Michael Walker: If you’re listening to this then you likely already know that being an independent musician is a lonely road. And maybe your friends and your family don’t fully understand why you do what you do, or why you invest so much time, energy, and money achieving your music goals. And especially early on, it can be hard to find people who really understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how to make it happen. So, that’s where Modern Musician comes in!

My name’s Michael Walker and I can understand and relate to that feeling. I’ve been there myself, and so has our team of independent artists. The truth is that basically everything good in my life has been a result of music. It’s the reason I met my wife, my 3 kids, it’s how I met my best friends. And now with Modern Musician, we have seen so many talented artists who started out with a dream, with a passion, without really a fanbase or a business. And you’ll take that and turn it into a sustainable full-time career and be able to impact hundreds, maybe even thousands or millions of fans with your music. We’ve had thousands of messages from artists who told us we’ve helped change their lives forever. It just gets even more exciting and fulfilling when you’re surrounded by a community of other people who get it, and who have shared their knowledge and success with each other openly. So, if you are feeling called into making your music a full-time career and to be able to reach more people with your music, then I want to invite you to join our community so that we can help support your growth and we can help lift you up as you pursue your musical dreams. You’ll be able to interact in a community with other high-level artists, coaches, and industry professionals, as well as be able to participate in our daily live podcast, meet these amazing guests, and get access to completely free training. If you’d like to join our family of artists who truly care about your success, then click on the link in the show notes and sign-up now. 

Riley Lee: The path of least resistance is: you come to a fork in the road and there's three paths. And all of the paths you can see, or foresee a goal. So you're choosing the paths in order to attain a goal. The path of least resistance in many ways could be defined the path that has the most enticing goal at the end, the path that you're most excited about.

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

I am excited to be here today with Mr. Riley Lee. So Riley is someone who was born in Texas, but mastered the art of, let me make sure I pronounce this correctly, Riley. Is it Shaku Hachi?

Riley Lee: Perfect. 

Michael Walker: Perfect. Nailed it. Which is a traditional Japanese bamboo flute. And he started embarking on his musical journey at 13 years old as a bass player for an award winning rock band. In 1971, he started to learn shakuhachi in Japan, and he achieved the rank of a grandmaster and Dai Shihan, I believe is how it's pronounced. I could be wrong there as well.

Riley Lee: No.

Michael Walker: He's someone who, I think it's been quoted as being the most listened to shakuhachi player in the entire world. And specifically, I was excited to have him on the podcast today because he's someone who has built a very successful career and by carving out a path that is unique as well. Like you're definitely the first shakuhachi player in the world that I've ever met, Riley. And it's an incredible form of artwork, you know? So I think that there's a lesson in. Your journey that, that you could share around finding something that sets you apart or finding something that's unique and incorporating that into your music. So we're looking forward to connecting today and thank you for being on the podcast.

Riley Lee: Well, I'm both delighted and honored and somewhat intrigued as to what I might have to offer to your listeners, but we'll give it a go. 

Michael Walker: All right. Awesome. Well, yeah, this can be a fun conversation. Yeah. I think blending together the worlds of music meets mindfulness is something that I think a lot of our listeners here would actually really resonate with. So maybe we can start by just hearing a little bit about your story and how you became the “most listened to shakuhachi player in the world”. 

Riley Lee: Well, in short, I have always followed the idea of choosing the path of least resistance and I feel extremely lucky and fortunate. I think one of the things that I really like about Modern Musician and you Michael and, and meeting with people like Ari for example, and the others was this whole idea of gratitude. And I remember the first time I met you or somebody that you said, well let's first just think about what we're grateful for today. And I kind of pushed back against that in part because I think gratitude is not so much a list or an action, but it's a being, so one can list things that one is grateful for, but one, I think for me it's better, or I prefer to feel grateful. To be grateful. So, it's a sense of being. And so, therefore, I know the path of least resistance and in many people's lives, there's no path of least resistance.

