This year has been an interesting turning point in my career. It’s the year I can say I’ve begun to give advice or guidance to younger folks on a pretty regular basis—not just because I like to hear myself talk, but because I’ve been asked, and because when I meet someone I think has a lot of potential, I offer. And as with all teaching, I think I might be getting more out of it than those receiving the advice.
The key revelation for me was that, now that I’ve achieved a measure of what I’d call “career success”, working at a high level with top talent and high stakes, I finally think I know how people usually become successful in the industry. It’s strangely not how *I* made it here. Mine is one of those right-place-right-time stories, combined with a some skill and preparation and the right connections. But as I watch the people around me ascend through the ranks, I am starting to see patterns. You can’t always create your own success story, and you certainly can’t create it overnight, but here’s how I think you give yourself the best possible chance.
1. FIND YOUR PASSION
Please, if you’re actually reading what I’ve written here because you are looking to understand how to give yourself a better shot at success, do yourself a favor. A few years ago I was fortunate to interview composer Bear McCreary, arguably a huge success even before he turned thirty. You need to listen to it. Success was the topic of the interview, and Bear’s answers did not disappoint. In short: you have to get lucky, you have to be prepared, *and* you have to work your tail off.
It’s that last part that relates to passion. Without a deep and powerful devotion to the craft you are pursuing, where will you find the energy to power through the 16-hour days or overcome rejection after rejection? So a good first step to success is to figure out exactly what it is that you’re passionate about. The danger in this is disillusionment; a film and TV composer’s life, for example, is not all about writing whatever music you want. You have to write music that satisfies your client’s needs and tastes. And you have to spend a good chunk of time buying and troubleshooting your equipment, invoicing, paying taxes, contracting musicians, and hiring help. You can set yourself up for disappointment if you let the passion override your logic centers in the wrong way. So ideally, your passion fuels and guides your success vehicle without commandeering it.
2. SET SOME BOUNDARIES
As you start to pursue the things about which you are most passionate, you might find that jobs, careers, projects and pursuits don’t always fit neatly into one category that exactly matches your interests. And with the benefit of hindsight you’d probably see that some of your best opportunities come from the places you’d least expect. So being extremely picky about the type of work you’re doing might just close doors and make it harder on you. Don’t be afraid to branch out. If you’re really desperate to be a dialogue editor, then by all means take any dialogue-editing-related work you can get your hands on. Just don’t baselessly reject everything else.
Taking that too far can be a real detriment to your progress, though. Getting lost for a year in a job that has nothing to do with your career path seems to be pretty common. It might yield some friendships or some character-building trials or who knows what else, but it probably won’t help you become what you want to become professionally. Boundaries matter. Decide where you think your boundaries should be, and revise them only after careful thought and lots of failure.
Do try to work at the highest level, though, with the highest quality people and equipment and productions you can, because they’ll challenge you in good ways, they’ll give you the best education about how the system is really supposed to work, and they’re the richest with connections. At Joe Blow’s D-level home studio you may be challenged, but it’s more likely to be because of out-of-date equipment or trouble finding work. You might learn about workflows, but they’re less likely to be normal, professional workflows like the ones the big boys use. And you might make connections, but there’s less of a chance that they’ll lead you to the top—which, I assume, is where you want to aim. “Aim for the stars,” right?
3. ESTABLISH AN IDENTITY
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Once you’ve begun to be comfortable with the kinds of work you ought to take and the kinds you ought to avoid, and you’re starting to find out how to land those jobs and how to do them well, it’s definitely time to think about your identity in the industry. This gets to questions of personality, of skills, of strengths and weaknesses. I think this is the hardest part because we can be very bad judges of our own assets. Whether by wishful thinking or just poor estimation we end up thinking, for instance, that we’re really good with people but bad with deadlines and schedules, when other people might think the exact opposite about you. And it’s other people’s opinions that matter here, unless you plan on hiring yourself full-time.
Form your best, most honest, most ego-less opinion of yourself and build around it an identity within the industry. Formulate a sales pitch for your self. Why are you good to work with? What do you contribute when you play each role you expect to play in your career path? What do you answer when in a job interview a potential employer asks you, “Why would you be a good fit for this job?” You don’t want a canned answer, and you don’t want to mumble and stare at your shoelaces. You want a genuine assessment of your worth, something that tells people, “This is why you want to work with me.”
It could be that you’re insanely organized. Or lightning fast. Maybe you’re cool as a cucumber in the face of client pressures or looming deadlines. Maybe you accept nothing but perfection in file labeling and track layout. Maybe you’re great at interpreting clients’ needs. Or you use your love and understanding of music to your benefit in your editing work. Are you a rock star with a colorful personality and an interesting background? Are you the calming influence that settles everyone down? Are you the happy-go-lucky, gregarious people-lover who creates positive energy out of negative? Ask yourself these kinds of questions and wait for real, honest answers to come. Then let these answers shape the identity you project through your business cards, your website, your job interviews, your sessions, and everything else you do. If you can project your strengths openly, you’ll notice they distract people from your deficiencies, and more importantly, folks get the comfortable feeling that you really are what you say you are.
4. FORMULATE A PLAN
Just “looking for jobs” is the extent of many people’s planning, but there are so many other layers to building a career and seeking success. Let your passion for your work be your guide, not your search for success; getting that wrong is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse, and people can smell the tension that results within your life.
Look at the three steps leading up to this—your passion, boundaries, and identity—and rely on these to guide you to the right priorities for you. You might want to pursue a niche career like audio books, in-store audio, hold messages, or mobile game audio, because it best suits your skills or knowledge or nature. You may want to take an approach that relies heavily on your outgoing personality, with aggressive networking, frequent lunches, and lots of social events. It might be best for you to dedicate every spare hour to becoming the fastest, cleanest editor around and knowing every ProTools shortcut in the book, then doing only a minimum of networking. (You can’t do no networking, but if you truly are the best around you might get away with very little.) Maybe you’ll benefit most from looking for a one-on-one mentor relationship with a more seasoned professional, or from volunteering at industry charity events. Be creative. Think of everyone and anyone you know who uses or is at all connected with audio—bars, restaurants, hotels, airports, political parties, schools, churches, websites—and seriously consider whether you could meet their needs… or whether you’re even aware of what their needs are.
Once you’ve done this you could have a big spaghetti mess of ideas and to-do lists. And as with the rest of your life, priorities will help you a lot. Again, use your passion, boundaries, and identity to narrow things down to (1) what you’ll love doing the most, (2) what will get you the best quality connections, (3) what will teach you the most about how the industry works, (4) what is most likely to get you closer to your passion, (5) what will provide you with the amount of income you absolutely need (whether by paying you or by allowing the flexibility to get a second job), and (6) what most suits your strengths and personality. Things that look good in all or most of these categories have to go at the top of your list. Things that only fit one or two might be at the bottom, or upon close examination your gut may tell you to not to waste your time with them at all.
IN CONCLUSION
There’s certainly no sure-fire way to “make it,” and really, your definition of success might be quite different from mine. But while you can’t force success, you also can’t wait around for it to happen. There are variables you can control, and if you do the right things you can make much better odds for yourself.
This is really good!! Very wise and introspective insight. I’d buy the book.
Would be nice in infographic format, directed towards the new industry people. Then put it on reddit. Instant viral hit 🙂