All Positive, All Possibilities
June 6, 2023
All positive, all possibilities
I’m on a flight back from Anchorage and a visit to Josie and Chad and their newborn baby, Liam. I am so glad I got to come up and see them all; it was much needed for all of us. Josie was in tears as soon as I got into the car after landing on 6/1. She was totally overwhelmed taking care of the baby and said it was like she had not one but TWO babies (including Chad). She was struggling to understand baby Liam’s queues and non-verbal communication. She couldn’t get him into a sleep routine and felt like she had limited help. Within 24 hours I was able to address many of those items; we got Liam into his crib for naps (they had previously been holding him every time he slept), I learned she hadn’t been asking for help from anyone who attended her baby shower, and I helped her understand the signs he showed when he was hungry versus tired. She previously thought her baby was really fussy, but to my surprise I found him to be very normal, even a “good” baby! We got things dialed in and had solid teamwork amongst the three of us. They were both able to sleep more, Liam slept more, I took him on his first walk through the neighborhood in the stroller and we all even got to go out to a concert on Saturday night and see Smashmouth at an outdoor venue. It was a great trip despite their stress about Chad’s lost job which had him in a particularly edgy mood, and I didn’t like the way he was talking to Josie in a few key moments. I asked her if I should say something to him, she said no of course, but promised she would be addressing it with him. I also got to sit in with the house band at Humpy’s and sing 4 songs to the delight of Josie and her friends who accompanied us on Sunday night. I’m hoping to come back and do my own gig at some point. It is really wonderful to be back as Josie’s “best friend ever” which is a title I had somehow temporarily shed until this trip. She has been so disconnected from me for the past several years; only swooping in periodically and with some protective distance in more ways than one. I guess just my being here during this trying time for her was all it took to be restored to my normal rank in her eyes. Either way, I’m grateful for it and happy to feel the closeness again that we always used to enjoy.
This was the first trip I had planned since resigning my position at PMP and finally serving out my last day on May 31. I had given them my notice around April 5 after feeling like I simply couldn’t wait any longer, and knowing I wanted to give them plenty of advanced notice despite the level of stress I was under. I am disappointed that it didn’t work out as a longer-term arrangement, my service as Vice President of their OC division, but it turns out I didn’t really have a very good idea of what I was doing! I mean, I know management, and I have ideas of what makes a good leader, but being responsible to run the division was something I couldn’t have prepared for and they didn’t really train me on. I didn’t have a mentor or a real job description. Much of what I was able to achieve I learned by piecing things together on my own. I didn’t get to recruit most of my team when I started, but I was responsible to replace those who left. The company training programs I was led to believe would alleviate the need for me to directly train managers turned out to be minimal and sporadic at best. Then, the clients!! Oh, lord. PMP was selling services to any and all HOA’s in OC without regard for their current financial position, board dynamics, or other factors. This was a dramatic negative shift from Margo’s practices at CH. As a result, the accounts were exceptionally challenging and most of my team did not have the bandwidth or skillset to property assist on the ever-changing needs of those clients. We were constantly working outside the box, against company policies, and beyond the scope of the management agreement to try to appease customers who gave us little regard for any of our extra efforts. It really was a shit show!! Especially after the salary freeze that was announced in January. I knew that was coming and had told Steve that January was going to be the beginning of a very ugly period for the company, or at least my division, and in the end it really was worse than I had anticipated. Because all the while, the golden child of the division, Jared Campbell, who was the longest tenured manager of the division, was shirking my attempts to supervise and lead him. He was ignoring policies that I was tasked with enforcing. But because of the high-paying book of business he was managing, and the way he seemed to keep his clients happy and dazzle everyone else with total bullshit, I was challenged to tolerate it. However, the errors and omissions he was committing were crucial and not negligible, despite the fact that the clients didn’t seem to notice. I had been sounding the alarm about him since last October - if not earlier - and expressing to Brad, Kristen, and any other leader who would listen that I felt like he wasn’t listening to me and was trying to get away with stuff like not requesting permission before working from home, failing to provide proper notice of meetings, hearings, and hearing result letters, etc. I needed to learn how to manage him and exactly what to do to make him more accountable, but was not given that advice. Brad would constantly remind me that his clients were happy and that he had a special relationship with Jared so would talk to him directly, but the situation only got worse. I had wanted to fire him after learning he blatantly lied and tried to cover his tracks regarding his Mallorca budget mailer, but we were already short staffed. We were never able to get in front of that, even for the subsequent six months. After I gave my notice and told the leadership that my departure was in large part due to a feeling that certain members of my team were unmanageable, they finally acknowledged the toxicity he was spreading through the office and agreed that he had to go. This was, mind you, after two managers also gave notice, and before another two would follow. As a result, after I gave my notice, and after Jared was fired but before my last day, I was made to absorb/directly manage two of Jared’s heaviest accounts - one of which is practically a full-time job in itself (Mallorca). He also had the balls to accuse me not only of slandering him (which was totally baseless, and laughable), but that I was the reason the division was falling apart. He then told Brandon (my boss) that he thought his loyalty would have been good for something. The whole thing totally royally pissed me off but because I had already decided I was out of here, I didn’t let it get to me. It was high time for me to move on. Life is simply too short and there are too many other things I could be doing with my life. Unfortunately I feel like I wasted the last 18 years in this industry, but I say that only because I don’t love it and it stresses me out. It hasn’t been all bad. I have made lots of friends and met some other great people along the way. I got paid very well and am very well respected amongst industry associates. I got to climb the proverbial corporate ladder and I would say I made it pretty damn close to the top. I was wined and dined and enjoyed lots of perks like free concerts and baseball games. It certainly hasn’t all been bad. But, it is time for change.
