How to Turn Entrepreneurship Into Your Dream Career | Seth James McCaul

Episode 46 — Seth James McCaul / Happy Home Repair / SJM — Cleaned Transcript

Guest: Seth James McCaul, founder of Happy Home Repair and independent recording artist SJM

Note: This transcript has been cleaned for readability. Raw timecodes and placeholder speaker labels were removed, obvious transcription errors involving names and business/music terminology were corrected, and repeated teaser material after the main interview was omitted. The substance of the conversation was preserved.

Opening & Meet Seth James McCaul

I just refuse to take no for an answer. I was like, this is going to work and I'm going to make it happen. Being an artist, you have to be able to fail more than other people want to try. Excellence will always be attacked by mediocrity. Regardless of what people tell you, their opinions don't matter. They have to be a person of value versus being a person providing value.

I don't want to be sitting on my deathbed and regret, and it's like, if this is what I was put on this planet to do, I can feel that and my spirit and my soul and I say, go for it.

Hi, welcome to the Key Concepts Podcast. A lot of people see entrepreneurship and artistry as completely different fields, but today we're going to explore how the lessons learned from building a business collides with being an artist. Please welcome my special guest, Seth James McCaul, founder of Happy Home Repair and independent recording artist known as SJM. Seth, thank you so much for being here with us today.

It's great to be here. Thank you so much. Looking forward to the conversation. Yeah, business entrepreneurship is going to be a blast. I'm sure there is a lot that does crossover between the two niches and some that probably doesn't. So we'll kind of get into all of that stuff. But before we do, we asked the last guest to leave a question for the next guest.

Investing in Yourself and Building a Personal Brand

And my last guest I had two people on. You're going to get two questions. The first question is, what is your favorite investment advice that you would give someone regardless of what it's it, whether it's health, fitness, business and so on. I would say to invest in yourself because when you're doing business, you have to understand people don't really buy your services.

Sometimes they do and they focus more on that, but they're more focused on the person they're buying them from. So investing yourself, being confident and having your ducks in a row, so to speak, makes things better, makes things easier to sell. So it's more about the brand more or less like people are buying you for, for you, not necessarily what you provide.

Happy Home Repair and the SJM Music Career

The second question that I have for you is what is your passion asset of work and what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? I know I want to leave a legacy behind. I just haven't thought more ethics or moral ground for that. It's been more like I get in the studio and it's just like, God, man.

It's like nothing like it. It's like performing on stage. It's just my mind goes somewhere else and it's just bliss. All right, well, for someone hearing about Happy Home Repair for the first time, can you give us an overview of what that is and what services you provide? So Happy Home Repair. I founded in 2013. We have a general contracting side and we have a handyman service side.

So that looks like is big projects with a full crew going. And then we have in between jobs that mostly I do myself as a technician or have somebody else go out and do like change a door or clean gutters. And so we got both sides of it going nice. And what geography. Do you service the 916 area code?

A lot of our customers are residential homeowners or they own multiple properties. So a lot of them have properties outside of our our our service area. And I'll do that for long term customers for sure. Springs. We did a 200 unit apartment complex in Michigan. So it just kind of depends on the dynamic between me and the customer.

And as an artist. You go by SJM. So can you give us an overview of what type of music that you play and what that's about? I originally started out as a instrumental composer, more like movie movie scores and stuff like that. It wasn't really cohesive. I did some dance music and some techno stuff over the years. It's progressed into doing the recording artist side, because I got fed up with waiting on other people to continue my momentum, so I don't make instrumentals anymore.

It's just 100% recording artists for last year, and I mean, I'm doing a dance album, I'm doing two rap albums, a rock album, and I don't really play the instruments. I just purchased the instrumentals from other people who are more talented than I've been. But I work with a very exclusive engineer and his name, DJ lute, and so it's been extremely productive and we've accelerated at an alarming rate, especially we did last time.

It was like five, five tracks, half an album in 2.5 hours. But my vibe is not really like a negative vibe. It's more like positive living, I believe a manifestation. I believe in the law of the law of attraction, so it's more high life vibes, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. But you mentioned Law of Attraction and so how would you define Law of Attraction?

From Construction Work to Entrepreneurship

If you take for example gravity, you can't see it, but it's there, you know, it's there or the wind, you can't see it, but it's there and it's a force stronger than us. The law of Attraction is one of the universal laws where like will attract like. So if I'm vibrating or oscillating at a molecular level for a specific outcome, not focusing on the how it's going to happen and focusing on the result only it will manifest in the physical realm directly in front of me.

Yeah. I mean, just kind of summarize, it sounds like you got to change your identity and be that person, that future you, and then that things will kind of fall into place. But home repair and being an artist are completely different industries. So like these, you always want to be artist. Or was home repair just a stepping stone to becoming an artist?

I had met somebody while I was in college in 2011. I was doing music business, commercial music business at the time, and so I happened to need money because I was struggling college student, you know, and I ran into a person through a woman I was dating, and he hired me as a trash hauler. And so it was more like out of necessity to make money to survive.

