Matthew Kilby joins Tanner Guss to discuss healthy goal setting, comparison, the pressure of mastering everything, and seeing a therapist.
“You need an anonymous third party with accreditation to tell you if you’re being psychotic or not.”
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Actionable Advice
- “If my career does take off one one day it’s gonna be because I had the clarity of thought to come up with some new idea, or some variation of something that someone’s already done before me, that other people think is cool. And that’s only going to happen if I eat my Wheaties”. Plan your meals, schedule personal reflection time, and get enough sleep. We can’t be at our most creative if we’re exhausted, under-fueled, and scatterbrained!
- If you’re someone who “doesn’t have the time” to take care of yourself. Remember that “Sometimes all you need to be creative is a set of limitations”. You’ll probably find that once you limit your practice time it puts more pressure on being as focused and productive during that time as possible.
- “Sometimes the best long term planning for a career is good short term planning“. Crush it one day at a time, slowly but surely cultivating the knowledge, mindset, and healthy habits you’ve decided will bring you closer to your ideal lifestyle.
- “My whole strategy from the beginning was to learn a little bit about everything so I could be open to one day mastering that craft should I need it”. Be open to accepting new information without feeling like you have to master it. This is especially important to keep in mind while in school! In order to get your money’s worth your professors have to give you a career’s worth of knowledge in a few short years. Take good notes, have a system to catalogue the information, and know that it’s going to take years for all of it to sink in.
Coda Questions
- What is your go to feel good album? Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky
- What’s the best advice about happiness you’ve received? Guillermo del Toro Radical Optimism
- Who’s a musician in your life living a happy, healthy, and fulfilling lifestyle? Michael Spiro
- What advice would you give to a young musician? “Pace themselves with everything in their lives. It can be tempting to feel like you have to achieve greatness as soon as possible. But you don’t really.”
- What is your purpose as a musician? “I just want to keep waking up every day and be as creative as I can. I guess my purpose would be to express my humanity to other people in hopes of connecting with them and having a more meaningful life.”