour this week to put toward your career, your portfolio career, what would you do?” You can use any of the examples we’ve covered. Okay. Ready? Go. You have two minutes. I’m gonna sit here.

Oh, tracking creates traction. We could come up with a way to track. One effort, three results. Facing those fears. One hour equals one open door. Oh good, you’re putting it in the chat. Love it. Love it. Yeah, exactly. Subliminal messaging, audio. I’m available for nighttime meditations if you just drift off to sleep while I talk about marketing. You have less than a minute. Write two more things down, even if you’re done. Oh, interesting, Bernard. I love that. Great. Bernard’s writing some great stuff in the, in the chat. Um, 20 seconds.

Okay. Um, I’d like to invite anybody who wants to unmute. Maybe you guys can manage that for me, and share the one or two things you’re gonna do for your business this week. That’s gonna be the hour. And I can read some of these from the chat too, but who wants to just raise their hand and, and be brave?

“I can read something.” Okay. Go for it. “Um, I will read just my list. Follow up on my, um… funeral, uh, events managers to sing more. I can approach events managers on Instagram or websites. Um, I can contact a specific person where I wanna work with. She has a great network already doing a lot. Contact another lead, duo pianist, post my photography, post a certain post, uh, yeah, I have, uh, in total nine.” Okay.

Great job. Can you please reread your first action item one more time for us please? Just the first one. “Uh, follow up, uh, on my, uh, funeral… email to, uh, I don’t know the translation for this, but the people who organize funerals. Yeah.”

Cool. So let’s take this one for example. Really good job, by the way. I’m giving you tons of appreciation for writing that down. I know these things are not easy, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna make a prediction, and forgive me for saying this, I don’t feel like that’s a very actionable goal ’cause it’s not incredibly specific. Hmm. Can you get even more specific in terms of…? “Follow up” is a very generic term. It’s a very… it’s a hard to enforce, and it’s certainly hard to metric. What does that mean, “follow up”? You could be more specific and break that down into something that would have a very easy, frictionless activity that would still get you moving forward. Can you sort of morph that into more specific? Pretend that you’re telling me, your assistant, what you want me to do. I don’t know what to follow up on. I don’t know what you want me to ask. I don’t even know what method. Am I sending a, like a telegram? How are we, how are we doing this? Tell me as though I’m your assistant, how would you want me to go about that task?

“Uh, send 10 emails back to the… emo… the 10 I wrote 10 emails and response to them again, like, yeah, now you can check it.”

“Um, who, who are we sending these to? Sorry, who, who are we sending the emails to? What’s the person’s name?”

“Um, I, I have it in my network list.”

“Okay. So like, I want this to come so visceral for you that your action item—’cause we only have 10 minutes per day we’re doing this—is to be like, ‘Email Michelle, follow up about the candlelight concert. Find out how many candles I’m supposed to bring. Is it 150 or 3000? I can’t remember.’ That’s a very specific question. You can follow up and I can say to my assistant, ‘Come back from Michelle with a number.’ I need to know the exact number, and then I want you to come back and say, ‘347.’ Actually, there’s probably more than that. 3000 candles. Okay, that, that’s gonna be actionable. ‘Cause then you can go to Amazon or the candle store and buy what you need. You’re gonna realize, ‘Oh, I need a car to put those in, bring them there. What time do I have to set all those up?’ It’s gonna cascade into another small 1% thing you can do, but I only want you to do one part of it at a time. If the action item is ‘follow up with the funeral director,’ it’s gonna get lost ’cause it’s not specific and it’s hard to do that as an action. Okay. Really good job on that, but I, I want you to make those a little bit more smart goals and see if you can get those specific. Okay. You’ve also… does that make sense?”

“Cool.”

“Um, is it, you Lika, did I say it right?”