And then that snowballed into opening my own company. And I always wanted to work in commercial music business. I just didn't know what that looked like until like this last year. Now, you said you were kind of working for construction services just because you needed money for whatever reason, but then you decided to open up your own business.

Starting a Business With $200

So like, why wouldn't you be the job? Like, how did you decide I want to quit this job and do my own thing? I remember the moment I had my entrepreneurial seizure. I was sitting at a lion restaurant or a cross with my former employer. He was a same contractor I was talking about earlier, and I remember asking him for race, and I was making like ten bucks an hour and I'm like, I can't support myself on this wage.

I said, you taught me everything. We kind of know the same things. And he said, no. And so I stood up in that table and I was like, I'll figure it out. And that was the first time I ever believed in myself enough to throw it all on the line and just completely gamble with my livelihood and everything.

I mean, I had rent do, I had the 200 bucks, I just I figured it out. Yeah, but you're going home and you have this $200 in your pocket and you're stressed out. You just quit your job. Like, what was that? What were you tell yourself? You're sitting there alone, and you're like, I'm going to figure this out.

What are you thinking at that time? So I seen a different I work doing sales and marketing for, It was a place called Fidelis, and it's a lot smaller now. We did mobile apps back in like iPhone three era, and I was doing a chasing a vertical for like celebrities to build their apps. And I learned a lot at that.

Sales company was my first sales job. I also learned direct marketing there too. So what I did was I took that $200. I went to like a website and printed out business cards, and I walked to 10,000 houses. I dropped them on the door. It was scary. But once I broke through that threshold and realized I don't really need anybody else and I can do this myself, then it was just it was clear sailing from there.

So were you thinking about plan B? Did you were like, I'm just done working for people. I didn't really look at plan B, I just I had a very narrow focus on what success looked like and what business looked like. So what I took was the motivation and the caffeine addiction, because I love rock stars still do this day and I just applied it to I have to make this work.

I have to pay my rent. I have to pay my bills. I just refuse to say it to take. I just refuse to take no for an answer. I was like, this is going to work and I'm going to make it happen. It was terrifying. Absolutely. And it's still terrifying. There's months that I'm eating Top Ramen and there's months that I'm eating five star, five star gourmet meals.

It's just kind of, you know, I've been flow when it comes to entrepreneurship, but being a gambler with your livelihood is not easy. Yeah, it's like you're going all in on your strengths at that time and you're like, I got nothing to lose at this point. You have lost everything else, so might as well give myself a shot.

Early Challenges, Self-Doubt, and Mindset

Did you end up getting like a mentor throughout that process? Like did you kind of like, figure everything out by yourself? Did you run into someone that was like, this is kind of how you structured a business, or was it just everything that you had learned? You're just going to apply it? I didn't have a mentor back then.

I had a buddy named Shawn who also worked construction. He ended up partnering with me as a field guy because I was starting to see, okay, business is more my thing versus being in the field. It was it was such an interesting experience because I don't know how to explain it, except for just to say it was what I needed to do and flew by the seat of my pants.

Does that make sense? You know, I just. Yeah, I just did it. What were some of those early setbacks when you were kind of going and doing the door to door knocking, dropping off cars and stuff like that, or, or were some of those biggest challenges that you're like, oh, man, kind of kept you up at night, stressed you out.

Like, what were you going through? The first three years, I've noticed is the hardest, and I'm definitely one to fan. The fuel, the fan or fan, the flames of entrepreneurship. Anybody who wants to open a business because it's so rewarding. But there are always going to be setbacks, and it kind of depends on each entrepreneur, because if you don't have your head right, then your business will suffer.

At the time, I was struggling with other issues and other areas of my life. Had mental health issues, I had addiction issues. It was just it was difficult. And the struggles real, as they say. But speaking about the struggle, I mean, most entrepreneurs kind of go through this internal head chatter that's self-doubt. And so did you also have that and how did you overcome it?

I used a lot of affirmations. I lived on YouTube and meditation. I just found out, like just like we spoke about earlier, I just found out about the Law of Attraction through this Earl Nightingale video. And so I was able to kind of latch on to viewing my future versus viewing what I'm in right now, the present moment.

And that was able to take me out of a lot of those fears. And the self chatter would die down the more I would meditate. So I would literally go home from work every day because when you an entrepreneur, you take your work home with you and it's just like, it's exhausting. You can't you can't turn it off.

And so to be able to separate myself at home, my home life versus my work life, that was huge for me. I was able to cut that chatter down, and I was able to really focus on what I needed to focus on, on my short term and long term goals. Yeah, that's awesome that you you found the Law of Attraction, and you're able to kind of use that to mitigate some of the the internal chatter and the meditation and the YouTube, the support, the motivation and the reaffirmation of of investing in you and getting you forward.

Handling Negativity and Unsupportive People

And I think that's probably very important for every entrepreneur to to realize, like, it is going to be challenging, it is going to be tough, and you have to just push through it and tell yourself, you you can do it. That leads me to like, what is your support system look like? Usually entrepreneurs, when they start a business or are going down this path of figuring it out, they usually have friends that say, oh, you're not going to make it, why are you doing that?