Every path one is confronted with tremendous barriers and things. If you're trying to become a musician in the Gaza Strip, for example, or in Ukraine or in Turkey or Syria, after the earthquake, forget it. So I think that's one big element in retrospect of my story and how I got here is I was given opportunities. I don't deserve them. I don't, but life is not fair. I have more than I have had more than my share of fairness. And early on realized that, this, this is not my doing. I'm just lucky. For example, even practicing. So in the early days, I was born in Texas, as you said, then my family moved to Oklahoma and then at the age of 13, I went to Hawaii. And my high school years was in Hawaii and then I went to Japan. Pretty much, I did a semester of university, but pretty much went to Japan and fell in love with this instrument. And you can imagine my parents, what they thought. Both parents were university professors thought. I wrote them said: Hey, I fell in love with this bamboo flute and I'm not coming back. I don't want to go to university. Nah. The point was that, in the beginning, I practiced. I practiced, and because in Japan in the 70s, it was really easy to earn a living teaching English, because unlike now, there weren't that many people particularly after I could pick up Japanese, there weren't that many native English speakers who could also speak Japanese. I literally could work for about five hours a week and support myself. And many of my friends, my colleagues that also taught English, they worked 20 hours a week. And then after three or four years, they went back to the States, for example, and bought a house. I worked the minimum and just practiced all day.

And I had three or four lessons a week, as many lessons as my teacher would allow me to have. I remember getting up at 8 am, practice every hour, five minutes. I set my alarm every hour, five minutes. I'd get up and stretch. I'd finish at 8 pm. But that was not hard for me. That was for me, the path of least resistance. It would be far harder to work 20 hours a week, even 20. That's half time, right? In order to buy a house. That just was… I don't want to do that. So that was how I started. 

Michael Walker: Super interesting. Yeah. I mean, I love what you brought up about following the path of least resistance. And the question that that brings up for me is: how you draw the line between Is there a form of good resistance? That's like, maybe you view it as a challenge or embracing the struggle, or do you think that all resistance is sort of, part of it? Like, none of it's a good thing and that you should always seek to avoid resistance.

Riley Lee: I think that's a very good question. The path of least resistance is: you come to a fork in the road and there's three paths. And all of the paths you can see, or foresee a goal. So you're choosing the paths in order to attain a goal. And what I call resistance, for example, is fear. If I decide to not do something or to choose what I would say: Well, that's the path of least resistance because I am afraid of going down either of the other paths. For me, that is one of the biggest no-nos I could think of. Never, never, never, I tell myself, ever make any decision, however big or small, based on fear. So, you choose the path… what’s the path of least resistance? The path that has the goal at the end that excites you the most. That's the path of least resistance. And so I choose this path and for me, it wasn't to become a successful musician. It wasn't to make a living doing this. In fact, my teacher, after two or three years, said: look, don't think you're going to make a living doing this. And this is my shakuhachi teacher in Japan. And he said: you can't. And I fortunately was able to prove him wrong. However, that wasn't my goal. So that didn't matter to me. My goal was to become a really good Shakuhachi player. So then the path of least resistance in many ways could be defined the path that has the most enticing goal at the end, the path that you're most excited about. So I'm at a crossroads, with my one path is how to make a living playing the shakuhachi. And the other path is how to become famous playing the shakuhachi. And the third path is how to become really good at shakuhachi, become a really good player, however you define that. For me, the third goal was the one that excited me the most. To say that my goal is to make money doing what I love doing is just as valid a goal. I'm not saying that that's, the other two paths are less valuable or less moral. I'm just saying for me, naive me when I was in my 20s, I just want… I didn't think about making a living. I thought… because I was teaching English, I was making a living. I didn't think, well, you don't want to teach English for the rest of your life. I didn't think that. I just said, right now I want to go there, and there is getting really good at my instrument. So, that's what I call the path…. And now once you're on that path, there's lots of, as you say, positive resistance. I mean, it's bloody hard. But it's not hard because you're doing it. Here's this barrier. Here's this resistance. But over here is where I want to go. I want to go over there. So there's no problem. I have this kind of, in a sense, delayed gratification. And it's a positive thing. So you're right. There's such a thing as positive and negative resistance. But in terms of my definition of the path, that's what I mean by. You follow your bliss. That's what Joseph Campbell used to say. Follow your bliss. That just means: have a goal.  But don't think about a goal that ticks certain boxes. the goal that my parents want me to do, for example. Well, that could be a very important goal, but it's the goal that really excites you. 