Steve and I sat down together in January after another terrible fight about my so-called alcohol problem, and we made a list. We set goals together, something we maybe had never done in any formal kind of way. I told him that my drinking habits were directly related to the stress and to a desire for more FUN in my life. He used to take me out to dinner, but because of financial problems, he had stopped doing that for quite a while. We weren’t even enjoying proper date nights anymore. We had been going to counseling for the alcohol stuff, but our relationship overall didn’t seem to be improving.
All of that started changing when we made our list. One of the top items on my list was that I wanted to return to music again. I told him that I need it in my life. It is a great outlet for me; it is my preferred form of expression and blowing off steam! Aside from that, it is simply FUN. I acknowledged that he had purchased a full PA system for me for Christmas in 2021 and I had yet to ever use it. It was time, we agreed. I decided I wanted to launch my one woman show. The one-woman show is easy to book these days. Ever since Covid ended and the world has started going out again, there is more live music to enjoy in small establishments than I ever remember before. So I grabbed the PA set and hauled it upstairs to our “studio floor” - a room that has thus far served as little more than a storage room since we moved into our house in 2018. I took all of Steve’s stuff and moved it into his studio. After all, the studio wasn’t really set up, either. I was careful to move the items into positions that I thought were relatively out of the way for him, as he does use that space as an office. I didn’t ask for help; I just took charge of the whole process. I claimed the studio floor and renamed it “the jam room.” I hanged my Herb Ritz Madonna portrait and my T-shirt quilt. I set up the keyboard and the guitar stands and bought a chaise lounge to ensure ample guest seating. I added lights, hung pictures and dialed everything in. As I was working on that, I was also focused on my set list. I started making a list of songs for my show that would fit all of the following criteria:
1) BRING ME JOY
2) RECOGNIZABLE TO MOST PEOPLE
3) UPBEAT AND FUN (NO COFFEEHOUSE VIBES)
4) FEATURE A GUITAR PART I CAN PLAY
As I developed my list of songs, I also identified the venues where my show would work best. I started an Instagram account @OneWomanNoCry (I also locked in a Google account of the same name and had Steve buy the domain) and started following other one-man shows and venues that were hosting them. My target locations are everywhere from Vegas to the South Bay, OC and Temecula, including wineries, restaurants, breweries and bars. Then I started posting pics on my Instagram page that featured me in a live music setting, but without the band whenever possible. I wanted my page to be used for marketing so I knew it was important to not look like a brand new account. I posted pics that were up to 15 years old - playing karaoke bars, Angels Stadium, Silky Sullivan’s and private parties with Blacklight Fusion. I made fun memes and posted teasers of some of the songs I planned to play. The goal was to prove that I have been doing this for a long time, and that I wasn’t new to the music scene. This was crucial to being able to get gigs quickly once my show was ready to go. Steve showed me how to use “Band in a Box”, a software program that supports production of background tracks, made from scratch using sample beats and progressions. You tell the program how many beats per minute you need, then pick a sample that sounds close to the one you want to produce. Then you just add the chords in order and make sure the beginnings and endings work. To add background vocals or other instruments, Steve assured me we could do that later, in Logic. However, in the meantime I discovered I could download almost any track in the world from the internet and simply remove the guitar and vocal from it. After a few months producing tracks on my own and painstakingly trying to find the right materials for each one, I was grateful for the online resources, downloaded the ones that were more challenging to produce and quickly proliferated my list to 40 songs. That should be enough to get me started on gigs.
I should have predicted what would happen next.