Just go get another job. So did you have a support system or did you have people telling you, like, do something else? And I've kind of always been on my own, so to speak. My family, life's always been pretty distant. And so I'm not kind of used to having what that structure looks like. So I was able to really use that desire to have other areas of my life be fulfilled, to feel my entrepreneurship.

So the hardest part for me was hearing people that want to do things and people are all the same. I have always, I've always, I learned from my current mentor, he said. Excellence will always be attacked by mediocrity, and I'm starting to see that there's something I call accidental flex where people get jealous, and it's not because you feel like you're better than them, but they just want more out of their life.

But they're just not willing to do the things that an entrepreneur will. So I had a mixed review of people being supportive. Girlfriends have always been supportive along the way. I didn't have, like a real solid foundation, if that makes sense. I just I just flew out. Like I said, I flew by the seat of my pants.

How did you deal with them? Did you cut them out of your life? Did you did you just ignore them? Like, how do you mitigate for that and how do you not let that get to you? I guess it's tough because it's it's easier. It was easier for me to just disregard it, and just sign it off as this person just things started like, things are doing me a favor and they're just not.

And that's okay. They probably. Meanwhile, it was more than negativity that I just couldn't handle. Just like, okay, well, I just pushed him out of my out of my peripherals. It's like, okay, well, obviously I have to do something besides dealing with this person right now. We can talk about it later, but I'm busy. Yeah, you can start pushing some of those close friends and family to this side and yeah, it's rewarding him.

Advice for New Entrepreneurs

So what would you what advice would you give that person that has that idea? But it's kind of not realizing like, oh, people might I might lose friends and family. You think it's better not to start to start or what would you tell them? I think it depends on each person's circumstances. I also mentor people currently, just like I have mentors, and so the advice I give them is if you enjoy what the thing is that you want to do, then I say you go for it.

And regardless of what people tell you, their opinions don't matter. Only thing that matters of the day is how you feel about yourself and what you're doing to pursue your goals. And so I would tell a young entrepreneur, don't quit your job if you have your bills, don't do what I did. It worked for me. But a lot of times businesses do fail statistically between the first and third year.

And so it takes an ungodly amount of work and drive and ambition to get a business off the ground. Unless you have some sort of backing or financial thing. I didn't have that, so I just had to I had to do it myself. But I would say go for it. Anytime I meet somebody, it's like I want to start a business.

I'm like, I'll give you all the advice I've I've ever learned or all my mentors giving for free. It's like, I want to see people win. Winners love seeing other people in. Yeah, no. That's awesome. Yeah. Especially giving back to the next entrepreneurs so they don't have to make the same mistakes that you made and giving them over some of those potholes as a that's a great thing though.

That's good. What about for someone who has very little money, let's say they do have the job, the air conditioning, their bills, but they don't have the disposable income like they're just making ends meet paycheck to paycheck. And sometimes it takes money to make money, right? You got to invest in equipment, you got to invest in advertising and so on and so forth.

Starting a Business With Very Little Capital

What tips or suggestions do you have? Someone that can maybe still start their business idea, but maybe very little capital? I needed to put money into it. I didn't have to inject a ton of money. It was more my time I was injecting. So if somebody wants to start like a house cleaning business, residential house cleaning business, that's easy, you know, because it low, low startup cost.

But it just depends person to person. I tried doing real estate for a while and I fell flat on my face. It was nothing like I expected. It kind of sounds like. And I'm gonna infer based on what you just said, that there's two sides of business, there's services and products, and if you are having low capital, the way you did it is you provided a service which doesn't require that much products to be involved.

So if someone has a business idea and they're like, well, I have a product side, but I also have a service side, maybe they can start the server side because that's more you're vesting your time rather than investing in products. And so like you did your handyman services, that's your time. You're going to do repairs. Boom. You're making somebody come.

And that's very low overhead on your end. So maybe that's something that people can consider. What about for buying a business versus starting a business? Because as you said, starting business is a grind. You don't know if you're going to get a paycheck or you're not. But if you buy a business that's already starting, would you suggest people to to try that?

Starting vs. Buying a Business

Or is it better to have your own thing and started from scratch? It depends on your ability to delegate responsibility, because when I started out I was a control freak. I couldn't allow another person to do anything, and for me, it was easier for me to start my own thing because that was just what made sense for me financially at the time.

I've never purchased a business, I've just started branding. I've branded everything I've done by myself, starting from scratch. I'm sure there's a way to purchase a business. I'm just not the person to talk to you about that. Yeah. So it's something that people can explore on their own to find some some resources for that and considering value if it makes sense.

But at some point you made the jump into being an artist. So you went from, you know, building your business, doing the home repair, construction services, home services, like are you doing both at the same time? You're doing both. You're still running your business and now you're you're kind of going into the your third business of like being an artist.

