James Lee Stanley

So today is my birthday.   I’m sixty four and I’ve been playing the guitar for  fifty years today.    Needless to say, I have been doing some ruminating on this path I’ve taken and the choices I’ve made.

One thing stands out to me as I sift through five decades of making music.   This job has no days off, no benefits, and no guarantees.   The fact of the matter is, if you do take a day off, from practicing, from promoting your work, from booking dates, from writing, you SUFFER; your work suffers.  

You have to play everyday to achieve and maintain even an illusion of mastery over your instrument and as I wrap up my 27^th CD, Backstage at the Resurrection, I must acknowledge that I haven’t been practicing.

I come out here to the studio and, if I turn the computer on, I’m back in the business of mixing this recording.   I have a work  ethic and I have discipline of sorts, but recently, perhaps since my father’s passin, I haven’t been able to just come in here and practice every day.

So the first order of business today is to encourage you to create a routine and stick to it.

The second thing that came to me is that I truly never laid out a master plan for what I was doing.  In my naïve state, I actually thought that I was so good that things would just fall into place.   That’s what happened in all the books I read and the movies I saw.  

You get DISCOVERED and the entire world opens up at your feet.   

It’s possible.   It’s happened to people.   But statistically, you know what?   It doesn’t happen.  The phone doesn’t ring itself; CD’s don’t just go flying out the door on their own; bookings do not consistently show up as if by magic.

Yes, it is true that if you are good, that you will get some recognition, and some work and some sales, but I guarantee you that nobody  who has maintained a place at the top of this business did it by luck or talent.

Those things can get you noticed and can get you some time in the spotlight, but if you plan to stay there, then you better make plans.

So far as I can tell, you need a daily plan (the routine I mentioned earlier that I am still failing at fifty years later); a weekly plan of what you want to have happen that week.  As you know, that’s my favorite question:  “what do you want to have happen?”

You can’t get anywhere if you don’t know where you want to go.

After the weekly plan, you need a monthly plan; a yearly plan; a five year plan; a ten year plan and an overall plan.

Take some time as this is going to take a while.   

It’s my birthday, so I’m going to start my plan…tomorrow.