“Yes. Thanks. Thank you for the inputs. It’s, it’s very, very, uh, awesome, exciting. Um, yeah, so I thought about, um, what I could would do in an hour like that. Um, and for me it’s always very important to also do some, leave some time for dreaming, which I really don’t have so much time when I just follow what is urgent. Yep. Um, so dreaming for me means reconnecting with the why, why am I doing what I’m doing? And what can I envision for myself in the future? So I would really love to spend some of that time in the hour, maybe 15 minutes to do that. Make a little like mind map or something like that. Um, and then also I want to, I would wanna create a, a plan for my social media for Instagram. Um, another thing I wrote down as researching agencies because I haven’t really touched that topic yet so much. I’m a singer. Um, and also to, to get in contact with festivals to do some cold, cold contacting. Cool. ‘Cause I have, I have some nice projects, um, on my list. You sent a really interesting my website. Oh, good. That… careful with that one. That’s, that’s a, that’s a trap, that one. Anyway. Um, by the way, my first coach, who literally brought me to six figures in my business within seven months of working with her, didn’t even have a website when I met her. So yes, you need a website. As a business coach, I would say you need a website. However, you don’t need a website. Like it’s not the… that’s another conversation point being, don’t get stuck on, ‘redo your website.’ Okay. You said a really interesting word that I want to highlight here, which is urgency. You said there’s a sense of urgency, or you even mentioned that that’s a thing. So I want to be honest with you right now, with everybody in here, the reason that I’m so hung up and, and, and I’m such a big advocate for alignment with efforts with for your goals and doing no more than 4% of my effort on those specified things is building a business that is gonna be more than a hobby for you is gonna require two very important things. Leading with service is the number one motivation for you as a business owner. Leading with service. ‘How can I show up for the world? What can I bring?’ And I don’t mean that as like, ‘I’m so fancy and special. What can I bring to the world?’ No, it’s, ‘How can I meet people where they are?’ Leading with service every single time. And the second thing is you’re gonna have to hustle. You are going to have to do the work, and you’re gonna have to get very, very, very, very, very uncomfortable. This is the fear part. These are the squirrels that run around your brain when you actually start to get visible. So what can happen when you are leading with service ’cause you have passion about this and you’re getting very uncomfortable because you’re putting yourself out there is urgency. Urgency is like performance anxiety. It means that you care. It’s actually kind of a great thing. However, we need to learn how to manage that and, and hone it so that it can create something. So I want to give you some big appreciation for mentioning leave time in your action to goals, activities for dreaming and relaxation and recharging. What’s your number one resource? You people. What’s your number one resource, everybody? It’s not, it’s not how fancy your website is. It’s not how expensive your coach is. It’s not how many hours you practice. It’s not if you have a $13 million cello. Your number one resource is your enthusiasm, and that has to be protected at all costs because all of this falls apart. Your alignment, your 4% work, your work in the practice room, will be disconnected if you don’t maintain your enthusiasm. So huge appreciation for you for mentioning dreaming as an important tool, and also you’re acknowledging that there is a sense of urgency around these goals. Okay, that was a really good answer. Thanks for that. Okay.

“Who’s, who’s next? I see some hands up here. You’ve got, uh, Natalie.” Okay. “Natalie. Natalie, are you there? Oh, you’re on mute.”

“There you go. Okay. Wow. I just clicked. I said thank you for your energy. You’re doing wonders for my brain. Thank you. Um, I wrote down, we are on new sleeping schedule and we’re getting up more early. So catching up on sleep or like getting used to that and continue the physical therapy that I’m doing ’cause I’m noticing that it’s really helping, um, keeping the energy up. Um, I just bought two courses on booking and album release because I am releasing my very first album very soon. So I, I want to spend time this week, um, working through those courses, and that’s on my calendar, so… okay. The next big one, ‘congrat’ is, is the… I, I work on new video series for my patrons and I wanna get part of that out on YouTube. Uh, I only need the little intro video and then render it, put it up. But I need a plan on what’s gonna be the difference between what’s on Patreon and what’s on YouTube. And that’s still a bit unclear to me, but it’s also gonna hopefully help with the album release. And so that’s at least on your list. Um, fantastic. And yeah, anything else? I had two small updates for the calendar on my website and my repertoire list that, that’s finally updated ’cause that’s been, uh, neglected. Per life. Brilliant.”

Thanks for sharing that. So I’m gonna give you a piece of guidance, if I may, about the two courses that you just bought. I have some very affordable courses and I have some stunningly expensive programs. I have had people pay for my stunningly expensive programs and show up practically not at all and do absolutely no work, despite the community and the accountability that I offer, and get zero results. And I, I have one of those clients I’m thinking of where I email him regularly saying, “How’s it going? How can I show up for you today? How can we move the needle?” Zero things are happening. I don’t know why. So what the trap that he fell into is buying a course as the solution to the challenge that he was working on. By the way, his was hugely around visibility. He’s a brilliant teacher, um, and just needs to get visible and he will be able to retire if he wants to, but he hasn’t done the work. The advice for you is when you buy a course, the first thing you should do before you even open the course is to map, calendar, block your schedule to allow yourself the time, like it’s a doctor’s appointment, a performance, that you will show up and watch the modules, do the work, whatever, whatever the format your courses are, book them before you even open the course. Make the time, create the space. If you create the space, what you need will come into the space. I, I could go an hour and a half on Woo zone about a… uh, alignment with energy.