Delegation and Working on the Business

So you're doing all of this within the 24 hour day. So the contractor that trained me now works as one of my partners. So it took a huge load off of me for the construction business. So now I'm less in the field, and it freed up a lot of my time to focus on working on the business versus working inside the business.

So I kind of got blessed with that because I don't have to manage him or anything. I was able to delegate all that responsibility on the construction side. However, that freed up my time and I kind of felt like the equivalent to maybe this is what retirement feels like. So I was able to get the freedom and the finances to start injecting that into the business side of my commercial music career.

I'm still doing the marketing. I actually will throw a couple of different pairs of clothes in my vehicle, and I have a membership to a gym that's pretty widespread here, and I'll sometimes have to change my clothes three times in a day going to the gym, swap close to my hair, whatever, because I'm not have time to drive all the way home.

So yeah, I'm doing all three of them. I'm just not a slave to any of them anymore. Now it's more fun because it's a different set of rules, different set of circumstances, less pressure. But there is also a trade off. It's like, how is this person going to feed his family if I'm not keeping him busy?

As you progress in your entrepreneurship life, it's just there's like these trade offs as you level up and it's hard to explain until you actually hit that next level. You're like, oh, I wasn't expecting to have to deal with this. It's like, how do I do it? Okay, I'll figure it out. But that also comes back to who's advice are you taking?

Where are you getting advice? All my mentors don't. They don't want anything from me. They don't want to make money off my back. They want to genuinely see me succeed. And so that's where I get a lot of my, information on what the next level is going to look like. Yeah. And as you kind of progress, you just have new challenges.

Mentors, Resilience, and Staying Teachable

It's like, well, does it ever get easier, I guess, or is it just new challenges along the way? I guess it depends on your version of what easy means. So you become seasoned and resilient to the fear of the unknown is how it explain it. You you become an excellent problem expert problem solver along the way. Expert would be, yeah, one side of it.

Seth's Creative Process as an Artist

The other side of is I have to remain teachable. Now you're creating music as an artist. So what is your creative process look like? What's that overview. So I stand in my kitchen with my headset on and I turn the turn the world off. It's like once my once I go into creative mode, I can't stop it. And sometimes I'll be doing it for six hours on one track.

I'll write my lyrics out, and then I'll go over them and I'll go over them and I'll go over them like an obsessive person, like a crazy person, until it sounds perfect. And then I'll get them to go to the studio. I'll knock out whatever it is, but mostly just writing the lyrics and then performing them. I'm also doing like local stuff, like a lot of JS around the area.

There's an agency I work for that does like karaoke stuff, and I perform at these private events or these clubs in the area, so that side of it too has just been more the fun. But it's the same process. It's like once I get on stage, it's like, okay, this is go time. Same with when I'm standing in my kitchen.

It's really it's bizarre because it's like most people will do it at the studio, but when I'm in the studio, the time is ticking and I want to get that stuff done. I don't want to have to sit there. Some people like, you know, party in the studio, bring women. That's not my thing. I'm like, I'm here to do business and get the hell out of here.

Time is money, as they say, you know? So yeah, you got to get there. You got to knock it out and get back to the back to the grind. But you have this business, and now you have this, this independent artistry that you're doing. So what did you take from what you learned as an entrepreneur and how did you apply it to becoming an artist?

Applying Business Lessons to Music

Running my commercial music business like a business, because at the end of the day, if you don't have your ASCAP taking care of, you don't have distribution in line. If you don't have all these legal things that come with running a business, then what are you doing? If you want to get paid for being an artist, then you have to have these things in line.

You have to copyright, you have to work with a distributor. I mean, it's just it's easy for someone to transition from one business to another, minus me going in real estate. So I was terrible at it. But I'm going from a service based industry to a creative service based industry. It was a really easy, smooth transition for me.

So then was it more of like the business structure that was more easy to set up because you did it for your construction home repair services, and now you're setting up the LLC, the copyright, whatever, and getting like that foundational stuff set. Is that kind of where the overlap is between the two businesses? For me, it was more of an overview of how am I going to make this work and what are these, what is the outline going to be of how to pursue this thing.

And so for me, it was easy to, structure it around running like a business. And was it those same qualities that helped you become successful as a musician and an artist? So I'm not quite as successful as I want to be as an artist. Not yet, but you will. But I'm headed in that direction. So I'm working with people.

And so when you have a crew and you have customers, the the interaction and the dynamics are extremely important. You have to have a working relationship with people that trust you. And so, I think that if somebody wants to do any sort of success in any sort of business, they have to be a person of value versus being a person providing value.

Nice. And you're basically in the people business of people. Essentially, it sounds like how you treat your customers, your clientele. On the business construction side, former parasite is also kind of in the music side. You're kind of doing similar things. If someone is starting out and wants to be a musician or wants to start their entrepreneurship, what qualities do you think that they need to be successful?

Qualities Needed for Business and Art

An internal dialog of, I'm going to make this work. I mean, there's times where we get burned out as entrepreneurs. There's times that we're just, I can't do this anymore. And that's where you have your support, your mentors, your friends that are actually there to build you up and push you back up on your feet when you're falling down.