Michael Walker: I love that. Yeah. Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey follow your bliss, the greatest treasure’s hidden in the cave of your darkest fear. It's some really, really good stuff. And in terms of that recognition of having a, a goal, having an outcome that you're moving towards and that giving you the ability to… when there are issues or things that come up that you actually can like embrace it because you know that you're on the path, that you're actually moving in the right direction. It definitely seems like there's a lot in terms of our psychology that we need to have hope. We need to believe that the future can be better in order for us to be moving forward. Kind of like riding a bike. If you are just sitting still on the bike then it's hard to balance. But if you're moving forward towards something, then you can, you can have that balance. Awesome. So how would you recommend that someone who is listening to this right now, who maybe is at a similar place to when you were just starting out and, but maybe they're not quite certain about what they want or who they are yet. And they have a few different paths that they could follow. And maybe they have some fear around: their music is something that feels like it's a passion or a calling for them. It's something that they want to step into, but also, they have real life that comes up or they have, they have bills to pay and they have other things as well that are coming up. How do you recommend that they start to look at, finding their path of least resistance or finding that goal for them that does motivate them to work through the hard times?

Riley Lee: Again, an excellent question. And one that could be answered in many different ways. Firstly, one has to be attuned to the opportunities that might come one's way. So one has to be very open to opportunities. And what are opportunities? Opportunities are these junctions, are these places where you can choose, and in a sense, every day is an opportunity or every day presents choices. So you think of choices as, in a sense, as opportunities. That's one thing. And be open to, and in a sense, define or help choose which door of which opportunity you might want to open, depending on what you think might get you to your goal eventually.

But the other thing I would recommend to someone like you say, I'm very lucky as I mentioned earlier, I think that looking back and now knowing more about it and it's more talked about that I'm possibly a little bit on the spectrum. So I never had those kinds of doubts that I can appreciate that you can have them, but I do know on the occasion when I might have had doubts and that for people that the most important thing, one of the most important things to try to actively seek is a good teacher, a good mentor, someone that has been there and can help you get there. And maybe they won't be able to get you there via their path. I can't tell you how to get 50 million streams on Spotify as a shakuhachi player, because I was lucky. And the way I went, it doesn't exist anymore.

I was big time when CDs were big time. So I could make a living having other people sell my CD’s. So that doesn't, that doesn't exist now, but I can take a shakuhachi player and give them the tools and the suggestions that might make these opportunities appear, or at least make them visible to them.

So, one could even say without trying to sound too blatantly partisan that well, if there's someone like that and they kind of, modern non-European art music, ie classical music setting wants to become a professional musician and doesn't know how to do it. Well, I can think of far worse ways than to go see Modern Musician and see what they have to offer, for example, and getting back to teacher: Here's an example of how my own teacher who's no longer with us, he once told me that, speaking of goals, he says: so what's your goal? I said, well, I want to be a good shakuhachi player. Well, okay, but what's your lifetime goal? I want to be a good shakuhachi player. He said, no, that's, that's not good enough. You're already by some definitions, a good shakuhachi player and you might even, eventually, it's conceivable, he's telling me, that you might even one day become a good shakuhachi player in my eyes and with my ears. However, that's still not good enough. That's not good enough. Your lifetime goal, he tells me, and his name is Yokoyama, Mr. Yokoyama Katsuya: It should be impossible. I said, how can you… what? He says, you know about these people and their lifetime goal is to win a gold medal at the Olympics. And they do, and then they have a nervous breakdown, or they become an alcoholic, or they just mess up. It's because they reached their lifetime goal. So what's there worth living anymore? There's no reason to live anymore. He says, you got to find a goal that you'll never reach. And you realize what's neat about this goal: If you choose a goal that is impossible, firstly, you'll never reach it. So you got something to do till your last breath. Yeah. It's always there. And, subconsciously or unconsciously you realize this is impossible. So in a sense it takes the sting out of it. It takes the struggle out of it. It takes the sense of failure out of it. It's like, well this is impossible anyway. But the path, in other words, that's what it's about. It's striving, my teacher Yokoyama was telling me, to reach that impossible goal. So, okay. I thought, right. Okay. So what's an impossible goal? Okay. My goal became, after hearing that, I want to become the best shakuhachi player in the world. And that is definitely impossible. Absolutely impossible, if only because how do you define the best in music? It's not like running the 100 yard dash where if you make it in 10.94 seconds and you're a hundredth of a second faster than the other guy, you've won. I can never please everybody. I can never play like everyone. So that's an impossible. Okay. So it's impossible. Great. So that's my goal. And that's what I'm striving to be. That's what helps me get up in the morning. 