Here, here’s another sort of thing that’s tangential to what we’re talking about. When I have business clients, one of the first things I tell them to do before we even create a website or come up with a brand name is open a bank account for your business. “Really?” “I just started this.” “I’m like, yeah, I know. Open a bank account.” “Why?” Because if there is a bank account there that says “Honesty Pill Coaching,” it is just beautiful and empty and ready to be filled with funds that I have traded for the leading with service that I like to do. And it, it creates a space. So I want you to do that in your calendar with time. The two most important resources you have after your enthusiasm are time and money, right? So I want you to be really smart about how you manage that. So book time to do those courses before you even start them. I want you to finish those com… courses, those courses. The bane of being a course creator—and anybody in this room that has made a course can agree—is when people don’t finish it. You know why that stinks? Because first of all, they didn’t get the benefit, and my “lead with service” didn’t really work ’cause I’m like, “Oh, they didn’t get the result that I wanted.” And the second reason it stinks is now I can’t ask them for an amazing testimonial and put that on my website or on my next email sequence. So you want people to finish your courses, so make sure that you do that as a student. Great. Really good.

“Okay. Who’s next? This is excellent, guys. Keep it coming.”

“That’s Kristen, go ahead.”

“Yes, so I wrote down, ‘I will write and block article for my website, which I will put in my newsletter and on LinkedIn, which I will then recycle for Instagram and so on.’ And thank you so much for, um, mentioning urgency because I came up with a title for this block. Um, so it’s ‘Why I Love Voices and How I Make Them Heard.’”

“Can you repeat that one more time? ‘Why I love Voices…’”

“‘…Voices and how I make them heard.’”

“That’s beautiful. What is this, what is the space that you work in?”

“Uh, the space. I’m a singer, I’m an actress, and I’m a voice coach. So it’s all about voices.”

“I love that. Um, a colleague of mine, Helene Anderson, who is one of my podcast guests, Season 2, I think, uh, wrote a book called We Are All Meant to Sing. And I, I remember when I heard that title, I, I thought, ‘What are the fear squirrels that appear when we talk about that type of exposure and visibility and vulnerability?’ And it was, ‘Oh, I, I don’t sing. I, I’m not a singer. I’m a trumpet player. I don’t sing.’ But everybody sings in the shower or in the car. Right? So it was an interesting thing. I love that your blog is gonna be titled that because I think it’s a, it’s an important thing for all people. Uh, look, we can definitely talk about the world today and how your voice is so important. And so this is not just music. It’s a way of comm… Exactly. Connecting and communicating and creating community. And it’s, it’s probably more critical now than ever that we make sure we make space for people’s voices. So I love that. That’s fantastic. And I make everyone, um, know about my new website here. It’s what, tell what, where’s your new website? Did you post it? What’s it called?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Wow. That’s a good one. That’s a different, difficult one to spell, but we’ll get it. Um, alright, cool. Everybody go check out this website. It’s in the chat right now. Kelly wrote, ‘Fear Squirrels.’ Just fear. That’s a great band name, actually. ‘Fear Squirrels.’ I gotta write that down. Um, ‘Time and Social Network.’ ‘I never think of enthusiasm.’ Oh yeah, come on. If you don’t have enthusiasm, you’re toast. Um, just looking at the chat. And then is there anybody else with a hand up before I go into these chat things? Michelle? I am not seeing any other hands. Do we have any other questions? Any other specific question, question ahead, question, comment from me.”

“So you’re talking about 6% of your time, which is like 10 minutes a day. And I think this might be something a lot of people are thinking about in those 10 minutes. How do you plan what you’re going to do? Do you recommend predetermining that the night before so that you sit down and you don’t spend two minutes thinking, ‘What am I gonna do?’”