I think one of the most important qualities is work ethic you can't get anywhere with. You're not going to get out of bed and do it. I mean, there's mornings where there's days from working 14, 16 hours get up at 4:00 in the morning and off until three in the morning. You know, it's or sometimes not sleeping at all.

It's just you have to do it. And so the biggest quality is self-confidence for sure. And then work ethic is right behind it. You also have to have a good moral compass, because a lot of people have terrible ethics. And that's how businesses fail. If you're stealing from your customers, if you're not paying your people. So it's it comes, comes down to taking care of the people that are helping you build your legacy, essentially.

How to Find the Right Mentor

Yeah. And for you, you mentioned something that I want to highlight is that the mentors along the way. Can I help you when you're having challenges wanting to give up? But if someone's watching and they don't have mentors, how did they find them? Did you always have mentors? Did they join you along the way? And how do you identify who would be a good mentor for you in your life?

I've had several types of mentors. I've had mentors that want to make money off of me and keep me down. I've had mentors that genuinely wanted me to succeed. A time comes to mind. I remember I was doing sales marketing at that, mobile app, and I remember walking out, I'm supposed to go meet like Round Table corporate or something.

I remember walking out at the front door and I didn't notice doing. I was dressed in like, Calvin Klein shirt with like, my buttons down and all this stuff. And this guy Paul, he still mentors me today. He's in radio and stuff. He runs out the door after me and he's like, wait, wait, wait. And he pulls his belt off and he's like, okay, put this on and then button my shirt up and straight in my tie.

And he's like, no, you're ready. And so that was like an identifying thing for me. Like, okay, this person genuinely wants to see me succeed. And that's how I was able to develop a relationship of working with him as a friend as well as a mentor. I've also had mentors that I've seen out. I got a mentor now who does like advertising and stuff, and he's got like exotic car dealerships.

And I saw him on Facebook and I messaged him, most successful people love talking about themselves. So if you can get comfortable with somebody who's successful, it's just as simple as asking them, Will you mentor me? And I've had a really good experience with that. Nice. And so it's like you're going to run into all types of people along the way and along the way.

If you find someone that's offering help, naturally, that's just kind of like in their DNA. Or if you find someone that is in a position that you want to grow into, close mouths don't get fed. Right. So what's the harm in asking? They're going to say yes. They're going to say no. That's perfectly fine. But if you don't ask, it's definitely a no.

Yeah. And you just kind of pick up the mentors along the way. This is what it sounds like. Yeah. It's kind of like the law of averages, right? Like when you're marketing direct marketing, it's like or if you're if you want to get a girlfriend, how many girls have talked to you before? One says, yes. You have to have the confidence to go out there and be like, this is what I need, and then ask for it.

Challenges of Becoming an Independent Artist

Now you're starting your music industry and you're probably facing different challenges as an artist that you did, as in the home repair construction services. So what are some of the early challenges that you're facing as a as an artist? I couldn't find my style of my biggest challenge was what is what is my music? And it sound like another big struggle for me was overcoming adversity, because a lot of the hip hop industry is mostly a different, different race.

And so I had to deal with a lot of prejudice around that. But again, it doesn't really matter. Other people think, right? So as long as you can continue to be self.

Reassure yourself and you can be, you know, this is what I'm doing. I'm staying in my own lane. It really doesn't matter what's going on around you. Is there anything that you would have wanted to know sooner before you started this journey? Most recording artists find success in the early 20s, so I'm starting later. I'm 41 years old, so I have to work twice as hard.

I have to sprint and run a marathon. So knowing that it takes a lot longer and having a little less patience than I probably should in the recording artist side, is one of the biggest challenges. So I would tell somebody, this is not going to be this can be a long haul. Yeah, definitely. If it was like you said earlier, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

Yeah. What qualities do you think someone needs to have to be an artist. So I fell into a trap. I thought art, as long as I had a huge ego, then that's what I hear. Artists on TV, I'm like, oh, they have a huge ego. So I'll have to do is just inflate my ego. And that worked. Counterproductive.

So it's a thin line between confidence, self-confidence, and arrogance. I guess people can sniff out like BS and so like it. Most people probably just try to like avoid those people when you're getting the music. Do you have also people to try to get you out of it? I mean, you're starting a new venture again. So how what was that process like becoming an artist and sharing that idea with people?

Are you getting the the same support, or is are people kind of going back to like, you have this blend of haters and support? Yeah, it's a blend. It's sad because when you have people that, you know, for a very long time and then they're not supportive, you can't take it personally. And it's got nothing to do with me as an artist.

It's just that's their stuff, because it's kind of like I have so many unknowns that I don't really know what support I need. So again, I just focus on what I'm doing today or what I'm doing this week. And it's again, the noise is just irrelevant to me. But I do have a lot of support now, especially transitioning from the construction side.

People are like, wow, you're really doing this. So it's been easier now that I'm older and I get to pick who is in my life and quantify those support groups and supportive people. So yeah, it's been definitely been challenging. Also rewarding. That's that's good. And you you found mentors along the way. So like how important do you think mentors are towards your success.