Michael Walker: What are you going to do now that you are the best? [laughing]

Riley Lee: I'm not the best. What's your definition of the best? I am not the best. I am not the best. I'm not the best.

Michael Walker: In my eyes, you're the best. You're also the only, the only one that I know personally.

Riley Lee: Exactly. But if you ask other people who are into shakuhachi music, and one criticism that might come up is: I'm too commercial. Or that I don't play a particular genre of music. Or there's many other reasons why, and as they possibly should, that their teacher is the best. So no, I can never.

Michael Walker: Yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing you say, there's so much, gosh, there's so much wisdom in the lessons that you're sharing right now. I mean, and what your teacher is sharing through you as well. This idea of setting “impossible goals”. What comes to mind for that is, is it Harry Potter? Was it Dumbledore who said, I try to know, maybe it was Alice in Wonderland is some, some book is like: I try to do one impossible thing every morning. Or I try to do several impossible things every morning. But it seems like there is something so powerful, that like something that's worth striving for is something that you, you need to evolve or transform or like, like it just, it doesn't exist right now. Like it's impossible right now. And like the things that seem most impossible are the things that change the world the most. And things like, I don't know, the internet, a thousand years ago, if you told someone that we'd be here connecting in real time across the world somehow telepathically with invisible waves where it's like, I'm peering into your eyes from around the world. And we have an audience here of people around the world who are like tuning in. It's just impossible. It's like, what? How does that even happen? And it also brings to mind people, yeah, I know that he's kind of a controversial figure right now, but like Elon Musk. He's someone who talks about this idea of setting really bold goals like going to Mars and how important it is to be able to set goals that really stretch you, that give you something to wake up for and go for. And yeah, that idea of setting goals that feel impossible sort of like having a North star that gives you direction, like if you're looking up to the North star, you can, you can walk towards it. You might never actually reach the North star, but it gives you this direction to walk in. So you can, you can have that path.

Riley Lee: I think one of the other advantages of having an “impossible goal” is that it, for me, has tended to encourage me to not take myself too seriously because in a sense, one could say that by having an impossible life goal, I am in my entire life a failure. Right? And so on the one hand, it says: Well, I'm no big deal. And it also turns that idea of failure into something positive. Failure is such a negative word. But actually, as you, I'm sure, have said to many people yourself, it's just one step toward your impossible goal. And also by knowing that you're never going to reach this goal, it allows me to think of my life as more of a game. It's a game that I'm having fun playing, but I am playing and I have to approach my life with that sense of play and that idea of: this is a game and this is a sense of play will not only give me more pleasure or more enjoyment in the day, but it also will help me through those days that are suffering and of course there's so much suffering. You can't get around that, the suffering. So it's both. But then the other thing is… And this is again, something that it's not my idea, someone's taught me: the impossible goal is just at the top, but then below that you have your 10 year goal or your 20 year goal and your 10 year goal and your 5 year goal and your 1 year goal. It's a pyramid. And the base is your daily goal. Or your weekly goal. And in order to reach your impossible goal, you got to build the base. You can't jump. You can't skip. And when you do your one day goal or your weekday goal, and you get to the end of your week or the end of your day or the end of your month and you think well I didn't do that: I didn't even reach my weekly goal. how can I, well, no, you just adjust. You just rebuild because it's not real. So you you readjust the pyramid. The top's always there. The 30 year thing is there for at least 30 years, when you reach 20 years and you realize, okay, from having done this for 20 years, I know it's going to take me more than 10 years to… Okay, you readjust then. 

So in other words, it's not just the one single goal that gets you through it. It's like you wake up this morning and you have a plan, but it's a game. So you don't feel like a plan today. That's okay. It would be great if you did have a plan and if you're a bit kind of fanatic, like I have been, but that's fine if you don't, cause you can readjust.

You always got next week. You've always got tomorrow. One day you won't. That's okay. You don't know that yet.