“Kind of. Okay. This is a really great question. Um, so I, I love technology and my entire family and work business revolves around the Google Calendar. Um, I’m gonna, let’s see if I can do this on the fly here. I think I probably can. Let’s see. I’m gonna show you my Google Calendar. Actually, before I show you this, I’ll tell you why I’m showing you this. Um, no, I don’t recommend you doing this the night before. I recommend that you pick a day of the week where you take yourself out on a date with your, your planner, whatever that is, if it’s Google or a paper journal, and plan out your week. Helicopter review. Have you ever gone grocery shopping when you were hungry? Yeah. It’s a bad idea. How’d that work out for you? A lot of, a lot of, a lot of cookies. A lot of carbs. Lot stuff. Not a lot of produce. So if you do your grocery list for the week or two weeks or whatever, um, on, on a day where you just had a very healthy meal, maybe you just went to the gym and you’re feeling really body positive and and aligned with your goals about your nutrition and your working out, you’re gonna make much more, excuse me, intelligent decisions about the food that you buy. I feel like if you do it the night before, two things are gonna happen: you’re gonna go to bed with sort of a racing brain. I’d rather you meditate every night, to be honest with you, or do some mantra work, uh, than work on your schedule for the next day. But allow yourself a specific time. Maybe it’s Sunday night at 6:00 PM, you’re gonna go to your favorite coffee shop, wine bar, whatever, library. I don’t care, mountain seat, and do an hour of planning work for the week, understanding that you’re only gonna give yourself this minimum viable product, the smallest amount of time you can generate this work. That is how I do it.

Now, that leads to, ‘Well, then what am I actually doing in that hour?’ I like to do calendar blocking, and for those of you who aren’t familiar, I will put, I have a whole video on this and I’m gonna, I can’t wait for November. Everything is gonna be revamped. Yes. It’s a shiny object for me. I, I heard myself say it, but I’m doing it anyway ’cause I love it. Um, a video about calendar blocking, which means put the things in that are immovable, then put in the, the things that are somewhat movable and then put in the things that are just ridiculous and not important.

Here’s what my calendar looks like, and when I show this to my clients, um, somebody told me they had heart palpitations when they saw this. Okay? So I don’t know if you can actually see this ’cause it’s in the past, but the red stuff is LA Phil. Can’t move it. I can’t move this stuff. This is fixed. Um, here’s a gig that I said yes to because I had time. Um, I had to take my dog to the vet. That was something I could schedule whenever I wanted to, uh, make appointments for stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All here’s my office hours. I get to choose where the office hours go. So these are purple. Um, I did a mock audition over here, so I basically put in things the week before and know when those things are gonna be happening. You’re, you may choose to do a paper journal. I, I’m also a fan of the Passion Planner. It’s a paper journal called The Passion Planner, which literally aligns your goals with your passions, with your, your big things that you care about. Um, but I recommend doing them in a, in a very significant, blocked out way, and then forget about it. Hope that helps.”

“Awesome. That was very helpful, very insightful. Um, I’ve definitely had that racing brain thing where I’m like, ‘Okay, if I sit down right before I sleep, I will have that racing brain harder to get to sleep.’”

“Yeah, you will wake up in the same mindset you went to sleep with. So I really recommend evening meditations. There’s so many great apps. If you need a guided meditation, great. Um, there’s one other thing I wanted, a comment I wanted to highlight from, uh, from before, and I think it was an Alta had said, um, she, a fear was that if you show to the world that you were doing things other than performing, that people will think that you were not a success at your instrument and that you are maybe, let’s say a failure and just because you’re branching out and doing other things that you’re interested in and passionate about. Right. How do you deal with that? How do you just say like, ‘Okay, I don’t care what everyone else thinks?’”