Balancing Two Careers

Have they been huge like alleviation of roadblocks and have they removed a lot of obstacles out of your way, or would you have still kind of figured it out even without mentors? I am indebted to my mentors triple fold, and it's not because they removed roadblocks or gave me someone give me opportunities for sure that I couldn't get without them.

The sign of a good mentor is they will stand out of the way and give you their connections or their resources, like give you whatever they whatever you need to do to get yourself there. And my mentors don't bail me out. So it's like, here's what I think you should do. Are you going to do it or not?

Yeah, that's that's really good. It's giving you the autonomy to be able to do it your own way and then giving you a vice along the way. So hopefully they are helping you get to your end result quicker, but also not letting you not learn throughout the process. So in any industry, whether it's on the business side or on the music side, mentors play a huge role into entrepreneurs journey 100%.

But you're now doing both jobs. And so like, how are you doing? Well, I see both businesses. How do you balance running two businesses at the same time without one overshadowing the other, so that you're giving attention to both so that both are successful? For me, what I do is one of them pays my bills and so that takes priority.

So as an entrepreneur, my schedule changes by the hour. So I have to be quick on my feet and adapt to whatever that looks like for the home repair side, because without the home repair side, there is no music career because it's fueling it financially. So for me, I have to put the eggs mostly in the the home repair side, and then whatever I get outside of that is more back burner too, because it's more of a passion right now.

I mean, it's it's only making a little amount of money. It's not going to it's not sustaining itself. I'm still in the red. Yeah. I mean, if you have the time for to do it, then you have the time. That's that's great. Especially if you're going after something that you're passionate about. Now you're doing content creation, editing, distribution like award is surprises that you're like, oh, this is actually a lot more work than I anticipated because I enjoy doing the home repair side.

When I first started getting the freedom of I don't have to answer to people. I still have bosses. I mean, it's customers themselves, but the freedom to not work for people you don't want to work for made it easier for me to do what I wanted to do, and it was more exciting as an entrepreneur like, oh, this is fun.

Delegation, Strengths, and Building a Team

I'm making better money. I don't have to answer to people. I can set my own schedule. And it's the same with the recording artist side. It's been surprising that I have more work than I was set out set myself out to do. I feel like every single day there's something different. It's like I said earlier that the levels of changing are changing.

So now I have a distributor and it's kind of Josh is phenomenal, and so I don't have to deal with that. It's like delegating off things that other people are better than me at, and that's okay. It's like knowing my strengths and weaknesses. And so if someone has a better weakness or has a strength that's over mine, then stand out the way and let them do their job.

That's great because you're fighting different people to kind of bring on to your, your, your team or your board to kind of fill in some of the gaps. And that's very lucky that you have that. I mean, a lot people are probably doing it single. They don't have the connections, they don't have the resources. If someone wants to become an artist and is thinking about it, they're passionate about music.

They want to kind of go down that same path. What advice would you give them? It just kind of depends on what kind of artist they want to be. There's a somebody reached recently, reached out to me about kind of mentoring her, and she wants to be a singer. And so for me, it's kind of like, does this person have vocal training?

What were they at like talent wise? Are they in a position to focus on their craft? And it just kind of depends on case by case basis. I'm actually working on a a subscription mentorship program for people that want to get into running their own business. And so the fact that there's a possibility that people will continue to come to me, I can make an income on that.

Advice for Aspiring Artists

I would love to help people. So like a coaching service in a way. Absolutely. Nice. You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I kind of want to go back to it is you mentioned the burnout, the long days. And so what tips and tricks do you have for someone who's like grinding right now is burned out? Like, how do you alleviate that burnout and make sure you're back in the game and going on for the next day and for that long term consistency?

Burnout, Time Blocking, and Recovery

It's really tough because when you get burned out, it's like you can't see past the feelings and emotions that come with it. You're like, I just want to stay in bed and I don't want to do this. Like when I put too much on my plate and I get overwhelmed and and I drown essentially in my own feelings or my physical body being drained, it's really tough to get out of that.

I would suggest that people experience it so they know what it looks like. And I would also suggest that you, like I said, time, block your time and take time off because your body needs to recharge. Your mind gets overworked. And it's it's a lot. So I would suggest people balance the other areas of their life with their entrepreneurship if they're starting out.

Yeah. And you mentioned being in the gym also. So is going to the gym like a key factor in reducing your stress? Is that kind of one of the things that keeps you grounded. Yeah. I try to go to the gym three times a week, but I'm in lazy lately. So now I'm going to the gym to change my clothes to a different hats, sales or marketing whatever I'm doing that day.

But yeah, being healthy, eating healthy, and not consuming as many toxins has been extremely beneficial. So going to the gym really, it helps you. It helps everybody, makes you feel better and you have more confidence and you look better. Yeah, it's kind of like a regimen essentially to keep you consistent in the game and refresh your mind, renew the mind, and maybe even sometime the meditate, you know, along the way you're like, hey, I'm block out the, the all the business, the people and just put my headphones on.

