I finally stopped feeling like a starving artist when I figured out how to turn my love of music into an actual business.

For context, I spent nearly two decades playing live shows, 15 years playing music professionally, and 10 years touring at the highest level, performing in arenas and working a full schedule as a session drummer in Nashville, Tennessee.

Life was good.

But no matter how high I climbed the ladder of “corporate musicianship” (if that’s a thing), I never quite felt like I had reached that zone of safety where I no longer needed to hustle every minute of every day to earn a living.

And more importantly, I never truly felt like I was making a difference in people’s lives with my work.

Yes, music is a fundamental expression of humanity, and yes, I believe music—live and recorded—is of the utmost importance, but I just never could shake the feeling that I was meant for something more.

The moment that truth clicked for me was when I realized I could take my love of music (and my passion for creating it) and use it to actually serve other people through a business rather than as an entertainment option for 90 minutes on a Friday night.

And though I didn’t have a name for it at the time, I stumbled upon this revelation using a system I now understand to be called Ikigai.

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What is Ikigai?

Ikigai is a Japanese term meaning “a reason to live”.

As a citizen of the internet, you may have heard of this before, but, put simply, Ikigai is a means of combining what you enjoy, what you are good at, what people need, and what they will pay you for.

As a professional musician, I spent a lot of time in the top right corner of this chart, exploring what I enjoyed and digging deep into what I was good at.

But I always struggled to wrap my head around the bottom left—what people need and what they will pay you for.

As my career grew, I discovered more avenues for what people would pay me to do (hint: it was usually just playing the drums), but I always felt like yet another drummer in a sea of drummers.

This was unsettling for me.

Was another drummer what people really needed?

Was playing the drums the only way I could uniquely serve the world?

Perhaps you’ve asked yourself similar questions.

And perhaps, just like there was for me, there is another path you can take that will lead to a deeper, richer, more fulfilling life as an artist, musician, creator, and servant working to make the world a better place through the application of your gifts.

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The path to discovery

If I had to point to one single moment in time, one action, that fundamentally altered the trajectory of my professional life for the better, I would say it was the day I posted my first vlog on YouTube.

This one move began a journey of self-discovery that would ultimately lead me to create courses, start an agency, and serve thousands upon thousands of artists and creators across the globe through content, products, services, and one-on-one conversations.

Talk about purpose.

But none of that would have happened if I hadn’t taken that first step and hit publish on YouTube.

So how did I get from the desire to do more to actually doing it, and how can you do the same?

For me, it happened in three stages.

Stage 1: create content about what you enjoy.

​My early videos were all over the place.

One day I would I would talk about making sound panels for my home studio, the next I would film myself soldering audio connections.

I even tried making content about my family.

Of course, this only led to other family members watching my videos—not my target audience.

But as I continued to make videos on YouTube, post to Instagram, and write on Twitter, a pattern emerged: my best-performing content was always about marketing.

This was the content that got the most traffic and, more importantly, the most questions and comments, which is the foundation for stage two.

Stage 2: pay attention to what people want.

Clearly, marketing was a corner of the internet where people needed help, and they were asking for it.

Once I realized what was happening, I began farming comments and replies for content ideas (I still do this, by the way).

My thinking was: if one person has this question, others probably do too.

Fortunately, my instincts were correct, and the demand for help beyond simply posting to social media grew.

My DMs and email began getting flooded with requests for help.

“Tom, do you have a course?”

“Tom, do you do consultations?”

“Tom, can you just do this for me?”

These repeated questions were a validation that I had found an overlap between what I enjoyed and what I was good at.

I knew it was time to move on to stage three.

Stage 3: create solutions to solve other people’s problems.

If you want to make money from your creative pursuits, you have to provide something—in the form of a product or service—that adds value to the lives of others.

For some, this will be original art or music.

For most, it will be a combination of other things.

When I started getting messages about courses, consultations, and services, I didn’t have anything in place to help beyond just making more YouTube videos or posting more content to Instagram and Twitter.

So I just kept doing those things while slowly building in the background, doing my best to help for free.

Once I felt I had reached a point where I could generate reliable results for others, I began offering products and services to help people beyond free content on social media.

And thus a business was born.

All because I took a chance, hit publish, and listened to what people wanted.

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Putting it into practice

My original reason for creating content online was to fuel the growth of my own catalog of music as an independent artist.

Just as I had done for years, I wanted to make all my money from music, but that’s not where the journey ultimately took me.

And I’m so grateful it happened the way it did.

Serving others through a business, for me, is so much more deeply rewarding and fulfilling than only making music and that’s it.

So if you find yourself unfulfilled by your creative pursuits (or maybe just by the results), perhaps you might consider taking a journey of your own.

What worked for me may just work for you, albeit in a different way, as no two adventures are the same.

But regardless of your current creative status or your desired outcome, the three stages still apply:

1. Explore your interests in public
2. Pay attention to what people want
3. Create solutions to solve their problems

Maybe this doesn’t look like being a full-time independent artist.

But maybe it does.

Maybe, for you, creating and releasing original music is the highest calling for your life and the best way for you to use your talents to create a better world.

No one can know that but you and no one can determine that without trying it on their own.

Just remember there are infinite pathways to create work you enjoy, serve others, and build a career (and a life) doing what you love.

You just have to get out there and try.

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