I’ve been ruminating on what follows for just over five years. It began right after I met this 17‑year‑old bassist at a good friend’s funeral. I was blown away by how different — and frankly, how much better — his mindset toward other musicians was than mine had been at his age. Honestly, there were several times during that conversation when I thought, “I’m not sure I’ve ever had my sh— er, I mean… stuff together as much as this kid already does at 17.”
I don’t know how common thinking of other bands as the enemy is or if it ever was. It may not be common at all anymore, and maybe it never was, but I don’t think of myself (anymore) as a unicorn. Looking back over my career(s) from my vantage point at 63, I realize that the biggest breakthroughs didn’t always come from learning new things. Often the biggest came from unlearning old things — false truths I picked up along the way that weren’t serving me well at all.
To sum it up in two words, it was scarcity mentality. That “never enough” mindset, already well‑ingrained by my family of origin, was reinforced by many of the (mostly older) musicians I was closest to in my earliest days as a professional. I was barely into my 20s and impressionable, so it was easy to absorb their views as gospel. They’d been there, so they must know, right? I realize now that I was being further schooled in the zero‑sum worldview: if someone else got a gig, that could only mean that I/we lost out. If another band succeeded, it could only have come at our band’s expense. Everyone was competition — often to the point of being considered “the enemy.” In retrospect, it was truly awful, though I didn’t realize that at the time. I eventually realized just how arrogant it was to think that someone else’s success was in any way about me. Their gigs weren’t taken from me. Their progress was because of the work they’d put in, not a commentary on mine. I had been personalizing things that had nothing to do with me like it was a superpower. I had no scarcity when it came to arrogance.
While I had unlearned a little of this by the closing years of my music career, it hadn’t fully set in by any means. It reappeared in a big way shortly after I began working as a personal trainer. For the first several years, I often caught myself thinking the exact same types of thoughts I’d had as a young musician: “That trainer got a new client that could/should have been mine.” Same scarcity. Same zero‑sum thinking. Same tension. Same awfulness. Same arrogance.
Changes in fundamental thinking generally don’t come easily or quickly — and that was certainly true for me — but my life and career changed drastically for the better when, after considerable personal work, I was finally able to approach things with an abundance mentality: “There are plenty of clients to go around. Anyone who’s training with someone else isn’t meant to train with me.”
After that, it was easy to look back and see how much that scarcity mentality had lessened my experiences throughout my life. Another benefit of the abundance mentality was that it freed me up to end any professional or personal relationships that were serving only to drain me. I knew that eliminating negativity like that from my life only created room for the positive.
There may be plenty of folks out there — many far more successful than I’ve ever been — who think the abundance mentality is total BS and may even claim to owe their success to embracing its opposite. I'm not going to argue. Maybe it’s even worked well for you, and if so, kudos. All I know, and all I'm saying, is that it never worked well for me at all. This post may resonate with someone else, it may not. I truly don’t know if any of the other bands at the time were looking at us as “the enemy” or not, though I shudder to think that they weren't thinking about us at all.
On the other hand, I guess I can't actually rule out that I was (am?) in fact a unicorn. One who was (is?) uniquely messed up in such spectacular ways that no one else can relate at all? I don't think I'm that special (anymore, anyway), but I'm not arrogant enough to rule it out.
For the record, I've never noticed any rainbows flying out of my posterior.
I don’t know how common thinking of other bands as the enemy is or if it ever was. It may not be common at all anymore, and maybe it never was, but I don’t think of myself (anymore) as a unicorn. Looking back over my career(s) from my vantage point at 63, I realize that the biggest breakthroughs didn’t always come from learning new things. Often the biggest came from unlearning old things — false truths I picked up along the way that weren’t serving me well at all.
To sum it up in two words, it was scarcity mentality. That “never enough” mindset, already well‑ingrained by my family of origin, was reinforced by many of the (mostly older) musicians I was closest to in my earliest days as a professional. I was barely into my 20s and impressionable, so it was easy to absorb their views as gospel. They’d been there, so they must know, right? I realize now that I was being further schooled in the zero‑sum worldview: if someone else got a gig, that could only mean that I/we lost out. If another band succeeded, it could only have come at our band’s expense. Everyone was competition — often to the point of being considered “the enemy.” In retrospect, it was truly awful, though I didn’t realize that at the time. I eventually realized just how arrogant it was to think that someone else’s success was in any way about me. Their gigs weren’t taken from me. Their progress was because of the work they’d put in, not a commentary on mine. I had been personalizing things that had nothing to do with me like it was a superpower. I had no scarcity when it came to arrogance.
While I had unlearned a little of this by the closing years of my music career, it hadn’t fully set in by any means. It reappeared in a big way shortly after I began working as a personal trainer. For the first several years, I often caught myself thinking the exact same types of thoughts I’d had as a young musician: “That trainer got a new client that could/should have been mine.” Same scarcity. Same zero‑sum thinking. Same tension. Same awfulness. Same arrogance.
Changes in fundamental thinking generally don’t come easily or quickly — and that was certainly true for me — but my life and career changed drastically for the better when, after considerable personal work, I was finally able to approach things with an abundance mentality: “There are plenty of clients to go around. Anyone who’s training with someone else isn’t meant to train with me.”
After that, it was easy to look back and see how much that scarcity mentality had lessened my experiences throughout my life. Another benefit of the abundance mentality was that it freed me up to end any professional or personal relationships that were serving only to drain me. I knew that eliminating negativity like that from my life only created room for the positive.
There may be plenty of folks out there — many far more successful than I’ve ever been — who think the abundance mentality is total BS and may even claim to owe their success to embracing its opposite. I'm not going to argue. Maybe it’s even worked well for you, and if so, kudos. All I know, and all I'm saying, is that it never worked well for me at all. This post may resonate with someone else, it may not. I truly don’t know if any of the other bands at the time were looking at us as “the enemy” or not, though I shudder to think that they weren't thinking about us at all.
On the other hand, I guess I can't actually rule out that I was (am?) in fact a unicorn. One who was (is?) uniquely messed up in such spectacular ways that no one else can relate at all? I don't think I'm that special (anymore, anyway), but I'm not arrogant enough to rule it out.
For the record, I've never noticed any rainbows flying out of my posterior.