Making Money as an Independent Artist

So for you. You're lucky enough to have a, a business to kind of fund your, your artist business. But if someone wants to make this a career, they don't have the capital to fund it. But this is the only thing that they're interested in. Like, is it profitable? Is there revenue in there? And what are those revenue generating streams that they could essentially try to focus on to make music their actual career?

So there's there's certain aspects of this because I've only been doing it hardcore for like the last year that I haven't figured out. I know that the music industry has changed dramatically, and most people aren't buying CDs, so the sales are harder. There's still a possibility for digital side of it, but it's completely different now. And so being an artist, they call it being a struggling artist.

People moved to LA and they're like, I'm going to figure it out. And then they're homeless and it's like, okay, I didn't plan to do this. Being a music or a musician or an artist is a black hole of finances. And so it comes down to what is your budget? What does that look like? Do you have to pre-pay into sessions?

Do you have to do all these things that are going to hold you back from your expectation of what it looks like? And since it is a marathon, it makes it easier when you take the pressure off yourself. Or I take the pressure off myself and just say, what can I do this month? Because for me, it might even be a more money because I have a business, or for other people it might be more money because they're more successful.

But music costs a lot of money. It's branding and it's it's not easy. Well, branding and marketing, like, what are some of those branding and marketing tricks that you've deployed? You you got the venues hopping on podcasts and so what, what tips or things that people that are just starting out might not know that you found to be kind of like, okay, that worked for me like that helped me get my name out a little bit.

Branding and Marketing Music

So what I've been doing is I've been doing these like toxic bad life advice reels all over my social media, and that's been branding the pages and essentially causing traffic to flow to the music that's posted there as well. And that also can lead into advertising if it's successful. But like I said, you have to try and being an artist, you have to be able to fail more than other people want to try.

AI and Authenticity in Music

And so when you fall on your face, it's it's a learning experience. What do you what are your thoughts on artificial intelligence do you think it's. Do you think AI is helping or hurting the music industry? I think it depends. I people send me their music. I'm like, let me hear your music. And it's completely 100% AI generated.

I personally don't use AI except for my graphic design for the releases, so I'll input some information and definitely utilize the graphic design side, but I recommend not using it for lyrics or the actual music. You can type in a couple sentences now with AI, and it'll put out an entire album or entire song, and but that's not really doing music, is it?

So a lot of people are springing up and they're better and it's like, okay, well, what happened? Because now they're now the AI is out, like, is this what they're using? And so for me, I try to I say I try to stay away from AI on the production side as much as possible, but why should people avoid using AI then to on the production side, is there a reason like people don't listen to it?

It's less like branding. Is it in the distance inauthenticity that when people find out that it's AI generated or do they do now, is like, what are you seeing in the music industry that using it has these kind of trade offs? I was listening to a interview by my distributor and he explained it better than I. I'm going to be able to, but basically the the lack of authenticity for sure.

Plus there's like this like grueling side. It's like we work our butts off and we go to the studio and we actually speak, and to be able to put it into AI, it's like, is that really doing music? It's it's difficult because the other side of it is, can you profit from that? Can you? If an AI, if a robot is giving you lyrics or making your music, isn't that their copyrights?

Can't they send it in and now they own the music? Can you monetize off of something that you didn't make? And so there's a trade off. It's like it's still being developed. And so the industry is changing with it, but we don't know where that's headed until we do. Yeah I mean that's a that's maybe a huge blind spot or a great area where if in the future the AI generated music lyrics becomes copyrighted due to the large language models or those founders or copyright issues, what happens to all of those years of work is all this time doing AI generated content, and it's just going to get deleted.

There are probably some people, though, that are that are sitting at home thinking like it probably is not even worth it. I can't compete with AI. And so for the musician, that's kind of like thinking about becoming an artist and doing it more full time or putting more effort into it. But it's also scared. Like AI might be wrong anyways, and probably I'm not going to be able to compete with it.

What if I would you would you tell that guy? That's kind of the hazardous dilemma. I would just say focus more on your creativity, your creative side. Because whether AI sticks around or helps, helps or doesn't help in the industry, I think that the genuine musician that's playing guitar or recording their voice or playing an instrument is going to excel because it's more creative and it's more authentic, and it's, I don't know, I just don't trust AI, to be honest with you.

The Most Rewarding Part of Being an Artist

It's just, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Me too is they. It does hallucinate quite a bit. It does provide a lot of inaccuracies. It doesn't do as good of a job as it claims it does. So yeah, we'll put AI aside. Now, as an artist, what has been the most rewarding thing for you? There is a certain feeling and spiritual aspect of standing in a recording booth and hearing yourself on music.

For me, that's the most freeing feeling I've ever had in my life. Same as standing on stage. It's like I feel like the dust clearest and the chatter in my head for all the other areas of my life completely just diminishes. And so the most rewarding thing for me has been 100% the performance side of it. Whether it's recording in the studio, hearing it, the technician work, and then hearing people's responses to the stuff that we're doing, it's like, wow, like they really are enjoying this.

