MasterMind Drummer
Newsletter #10
February 26th, 2024
“They don’t have to like you”
A heavy title, yes, but it has a point, I swear. As always, just hold tight.
But first…
Can you believe we are at Newsletter #10 already? Madness.
Not only that, but we are already nearly in March!
This blows my mind.
This means I’ve somehow managed to write over 25,000 words over the past 10 weeks, and when I look at it like that, I’m genuinely surprised, and super proud.
I could barely write a single paragraph in school, but I guess if you find a topic or subject you’re interested in, things flow much easier.
There is an important lesson in that.
I hope the year has kicked off very much how you intended, and you are moving towards your goals.
February / March can be a weird time, as often, by this point, we have lost the free ‘gusto’ January gifted us, and we now need to start generating that energy ourselves. Ouch.
This can be challenging, right?
Some days are more productive than others, but we just need to keep moving forward and chipping away.
Just remember, one goal not quite achieved as intended, should not affect all goals we have.
We do our best and if one slips off a little, that’s OK, just keep moving.
Let’s say you said “this is my year of health. I’m going to eat perfect and exercise every day.”
This is quite a common goal at the start of the year, but it’s also a hard left turn.
The reality is, the daily requirements for a goal like this can be a very big shock to the system, mentally and physically.
The pressure of these goals can result in you potentially ordering 12 Krispy Kreme donuts at 9pm, on a Friday evening, via uber eats.
Extreme example? No, not really, as I did this exact thing after I did a 12wk weight cut. Hahaha.
But even so, that doesn’t mean that now everything needs to go ‘down the toilet’.
But this often happens.
“I didn’t do it perfectly, so what’s the point?”
Well, there is no perfect. It’s just about slowly moving forward with incremental steps.
It’s OK to have minor setbacks in your goals. It’s actually normal and very much a part of the process.
I said ‘it’s already nearly March’, but remember, that also means it’s only nearly March, too.
It’s how you frame it.
There are still 10 months left in the year, and no need for a minor setback to derail everything, right?
2 steps forward, 1 step back, no movement at all, 1 back again, and then 2 forward.
This is the way.
If you set out to do pad work every day this year, and you’re now feeling a little deflated because you’ve only hit 3–4 sessions a week, that’s OK!
Put it in perspective, you still managed 3–4 sessions a week, and that’s a lot!
In my opinion, the cup is ALWAYS half full, regardless of the circumstance.
It’s how you look at it.
Do what you can, when you can, and always try your best within our capacity at that given moment.
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Things have been very busy at this end.
The March intake for my 30-Day MasterMind Drummer Coaching Program is about to kick off, and I can’t wait.
They are so much fun.
Once again, I have drummers from all over the world joining me for my second 30-Day intensive session, where each week we tackle a new curriculum –
Week 1. Mechanics
Week 2. Applied Mechanics
Week 3. Single kick development
Week 4. Creativity and facility
Each week is supported by book and audio recommendations, as well as productivity tips and tricks, to help everyone show up a little more off the kit, as well as on it.
We focus on these areas of life –
Health, Wellbeing, Relationships, Business, Progress.
As I have mentioned, I’m a firm believer in developing the person as well as the player.
Dial in a few more things outside your practice, and your practice gets MUCH more productive.
I’ve also recently started a new video series too, called ‘2-Mics’, which has been fun.
I’ve released 5 videos so far.
The purpose of these is to see what sort of drum sound I can get with just 2 mics, whilst showcasing specific grooves and drummers that I appreciate, and all with a touch of narrative, too, to keep it interesting.
Also, something else I’ve been doing recently is asking questions on my social media, to get deeper conversation going around certain topics I enjoy.
I find this stuff very interesting and this is actually what led to this weeks newsletter topic.
I’ve asked a range of questions so far, but this one here stood out. The conversation on Social Media –
Now, there were a range of answers and opinions that came in with this, which you can read here, and ALL are valid in my opinion, but across the board everyone seems to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Social Media.
This comes up a lot in my 1on1 lessons, too.
Often my students want to ‘go pro’, or take their drumming business to the next level, but haven’t quite accepted Social Media as a tool to assist that.
What’s interesting too, is the most common reason holding people back is the fear of judgment from other drummers.
This comes up all the time.
It’s not how they feel about their playing, so to speak, it’s the fear of what other people may feel about their playing, and them having to hear about it.
This fear chokes so many people.
I find this topic fascinating.
1. As we tend to give a lot of credence and power to people only loaded with opinions, people who ultimately have no real impact on our day-to-day as a working drummer.
2. I’ve navigated through this myself.
In my opinion, if you want to go pro in 2024, at this point, Social Media is not really a question, it’s actually a requirement for a proper career in drumming.
Agree or disagree?
That’s the advice I give every drummer I support and teach, well, any drummer entering the industry anyway.
But hey, that’s just my opinion.
So, today I wanted to tell two brief anecdotes, to possibly reframe the idea of putting yourself out there on Social Media.
If this is something you battle with, too, then hopefully this will help break through that crippling fear of judgment we sometimes get.
