Since we jumped off into a brand new venture of creating a music career back in June 2016, we really had no idea how to get started or how to take the first step. Joshua and I met in the electrical industry, me as an office administrator for a union electrical contractor and he as a union service electrician. We became quick friends and worked really well together. So much so that we grew the service department at that company leaps and bounds from where it started. When it came time to look at our future with that aging company, after many discussions and research regarding the purchase of the company we were working for when the owner was ready to retire, all parties involved decided that purchasing the current company was not a great plan. Instead, we decided to start our own company...we thought working for ourselves would alleviate our stress LOL! Boy have we learned a few lessons since then ;) Don't get me wrong, working for ourselves was better and if we LOVED what we were doing it would not have been nearly as stressful. One of the first lessons we learned by taking that step into owning our own electrical business was learning very quickly (over a two year period lol) that neither one of us was all that fond of working in construction!!! We were both great at it and we also hated it, we made a good living and for what? A big house that we rarely spent any time in because we were working so much and a couple of cars. We had a decent balance in our bank account and we were paying out the nose for the few "luxuries" that we had, not spending time together and too tired after working in the field and networking that we would fall into bed at night just to get ready to do it all over again tomorrow. After Joshua was diagnosed with a rotator cuff injury, he was told that if he continued to stay in the industry he would continue to have the same injury over and over again. We decided to examine our life, our choices and our options. This was an opportunity for some real honest communication about the direction we wanted to go! Believe me this was not an easy time for us, we really hashed some things out and through the help and support from the people we met and the tools we learned through some personal development seminars we continue to come out better on the other side.
Joshua is a brilliant man; he devised a way for us to discover what our true deepest commitments were. He suggested each of us create a list of four things that we were committed to creating in our lives separately and then we would come together to see how we could both get what we want. Miraculously, our lists were very similar, the order of priority was different and we had the same ideas about what we wanted to create. Looking back, the funny thing we learned here is none of it was material things. Neither one of us mentioned keeping our house or our cars or even having any of those things in the future. We discovered that relationships were our highest priority and this continues to this day.
Among the lessons we have learned about ourselves, we have learned how to utilize our strengths in creating our music career. Joshua has incredible musical talents, writing unique and beautiful piano pieces, sharing stories, arranging our music, music engineering and production, vocal coaching, pretty much anything music!! I on the other hand am persistent in making cold calls, follow up, negotiating, scheduling, social media and marketing and who knows what else I am not even thinking about right now lol! Now we have both dabbled in all of these areas and have found through trial and error what has worked and what hasn't and when it doesn't work to allow and trust the other person to do what they do best...we are still a work in progress and we make a wonderful team!
Hard to believe that we closed our electrical business, sold everything we had, bought a tour bus, jumped out with only 8 shows booked and here we are starting our third year on the road! We have learned how to book our own shows, finding our market, branding and re-branding ourselves to that market, more music and confidence in our talents! We are not experts by any means- and we are thrilled to step up to the plate for our next level up...who knows what is in store for us next and the best part is...WE are loving every crazy moment of this journey!!!