Michael Walker: Yeah. To me, one of the most motivating reminders that we have is coming back to the realization that this is temporary. And “this too shall pass”. It's going to be gone someday. 

Riley Lee: Both the good, both the good and the bad, both the great stuff and the horrible stuff is going to go, you're right.So true. 

Michael Walker: It definitely seems like there's a beautiful perspective that comes from that exercise of just sort of imagining you're on your deathbed and you have 10 minutes left to live you're actually about to say goodbye to everything and kind of looking back at your life and how you lived it and knowing that it's about to be gone. How does that impact how we look at the things that we did in our life? Yeah, unfortunately, it seems like for a lot of us, like it's not until we have that moment where we're actually about to die and say goodbye that we kind of have a wake up where it's like: Wow. All of that fear, all this stuff that, like you mentioned, the fear of failure, like, man, why did I hold myself back? That was just so not important. But we do have the ability to use our mental faculties to imagine that we're in that place and try to get in touch with that and reflect on it.

Riley Lee: I think one, getting back to your very first question about what could I say that might help that person that is starting off in this career… you could be a beginner as a musician and still be 50-60 years old so it's not necessarily a chronological age. It's a musical experience age that we're talking about. And that person doesn't know and is unsure of oneself and has in a sense more to fear than other people. What advice might I give? I think one of the things, besides this whole business about setting the impossible goal and then all the more immediate goals, is that idea of other people. The word community… we hear a lot about community, family. My advice was hang out with a lot of other musicians and not necessarily all successful. One can learn how not to do it by hanging out with unsuccessful musicians. And one can learn how to play music by listening to lousy music too. It's like, well, I don't want to sound like that, but being aware of that. And it's not a judgmental thing. It's a, what's the word? It's not a value judgment. It's a judgment that I don't want to do, but it's a personal thing. It's not like that's bad. It's just:I don't want to do that. I don't want to sound like that. Someone else might, that's cool, but I don't, or: wow, I want to do that. I want to be like that. Some other people may not. I do. So it's that idea. But it's also, going back to that sense of community, one thing that I found is that first impressions are really good. First impressions are extremely useful and sometimes invaluable. You don't have time. You have to decide on an instant. Sometimes, it's life or death, whether you step out on the street or not. From my own experience, and at my age, I think I've had a fair few years more than most of your listeners that… often my first impressions of people, when those first impressions are negative, are wrong. And once I get to know that person, if I'm, if I allow that opportunity to occur, I find things that this person can teach me. I find things that this person has to offer and that I have to offer to them, and I find these people that I enjoy hanging out with. And that's interesting. It's a truism. All of this stuff, everyone knows already. It's all out there. There's always a little good in everybody. Well, maybe not everybody [laughing], but the majority of people that I meet, there's always something there. I think that's quite something. I mean, in other words, everybody I meet… everybody and this is going to be good: no matter who I meet, this is going to be an interesting, rewarding, possibly enjoyable experience. Thanks. I'm glad it's happening now. Community. 

Michael Walker: So, so much good stuff in there. I mean, one thing that I love about you just shared is just the overall mindset of approaching every situation, every person from a standpoint of: what can I learn from this person, or there's something, there's something here. There's a gift, there's a blessing, there's a lesson. It seems like that's a mindset that I hear reflected in most of my mentors, most of the successful people that I know is that one of their biggest drivers, one of their biggest values is a sense of curiosity or open mindedness and the resourcefulness and what, what comes through to me when I hear you speak about that is just that specific mindset being about whatever it is in front of you. Being able to appreciate the fact that there is goodness there. There's a lesson, there’s something that you can learn from. It seems like it certainly creates a path of less resistance than, if you are approaching each situation and sort of judging something, as being negative from the start. 