And so it's like, wow, I made that. And so if you like, talked about earlier, if I made it and it's like, oh, well, do you feel good about that? And so there's nothing like it. I can't explain it. I feel like that's my blueprint for my entire life is I'm supposed to be doing this nice. Yeah, I guess you're right.

If you're kind of plagiarizing with AI, you're not going to get that internal reward system to say, like, yeah, you did that. You're like, oh, well, the computer did it. So it's going to be a less rewarding internally. You've been doing it for a little while now. So when can people expect to hear your next release, your next album?

Music Releases and Long-Term Vision

My distributor has set it up to release a track every Friday for the next three months. So Apple Music will be releasing a track, and then we're going to do a second round of DSP. I've already got like 15 tracks in there, so we're staggering the music. Between my EDM side. It's like a dance EDM stuff, but we're also doing some doing singles just to get my name out there so I could record an album in one session.

I could sit at Lewis studio and let for 11 hours and have it done. So it's the, the quantity is not the problem for me. It's more how do I structure albums? Because I've never released an album, I've only just done singles. And so like I said, if we do releases every Friday, then it's a constant flow of, oh wow, this person has got new music because I do like rock stuff.

I'm not playing instruments, so I do like Linkin Park, Linkin Park style rock, like rapping rock, and I do the EDM side as well as the rap side. And so it's just been a constant flow for me on all the channels, because it's like one spot on on Spotify, on YouTube, I'm on Apple Music, Google, all of it, Amazon.

And so every single Friday I'm releasing stuff. Nice, nice. So by the time this episode comes out, you'll be halfway through the release. But people can follow you and get to you seeing your next releases that you have out. Absolutely. What would you hope that business entrepreneurs people get from today's conversation? I think that they'll get that they can do more than they might believe because I say go for it.

Why It's Never Too Late to Start

I mean, if there's something that's burning inside your soul. For me, my experience was I don't want to be sitting on my deathbed and regret. And it's like, if this is what I was put on this planet to do, I can feel that in my spirit and my soul. Then I say, go for it, because that's what you're supposed to be doing.

And so I feel like maybe they get a little bit of self-empowerment, a little bit more confidence, so I can do it. You can do it. We're not I'm not special. Yeah, well, what do you what would you say to the person who feels like, oh, I'm too old now, you know, if you're called to do this and you only have one life, what would you say to the person that feels like they just don't have the time anymore?

I would tell them to check out Pete and Boss. I like these 70 year old men that are doing it, and they started out for age 65 and they have millions of followers. And so I don't think there's any time it's too late. I think you can feel it in your soul and it's burning up, burning a hole.

And you need you want to get it done. I say it just start somewhere. Is there anything about the music side or the construction home services side that we haven't covered that you wanted to dive into? It's been an interesting experience. It's like a roller coaster emotionally and psychologically and physically, financially. And I think that there's a way through it.

If somebody wanted to pursue it. Yeah, absolutely. There's always a way, right? If there's a will, there's a way. That's the thing. That's how it goes. So and back to that law of attraction, right. If you can see yourself doing it, then what's to say that you can't? If people want to follow you on your soul or find you work in the find your website, your socials, your handles, how did they get in touch?

Where to Find Seth and Happy Home Repair

Most of my handles are at Official SJM Music or at at SJM Music Official. And so the construction side, we don't really advertise anymore. We have a Facebook page or we have an Instagram page, Happy Home Repair, Happy Home Repair. But all of our links are just mostly just social media stuff. I don't even have websites and it's just been all referral.

I mean, since 2013 we got over 4000 customers and only did the marketing. I mean, we did a lot of marketing 168,000 cards, so that's a lot. But yeah, it's all on. Not much online besides my music stuff. And then but you have your your YouTube, you have your SoundCloud and your IG for that as well. So we'll get all of the social media handles and the description below for the audio listeners.

They can just click into the description. They'll have link backs to all your content. So people will quickly get to your your pages and send you a message if you want coaching, if they want mentorship, so on and so forth. So yeah, we'll get all that stuff. Take care of and then description below. Excellent. Seth, thank you so much for coming on today's show.

Closing Takeaways

It's been a pleasure talking about your business, your entrepreneurship, your journey, and a lot of devices and tips along the way. I really appreciate you coming on today. Yeah, thanks for having me. This has been fun. Awesome. It's been fun for me as well too. I mean, it's interesting learn about entrepreneurship and business. I think one of the biggest takeaways from today's conversation is that success rarely happens overnight.

It's the consistency, whether you're building a business or building a music brand, and it's the consistency to move forward when you don't have all the answers yet. So thank you for watching this episode of the podcast, and we'll catch you on next one. Excellent.

I just refuse to take no for an answer. I was like, this is going to work and I'm going to make it happen. Being an artist, you have to be able to fail more than other people want to try. Excellence will always be attacked by mediocrity. Regardless of what people tell you, their opinions don't matter. They have to be a person of value versus being a person providing value.