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The Perfect Cup Of Coffee
When I was a young barista, I was obsessed with making the perfect cup of coffee.
I followed all the most up-to-date science available at the time, making sure all my variables were as dialed in as they could be.
This means controlling the dose (grams of coffee used per cup), water temperature, milk temperature, and milk texture – depending on the coffee in question.
I was determined to make the perfect cup of coffee for EVERY customer that came through the door, based on all the knowledge I had acquired.
Seems easy enough, right?
Learn the variables, control them, eliminate the potential for failure, and BOOM, the perfect cup of coffee.
And guess what? With all that said and done, I still had customers come in and tell me they wanted their coffee brewed a specific way, and would then offer me advice on how to do it.
“Giving me advice on how to make coffee? Really? I’m the barista. I’ve done the research.”
That’s what I would think as an easily offended early-20s idealistic hospitality worker.
“There is nothing they could’ve shown me then as I had done my due-diligence. I didn’t need to be told.”
Frustrating!
Then one day, as if it was a message from a higher power, I was standing at the coffee machine and someone critiqued my method.
This would usually send me into a spiral that would not be great for every customer following this interaction, but this time? It didn’t.
At that moment, I suddenly realised my goal is not to make the ‘perfect cup of coffee’ for everyone, that’s impossible, but instead, it’s to make ‘my perfect cup of coffee’, for those that like the way that I do it.
Eureka.
The goal with my coffee was to find MY AUDIENCE.
This realisation was incredibly liberating.
Moving forward, I was to focus on the people that liked the way I made coffee, and not worry about the ones that didn’t.
Accommodate if I can, of course, but not to fret if I can’t.
People enter cafes with their own history of coffee experiences behind them, and sometimes there is no amount of ‘science and data’, that can fulfil their expectations.
And that’s ok.
Flavour is subjective, and a personal journey.
Freedom.
Find your audience.
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‘They don’t have to like you‘
One day, when my son was around 12-13yrs old, he told me he was having trouble with a couple of kids at school.
He went to a small school in a small coastal town, here in NZ. This school was very ‘clicky’, and with a couple of kids in particular, he just could not win with them.
This resulted in pretty normal (but unfortunate) things, like teasing and name-calling etc.
I listened to what he had to say, and just putting the teasing and name-calling aside for a second, I stopped and said to him, ‘you know, they don’t have to like you’.
He took pause.
Not the regular empowering chat you’d expect from your dad, but I quickly followed it up with, “do you like every kid you come across at school?”
He thought for a second and then replied very strongly, “no way”.
Exactly, I said.
“Some personalities just don’t gel together. That’s normal, that’s human nature, and that’s also OK”.
It’s never personal, even though it may feel like it at the time.
Preference of personalities is just taste, and once again, taste is subjective.
I explained to him that someone not liking him was not a reflection of him or his character, but simply a reflection of theirs, especially since they feel the need to express it.
But that’s OK.
It’s a hard lesson when you’re 12/13, but putting it back on him and asking if he likes everyone he comes across, definitely put things in perspective for him.
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A few years back, my Social Media started to grow.
There were a few factors that contributed to this, but a big one was the drum companies I endorsed at the time were sharing my content with their audience.
Oh, and then I went on Drumeo, too. (Nuts)
Sure, I got exposed to a wider network, and a bunch of new followers in the process, but I was also put in front of a lot of people that weren’t necessarily my audience.
Some did not only not like what I do, but they also felt the need to tell me, too. Haha.
Hard pills to swallow. It was a crazy time to navigate.
I would get tagged in comments daily, or DM’d by people telling me they didn’t like my playing, I had awful technique, my chops sucked, my single kick technique was a circus trick that shouldn’t be shared, and more. You get the point.
It was brutal.
What got me through this, and still does to a degree (even though it rarely happens now), was by taking my own advice I gave my son way back when he was 12, and then also thinking back to my barista days, and understanding that not everyone needs to like what I do, and not only that, it’s actually their right to not like what I do.
Thats the human experience. Subjective personal preference.
And that is OK.
This was never an indictment on my playing, this was just people expressing their personal and subjective preference. Thats it.
I’m not a fan of every drummer out there, so why should they be?
First and foremost, I focus on my playing, then, in turn, I focus on the audience that resonate with that, and not worry about the ones that don’t.
Another powerful sentence that comes to mind is something I’ve been saying for some time now, too, and that is, ‘be proud of what you can do, and don’t worry about what you can’t do’.
So to wrap this all up in a nice little bow, understand that not everyone needs to like what you do on the drums, just like you don’t like what everyone else does on the drums, but don’t let that get in the way of promoting yourself online. Own it.
Social Media can be tough to navigate at times, but it’s just a tool, and can really help move your career forward.
And when someone inevitably takes it upon themselves to tell you their thoughts on your playing, and maybe in not the most positive light, that’s OK.
Its not personal. Just remember…
“They don’t have to like you”
I always appreciate your feedback, so send anything thoughts you have, through.
Stay Hungry, see you next week.
Stan
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