I think you'd probably appreciate this, this story, Riley, it seems right up your alley. You might've even heard this parable, but there was a traveler who came across a city and there's a man sitting on the outside of the city. And before the traveler came in he asked the man sitting on the outside: what kind of people are inside the city? And the wise man replied: what kind of people have you met so far in your travels? And the man said: Oh, everybody has been awful… cheaters and liars and traitors. It’s been a horrible experience. And the man says: that's the same thing you're going to find in the city is that same experience. And then, a different traveler comes. And is on the outside of the city and asked the man: what can I expect to find in the city? How are the people there? And again, the wise man asks, well, what kind of people have you met so far on your travels? He says, everyone's been so generous and kind and supporting and good to me, I've been very grateful. And the man says, well actually you're going to find the exact same experience here in the city. The people are very generous, grateful. And the idea is exactly what you're speaking to in terms of community and how we do have the ability to focus on different things. You can always focus on bad things and negative things. You can focus on what's wrong and there's always going to be more of what's “wrong, but you can also focus on the lessons, the blessings, what's good as well.Even the things that are challenges or that are “wrong” or “issues” in the right light can be seen as a blessing or a gift or a learning lesson. That's just such an important mindset. So I appreciate you bringing that up.

Riley Lee: Your parable reminded me of a friend again, who's no longer with us, who was a millionaire when there were very, very few billionaires. And so a very successful business person, but he dabbled in Shakuhachi. That's how I knew him. And he once told me, he said, I'm talking about business now, but you could, I guess, extrapolate this to life. He says, I always trust everybody, really, once. Once. As in, I give everyone a chance, if they blow it, If they don't respect my trust, well then, I don't deal with them again. I don't have to. But I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, as it were. Then another one that is kind of like what you were talking about with the wise men either or, and this again comes from my teacher and it's about the idea of giving and receiving. And again, I'm quoting my teacher. I'm just passing it on. You can't have one without the other. You can't give something to someone who doesn't want to receive it because that's pushing it on somebody. That's not really giving. And likewise, you can't receive without someone giving it to you, because if you do that, that's not receiving, that's taking. So you got to have both, and not only do you have to have both, but really, because they are inseparable, one does not exist without the other, they're the same, they're like two sides of the coin. One side is giving heads, the other side, or tails, doesn't matter, the other side is receiving, but it's the same thing, you can't slice the coin, and separate the giving from the receiving, the heads from the tails. It's impossible because it's the same thing. It's the same thing. And, okay, that sounds good. That's pretty cool. He said, but this is the bit that I still have to remind myself as much as possible. It's hard. This is really hard. He says: therefore, you don't have to ever, ever, ever think about receiving. All you have to do is give. And it's taken care of. You're part of it then. Then he says, now, okay, you got the heads and the tails. That's the giving and the receiving. And if you got the giving, you got the receiving. Because it's the same thing. So don't worry about the receiving. Just give. Actively give. You also have to actively receive. Sometimes people offer you things that you don't really want. So you're giving that person the opportunity to give you something. They want to give you something. They don't want to help you. They, for whatever reason, they want to do this to you, and you don't want it, but okay, I'm giving by receiving, that's another way of thinking it's the one thing. So what's, what do you call this coin? What's the coin? The coin, says my teacher, is what we mentioned earlier. It's gratitude. That's the coin. Both the giver and the receiver experience gratitude. And when you give someone, like your significant other, or if you have kids, sometimes you just hit it right. Not always. Often I give Patricia, we've been married a long, many, many decades. And she says, don't even bother, Riley. Don't. But now and again, I see something, I think, yes! And then, I save it and I give it to her and she's surprised 1) that I got her something that she actually liked, but, ah, man, the feeling of that is better than receiving anything.

The feeling of giving well is just much, much better ever, than receiving. But, receiving is pretty cool too. Receiving is really, really neat. So that's another important one. And it's all tied in, how do you make community? How do you get community? How do you create community? Community is an interaction. What kind of interaction? What are you doing with the community? You're giving and receiving. You're not there to, to receive. Oh, what can I, how can I, it's not that. It's this, smooth interaction, selfless interaction of both receiving and guest community. And so all these things are tied in together. How do you decide what community you're in? You got your goal to help, you're North Star, as you mentioned, to help lead the way. In this community, who do you gravitate to perhaps more than others? That person is a teacher. I can learn from that person. He or she may not think of themself as a teacher. Possibly he or she advertises as a teacher. Come see me. I'm a teacher. Okay, why do we gravitate to the, it's the goal.

So it's all connected, I think. Everything's connected. And that's what's cool. As you said about the internet: Here we are, we're talking, I'm here at Princeton. You're down in, I presume, Florida, and there's people all over the world listening. It's free. It's not really free, we're paying in other ways [laughing], but it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. But what is that? We have so many opportunities now to create this community. We're so lucky. All of us are really lucky. We're very fortunate to be here. I'm fortunate. You create this podcast. What do you get out of that? I'm very fortunate that you make this possible. 

