Passion

Last week we had the opportunity to tour the recording studio of a friend of a friend of mine. We drove to Highland and pulled up in front of what looked like a huge double-house. The man that owns it (his last name is Merrill) greeted us at the door in bare feet and jeans and apologized for being such a mess. He'd been so caught up in what he was doing, he didn't realize how late it was. Clearly a man who enjoyed was he was doing.

He gave us a tour of his state-of-the-art recording studio (all designed by himself). It was really beautiful. It had three rooms; a waiting room, a sound room and a recording room. The recording room and sound room had quadruple walls which were covered in an assortment of special fabrics, wood panels and stone to enhance acoustics. He showed us microphones and three of the largest flat panel computer screens I'd ever seen. The man clearly had a wealth of knowledge and he said he had degrees in composition (his first love) engineering and technical something?.... (to know all about the equipment). He is hired by all kinds of different companies (Time Warner being one of them) to write music for movies, commercials, computer games, etc, etc. It was incredible to see how much talent he had. Afterward we got to ask him questions about how he got started in the business. The things that he said which stood out to me were the fact that he just had a passion for composing (making up songs, creating art of all kinds etc) and he had the discipline to stick to it. He would find out anything he could about how to compose music. He even got permission from his High school principal to create his own two hour class. He was the only student and he spent two hours each day studying anything he could get his hands on (college manuals mostly). He also mentioned he had a teacher (I would call him a mentor) who shared a lot of "real life" knowledge with him and it helped him to go father than most of the students in his college classes. Without that "real world" knowledge he would not have been able to take the practical fundamentals he learned in school and make a successful business with them.
I asked him to tell us how/if his parents helped to inspire him. He said they encouraged him to start with music lessons, but the biggest thing he felt like he learned from them was hard work. He spent his child hood summers working 8-10 hour days on their family farm. He had no idea people goofed off during the summer. And that hard work gave him a sense of personal and family pride.

I was just smiling to myself the entire time. He was speaking the language of Thomas Jefferson education and he didn't even know it! Working hard as a kid, finding a passion and a mentor., being self driven! It was everything I've been learning about and to see how (VERY) successful he has been able to be and that he is able to follow his passion and use it to provide for his family was so INSPIRING!