I met up with Dionne, one of my new managers, one night after her Board meeting. She had run the meeting independently and had been excited to share that accomplishment, so we decided to celebrate and meet for drinks. Knolls restaurant was one of the places I had started following on Instagram. I asked if we could meet there so I could scope the place out and see who was in charge of booking the musicians. She agreed, and when we arrived, there was a lively band entertaining many dancers in the corner of the room. We enjoyed great service, good food and drinks while the band rocked this little place in Laguna Niguel on a Thursday night. Again, I was reminded that this kind of sight probably wouldn’t have been seen pre-Covid; certainly not on a Thursday night. I was able to confirm through the server that the person who books the musicians was the restaurant owner, who also operates the Instagram account. Perfect! I sent a message that night introducing myself and telling her how much I enjoyed everything Knolls has to offer, how I grew up just up the hill from the place, how I am also an artist who would be a good fit for her crowd, etc. I asked her to check out my page and let me know if she had any openings in her calendar. At first, I received no response, which was kind of expected. So I followed up. Finally, about two weeks later, I get a very curt reply:
“How much you charge”
Now we’re talking!
After some negotiations, we agreed on a price, then she sent me the date she wanted: 5/24. Oh, wow. That was only 2 and ½ weeks from today. Could I get all the tracks ready by then? Could I get everything loaded on to a tablet and comfortable operating it during the show? Could I personally be polished enough by then to present my show to the 100 friends and followers I had generated on Instagram since its launch in January?
YES, I can, I decided. Of course, I can. I just needed a date to target for finishing everything up. Now, I had one. I just had to work quickly, with focus, especially as I endured the last few stressful weeks winding down my corporate job. Naturally, I let music take the lead at that point, and developed a bit of a “short-timer” attitude at work.
Right around that same time, Steve had planned to take a contract with Reimage in North Carolina that was expected to pay about $22,000. He was very excited at the prospect of doing the project with Jesse, visiting friends along the way, and paying down his debt (which has been a work in progress almost since the day we met). Unfortunately, after the project was confirmed, it was cancelled completely. Steve was really upset about it, understandably. Then, this gig was confirmed. I knew I couldn’t possibly get ready for the show without Steve being around to help me finish the tracks. “This is why your project was cancelled!” I announced to him, delighted. God bless him, he agreed, and said he was excited for me and would be happy to help me get this project across the finish line.
The day after the inaugural One Woman No Cry show - which would bring me a total of $450 in cash from the restaurant as well as tips, thank you very much - I wrote Steve a long thank-you card. The truth is, none of it would have happened without him. He was the one who woke me up, who made me see how unhappy I really was, and that I needed music in my life again. He bought me the PA system. He bought me the domain. He formed my LLC in the state of Nevada, got me a tax ID number, a bank account and a Vegas phone number. He showed me how to use Band in the Box and create the tracks. He mixed and mastered all of the tracks - including the ones from the internet - and made it so that the levels were consistent from one to the next. He helped me navigate the tablet and transferred all of the final tracks to it. And of course, he was there to support me on the night of the show, and even brought Matthew to come check it out. He showed happiness and relief at this transformative shift that was happening for me, and encouraged me all the way. I am so indebted to him for all of it.
After pocketing that fistful of money and realizing my departure from the corporate world was finally just around the corner, I finally allowed in the prospect of doing music for a living. Not just for fun, but for a LIVING. I did the math: if I could get 4 shows per week and just $100 per hour, assuming each one is a 3-hour show and I earn nothing in tips, that’s $1200/week ($62,400 per year, gross). To make that same amount of money, I would have to earn $30 per hour at a full-time job. Granted, this is significantly less than the $115k salary I just walked away from at PMP. But because I am running the income through the LLC in a tax-free income state, the net pay won’t be that far off. Besides, for a long time I have been earning more than I need - pretty much ever since I reached $90k per year. If I took $90k and conservatively deducted 20% in taxes, that would be $78k net annual pay. That is $1500 per week, which means if I play four shows per week and walk away with $375 each time including tips, I have matched that income.
It will take some time to get my calendar filled out that far, but I know it is possible. It is DEFINITELY possible. I just need to be very aggressive with direct messages, phone calls, marketing, and follow up. I need to be willing to GRIND for this. I can definitely do this. The music is good. The crowd at Knolls put $150 in my tip jar. They liked the show, even though they didn’t dance. I can get them dancing, given the right opportunity. I can play private parties and get $500 instead of $300. I can make people remember my name because it is unique. I already have a sign to post at my show, business cards, and a website. There is no good reason why I can’t get this to fly. I’ve witnessed the competition. Some of them are very good, others are very average (at best). My show is unique. I haven’t seen any one woman show yet that includes a female guitar player singing to background tracks. Not once. Not in Vegas or anywhere else. I really need to lose weight. Then I know it can take off. Hell, it can take off without the weight loss, but I know the difference it makes to look “the part.” I also know how much better I look at my goal weight! So, as a pursue making this happen on a more full-time basis, my next goal is to get to my goal weight. II have been exercising consistently but not cutting calories appropriately. I have to make that happen if I want the world to meet me where I am, which is ready to take it on. One woman, no cry. Just ambition.