Michael Walker: It’s so we get to have conversations like this!

Riley Lee: That may be the case and prior to coming on today, because I can't tell anything to people that might be listening to your podcast. I went on and listened to some of your podcasts. And, they may be talking about how to set up your guitar in a studio situation and blah, blah. And I think, well, that's had nothing to do with me. It doesn't, but it's interesting. And what's cool, what I really appreciated, what I got out of that listening to the people that I had the fortune to, to hear was that these are guys, these are people, these are men and women that are talking about things that they enjoy that are taking them toward their impossible goal. They're blessed and they're really good at it. And so they could talk about it all day long. And in another situation, for example, this could be a music podcast and I could be talking about: How best to practice so you can become a good Chakrati player, but I don't think that would… [laughing] But in other words, what I got to listen to in your previous podcast is: We are interested in certain things, they are not the same because we are all different and that gets back to, we're all unique. How do we choose our unique path? I was lucky because my unique path was definitely unique and it's what we like, ourselves. We're unique. What we like is unique and you again mentioned, on the other hand, being open minded and aware of things, one can get lots of things. One can learn from people who are good at what they do, talking about what they're good at what they do. And that's why we like watching sports. We're watching people that are good at what they do. And that's enjoyable. It's enjoyable to listen to people that are good at what they do. As a musician, getting back to the theme, when you're performing, firstly, you got to realize that the audience, particularly a paying audience, is there because they want to hear you succeed. They want to hear good music. They've paid because they have a feeling… In a sense, they're betting. They're betting the price of their ticket that you will be successful, you will perform well on stage and they really want you to, they are on your side. They are a fantastic audience by and large. There's always exceptions. 

So all you got to do is just play for yourself and they're with you, man. It's so easy to perform in front of a large audience or a small audience, anybody, because they are you. They're with you. They want you to. They're giving their support to you just by being there. And so all you have to do is play well, how do you play? Well, as a musician every day, every day, got to practice. 

Michael Walker: Riley. I got to say, this is my favorite conversation I've had in a while. This is really great. And also full circle too, talking about the impossible goals and how do you get there? You might not ever reach the impossible goal, but you get there by one step at a time, every single day, showing up and putting in the work. What, chop wood, carry water… is this what they say? But yeah, I mean, just so much wisdom, coming through and, in the mindsets and, and what you're sharing. And one of my favorite things about this podcast and why I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to host this and have these conversations with people like yourself is because it provides an opportunity for me to basically see the patterns between all of these other successful people that are on their path and that they've learned from. And you're right. Like we're all unique, we're all different, but success leaves clues and you start to see those patterns of the things that they talk about. Seeing failure as not a bad permanent thing, seeing it as an actual good thing, something that actually gives you direction. Setting a goal, setting a target that gives you purpose and motivation to move towards it. Man, what you talked about, giving and receiving those two things being connected, especially for so many of our artists here who want to have a career doing this and understanding and realizing that their ability to generate income is directly tied to the value that they're providing and that it's not something that… like in order to generate income, the way to do it is to provide an equivalent amount of value to somebody else.

Just so much good stuff in there. So Riley, thank you so much for taking the time again to come on here and share some of the lessons that you've learned in your very successful career. And for anyone that is listening to us right now who'd be interested in listening to your music and diving deeper and connecting more, where'd be the best place for them to go to go deeper? 

Well, if you want to listen to music, just go to Spotify, type in Riley Lee, and my website's easy to remember: It's just RileyLee.com. And you can always email me at Riley.com too. So all you have to do is remember my name and you're there and not only Spotify, Amazon, the whole lot of everything, it's all out there. 

Michael Walker: Beautiful. Yeah: 50 million streams. Pretty, pretty awesome. Very cool. All right, well, let's go ahead and let's give a round of virtual applause for Mr. Riley Lee. 

YEAAAHHHH

Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

First if you hit ‘subscribe’ then that’s make sure you don’t miss a new episode. Secondly if you share it with your friends, on social media, tag us - that really helps us out.

And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review it’s going to help us reach more musicians like you take their music to the next level. The time to be a Modern Musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.