Mix With the Masters runs five-day masterclasses. Four of those days are about mixing. One day is about business. Jon Castelli felt I'd be the right person to lead that conversation, so he invited me in and we ran it together. Three hours, him and me and the group, as an open discussion.
Before we started, I polled all twenty-one people in the room. Simple question: What do you most want help with?
The answers were telling. Not because they were unexpected, but because of how clearly they revealed what people are actually struggling with.
Authenticity. Pricing. Getting clients. Whether to say yes or no. Management. Balancing multiple careers. Finding the right people. Feeling invisible. Knowing when to keep going.
Authenticity Is Not a Discovery
This one came up immediately. People wanting to "find their authentic voice" or "figure out who they really are" as professionals.
Here's what I told them: authenticity is not something you discover. It's something you uncover. Most people already know who they are. It's usually just buried under insecurity, comparison, fear, or trying to be what they think the industry wants.
You don't need to go find yourself. You need to stop hiding yourself.
The people who come across as the most authentic aren't performing authenticity. They've just stopped performing everything else. They got tired of the act. And what was left, the thing underneath, turned out to be the thing people actually connected with.
Sales Is Not a Performance
We talked about business. A lot.
Business is selling something to someone. That's it. And that does not mean becoming fake. It means being clear about who you are, what you do, who you help, and why someone should trust you.
If you can't articulate those four things in a conversation without feeling like you're putting on a costume, the problem isn't sales. The problem is that you haven't done the work of figuring out what you actually stand for. Sales becomes easy when you believe in what you're offering. It only feels gross when you're unclear or when you're trying to be something you're not.
The Two Numbers
We talked a lot about money. I think one of the most important things creatives can do is identify two numbers:
- The number you actually need to live.
- The number your ambition wants.
The first one is math. Rent, food, insurance, gear payments, savings. What does it actually cost to keep your life running? Most people have never sat down and figured this out with precision. They have a vague sense. Vague doesn't work.
The second one is vision. Where do you want to be? What does that life cost? What does that studio cost? What does that freedom cost?
The gap between those two numbers is not failure. It's the roadmap.
Once you can see both numbers clearly, every decision gets easier. You know what you need to charge. You know how many projects you need. You know which opportunities are worth taking and which ones are pulling you sideways.
Not Every Low-Paying Project Is Bad Business
This is where it gets nuanced.
People love to say "know your worth" and "never work for less than you deserve." And yes, in general, you should price yourself appropriately. But the world is more complicated than a slogan.
Sometimes you are getting paid in things that aren't money:
- Relationships. Access to someone who will bring you work for years.
- Learning. A genre you've never touched, a workflow you've never tried.
- Access. A room you wouldn't normally be in, a name you wouldn't normally be next to.
- Confidence. Proof that you can do the thing you've been afraid to try.
- Momentum. Something to keep you moving when the pipeline is thin.
The key is being honest with yourself about what you're actually getting back. If the answer is "nothing except a low rate and resentment," stop taking those projects. But if you're genuinely gaining something valuable, that's not charity. That's strategy.
Just don't lie to yourself about which one it is.
"Connecting" With Clients
A lot of people in the room talked about wanting to "connect" with clients. But when I pushed on what that actually meant, it turned out they were really talking about five separate things:
- Finding the right people.
- Understanding them.
- Communicating value.
- Being trusted.
- Being remembered.
That's not one skill. That's five. And each one requires different work.
Finding the right people means knowing who you serve and where they are. Understanding them means listening more than you talk. Communicating value means being able to explain what working with you actually does for someone, not in technical terms, but in terms they care about. Being trusted means showing up consistently over time. Being remembered means staying present without being annoying.
That's the work. And it's work most engineers haven't broken down into its component parts. They just lump it all under "networking" and wonder why it's not working.
The People Around You
We got into peer groups. And this is something I feel strongly about.
The people around you can accelerate your growth or quietly deform it.
One of the things I admire most about Jon is how intentional he is about the people around him. He's built a close circle of talented, thoughtful people he trusts deeply. Not the biggest circle. Not the loudest circle. The right circle.
Your peer group should challenge you. It should make you uncomfortable in productive ways. It should hold you accountable and call you on your nonsense. If your peer group only validates you, it's not helping you grow. It's helping you stay the same.
And if your peer group makes you feel small, not challenged but genuinely diminished, that's not growth either. That's erosion. Find different people.
Know the History
We talked about loving music. Really loving it. Not just the music that's current, but the music that built the foundation for what's current.
Knowing references deeply. Understanding the history behind sounds instead of just copying whatever is trending. Respecting artists enough to understand what they were actually trying to do, not just what their records sounded like on the surface.
This is what separates engineers who make things that feel like something from engineers who make things that sound like everything else. You can hear it. When someone has depth in their references, it shows up in the work. Not as imitation. As fluency.
Disappointment Is Not Proof
People will flake. Projects will disappear. Someone else will get picked. People will let you down. Sometimes the people you trusted most will be the ones who disappoint you the worst.
That is not proof you are on the wrong path.
It is part of building something meaningful over a long period of time. Every person who has built a career worth admiring has a collection of these moments. They just kept going. Not because they didn't feel it. Because they decided the work mattered more than the disappointment.
If you're waiting for a version of this career where nobody lets you down and everything goes according to plan, you're going to be waiting forever. The career you want is on the other side of a lot of things that don't go the way you hoped.
This Is Work. It's Not Life.
The last thing we talked about connected back to something I had mentioned early in the discussion.
This is work. It's not life.
Even when you love it. Even when it's exciting. Even when it feels like the most important thing in the world. It's still work. And there is more to life than working.
That's easy to forget in this industry. The lines blur. The studio is in your house. The clients text you at midnight. The music never stops. And because you chose something you're passionate about, it can feel like drawing a boundary between work and life is somehow ungrateful. Like if you really loved it, you'd never want to stop.
But ambition without boundaries isn't drive. It's erosion. The people who sustain long careers in this business aren't the ones who gave everything to it. They're the ones who figured out what else mattered and protected it.
Honestly, it was one of my favorite discussions I've led in a long time. Not because I had all the answers. Because the room was full of people who were willing to ask the real questions.
That's rare. And Jon has built something where that kind of honesty is possible.
If you're in a room like that, stay in it.
If you're not, go find one.
