My Nashville Experience

I moved to Nashville in January 2012 without a job, but with a very clear plan.

I gave myself one year. If I couldn’t earn enough money to live in Nashville within my first 12 months as a full-time singer/songwriter, I would either find a traditional day job or move back to San Diego.

It wasn’t my first visit. I had traveled to Nashville once a year in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. I flew the first three times, but for my fourth trip, I drove from San Diego and turned the journey into a tour.

During that six-week stay, I performed more than 30 shows while recording my full-length album On the Spot, on which I played both guitar and drums.

I left my car in Nashville, flew back to San Diego, ended my relationship, gave up my condo, said goodbye to nearly everyone and everything I knew, and moved into a Nashville apartment I had found online, sight unseen.

The entire turnaround took roughly a month.

My first Nashville job was teaching hip-hop at a gym in Hermitage. I also began giving basic guitar lessons to exactly one student—which was fitting, considering I had taught myself to play only a few years earlier.

Then Hotel Indigo in downtown Nashville asked me to host a Wednesday-night writers’ round. That became Monday nights. Then Friday nights. Soon, I was hosting and booking three nights every week while running live sound—something I had never done before and taught myself along the way.

Each night had its own identity.

Monday was Industry Night, featuring established musicians and songwriters with notable accomplishments. Wednesday was Duos, Trios & Groups, so every artist had to bring at least one other performer. Friday was an open-mic-style night designed to give newer artists an opportunity.

Then another downtown venue hired me to create ABC Night—Anything But Country—on Tuesdays.

Before I knew it, I was teaching hip-hop and basic guitar, booking and hosting writers’ nights, organizing events, and engineering live sound. At the same time, I was performing, recording, releasing music, touring nationally and internationally, hosting television shows, and working as a paid inspirational speaker.

Sleep was apparently an optional Nashville accessory.

Many of those paths began because other people recognized possibilities I hadn’t considered. During one writers’ round, someone overheard me sharing how I had booked tours, opened for Bruno Mars, performed internationally, and gotten my music onto radio.

They told me, “You shouldn’t be giving away all your hard-earned, self-discovered tricks for free. You should start a business and charge for it.”

That suggestion became Image Twelve28, my career-coaching and booking business, which eventually evolved into I Am Unashamedly Me—IAUM.

By my 13th month in Nashville, I realized I had accomplished what I had moved there to do—not through one predictable job, but through multiple streams of income within the entertainment industry.

I hadn’t followed one established path. I had carved several unexpected ones—and together, they allowed me to support myself without abandoning the creative career I had moved there to pursue.

Those writers’ nights weren’t only jobs. They became communities and opportunities for other artists to perform, connect, experiment, and be heard. They also taught me how to work with different personalities, solve problems quickly, and create the kinds of opportunities I wished someone had created for me.

Over the fourteen-plus years I spent in Nashville, the city gave me stages, collaborators, friendships, opportunities, disappointments, victories, and some very expensive lessons. It challenged me professionally and personally, but every part of that experience helped me grow.

Nashville didn’t create my fearlessness. It gave my fearlessness somewhere to go.

I arrived believing I was moving there to pursue music. I left understanding just how many different forms one creative life could take—and living with gratitude for everything that chapter taught me.