“Well, to say I don’t care about what anyone else thinks is not an honest statement. Of course, we care about what other people think. We’re human beings. We’re, we’re creatures of community. We, we, we do care about what other people think. But the difference is we don’t get to let them decide things for us. And that’s, that’s the fine line. Um, I’ll, I’ll share with you, uh, one, one little concept from one of my favorite books. One of the books literally was one of the first books I ran out and rebought after my house burned down in January, which is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. If you haven’t read this book and you’re a creative person, you’re missing out on a beautiful resource, and it’s a great audio book too. ‘Cause if you like audio, Elizabeth Gilbert reads the book. It’s beautiful. And here’s, here’s, um, here’s the concept that I, one of the concepts that really resonates with me: If you are going on the journey of self-discovery and mastery, whether that’s becoming a soloist or creating a business or tweaking your studio, whatever your big goal is. Think of it like a road trip. You’re gonna pack your bags, you’re gonna invite some friends, you’re going to fuel up the car, you’re gonna have a map and some GPS coordinates or whatever to get there. And we’re gonna leave Sunday morning at 7:00 AM. Y’all gather by the car, right? And when you show up, you’re like, ‘Oh, I see you’re here.’ And it’s fear. And you say, ‘Well, I guess you’re coming for the ride. There’s no sense in asking you to stay behind ’cause I know you’re gonna come anyway, so get in the car. Oh, but by the way, Fear, um, you don’t get to talk to me about the air conditioning. You don’t get to complain about where we stop for food. You don’t even get to choose the music that plays on the radio. But you know what, dude? The most important thing is you are not allowed to drive.’ That’s how I handle that comment.”

“This is so helpful too for audition preps. I’ve had the same exact scenario with in relat… in relationship to audition nerves.”

“Yeah. Yep. I just wanna, I, I made a slide for wrap up, so I’m gonna share it with you just so you can have a picture of it also. Um, I guys, I have a PDF, like, it’s like a little cheat sheet. I’ll, I’ll send it to, you don’t have to write all this stuff down, but this is everything that I kind of covered here. I’ll send it to you later. But, um, just, let’s just wrap this up. Here’s your sticky, sticky phrases to remember: One hour equals one open door. Tracking creates traction. One effort, three results. There’s a recycling and, and this is the last thing that I haven’t really talked about, but is this really important for auditioners? This is like a critical part is every time you fail, fail up. Every time you put effort into something, learn something from it. It’s a puzzle piece that you’re collecting. And every puzzle piece, if you think about an actual puzzle… I hate doing those in real life, actually. I like to do things that are like them. I hate doing puzzles because I find them frustrating. But the nice thing is once you get to the end, there’s like four more pieces. How easy is it for those last four pieces to go in? So easy, right? Because the picture’s really clear. Um, yeah. I’ll give you all the slides that I use for sure. Um, but if you have a big jumbled mess, think about when you dump a puzzle out, out of the box onto the table, there’s like pieces that are even upside down. Right? You can’t put that together until you flip all the pieces over. So your, your 4% action is to flip the pieces over so they’re all facing the right way. That’s the kind of work I want you to bring to your portfolio career. Not chasing the shiny objects, not giving into the fear and letting it direct how you work, but being strategic and aligned and honest with yourself. And by the way, the best thing you can do for this is to get a coach or an accountability partner that can see you and see you with clarity.”

“Thank you so much. Anything else, you guys?”

“All right. I just, oh, go ahead.”

“No, I mean, I just want to hear how everybody’s feeling, like, given emoji or some in the comments, like, let’s do a quick kind of takeaways ’cause we just got totally annihilated by Chris’s energy and enthusiasm and, uh, we, I, that was my goal to annihilate. I am, I jump up and, uh, start running laps around the house here. So how are we all feeling and, uh, what, what’s the takeaway that’s coming? Just throw it up in the chat.”

“Somebody wrote, ‘I too hate puzzles.’ I love that. Um, by the way, you guys can, you can find me, um, honesty pill.com, uh, jump on my newsletter if you want. I, I, I don’t do a lot of business coaching these days right now. Um, I’m focusing everything on Addition Accelerator. However, if you, anybody, this is an open and honest invitation, not a marketing thing. If anybody here would like to hop on a call with me to just follow up on any of this or dig deeper on this, totally available for that. It’s a free thing if you’re a subscriber. So go to my website, get on my mailing list. You’ll get an invitation to book a call. Totally happy to do that for anybody, especially friends of this crew. So.”

“Amazing. You, you are so valuable to us and we just totally respect and honor that you got up so early before a big day premier at LA Phil. And, uh, yeah, we’re getting some great comments. Uh, ‘enthusiasm’s the most important asset.’ ‘This was awesome.’ ‘Got clarity.’ ‘Nuggets of wisdom.’ ‘Standing ovation.’ ‘Leading with service.’ Yeah, definitely. I think I’m gonna take you up on that 1-on-1, Chris, you’ll be hearing from me. Oh, anytime. Anytime, for sure. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for being here today.”

“Alright everybody. See you. Take care. Bye bye.”