In my quest to learn more about filmmaking, I’ve watched countless hours of video interviews from filmmakers. For the most part, these interviews have been about the technical aspects of filmmaking (shot composition, story telling, etc.), but there are also a good amount of interviews that are about the journey of these filmmakers and their mindset. I’ve always believed that having the right mindset will take a person much further than just having a skill, so I’m always interested in hearing people explain what really motivates them.

Today is the day. I have officially been sober for seven years today.

One of the coolest things about being sober is probably the fact that once you get sober your sober date kind of becomes your second birthday. That part is pretty awesome to me.

Throughout my entire creative career, I’ve been a man of few tools. While many of my peers were going crazy about and purchasing the latest and greatest music production gear, I was holding still, using the same old reliable gear that got me where I was.

As a former Information Systems guy, I was always curious about new gear and advances in technology of beat-making, but something didn’t seem right about constantly upgrading my gear before I had truly mastered it. So for the first seven or eight years of my music career I used the same gear; an MPC-2000 sampling drum machine, Pro Tools, a $99 mic, and my records. 

If there’s one constant lesson I’ve seen during the process of making this King No Crown movie, it’s that there are always trade-offs. As simple as a decision may seem on the surface, it never really is simple. That’s because every decision has it’s benefits and it’s consequences.

Like most kids, I was huge fan of comic books growing up. In fact, I have to credit comic books as being the first thing I was ever excited about reading. Regular books were just boring to me, at least until I was fifteen or sixteen years old. But even as a teenager, I wasn’t very much into reading. Back then, we were too busy running around and playing sports to sit down and dedicate significant time reading anything that was beyond our school assignments.

Things really changed for me when I stopped drinking. All the sudden my mind started clearing up and I had a burning desire to read and learn more. So, for the first time in my adult life, I got a library card. Ever since then my reading habits have been strong and steady. I look up books online, then check them out from my local library if they’re available. I do buy many books that I think I would like to keep as reference but, overall, the Columbus Public Library is my go to spot.

Anybody who’s a fan of sports is familiar with the term “strength of schedule.” Strength of schedule refers to how good or bad the opponents of a particular team were at the time that they played them. So, for example, if my team was 1-1 and played against one team that was 2-0 and another that was 1-1, my strength of schedule would be considered stronger than another 1-1 team who played against teams that were both 0-2. The teams I played against had better records, so my team had a better strength of schedule.

The first time I ever messed with real estate was in 2006. After saving up some money, I decided to buy a distressed property. My plan was to take a few months while I wasn’t touring to have it rehabbed, then rent it out for some future passive income.

The plan seemed simple enough but there was one major flaw: I had never rehabbed a property before in my life. I had completed several smaller remodeling jobs in my own house, but nothing on the level of what would be necessary to finish this project alone. Thankfully a friend of mine, who had mentored me through the purchasing process to that point, had a contractor that he worked with and recommended me. This contractor had helped him with his previous property and was said to have been a good guy.

Unfortunately, the experience I had with that contractor was nothing like his.