The hobbies that we are drawn to allow us to express the unique language of our souls. Whether it be through creating art, music, any form of personal expression or interest that you carry out on a regular basis. These tools allow us to get in touch with ourselves and enter a flow state where we share what is real, true and pure to us. 

We share with the world through these hobbies what we are truly passionate about. We lose hours, days even, when we do these activities. 

Time seems to standstill.

When faced with the question ‘what would you do every day for the rest of your life if money was no object?’, many of us would answer that we would fill our time and spend our days carrying out these hobbies and passions of ours. 

But at what point does that dream become real and that passion becomes a profession? 

What does it take to pursue your passion professionally and turn it into a wildly successful full-time gig? 

Unconventional Life caught up with Mike Casey, jazz musician, melody poet, story-telling songwriter, producer, and saxophonist, to talk about his journey to fulfilling a successful career in music and to answer some of these questions. As a musician who has been creating music full time for 6-7 years professionally, Mike is pretty familiar with living the Unconventional Life. 

For Mike, music has always been one of his passions and constants throughout his life. He started playing saxophone some 17 years ago, as a child. He is in the process of releasing his 4th album and his passion is to infuse jazz with other genres and tell stories through his music.

Music, to Mike, is more than just playing notes – “I try to make every single note I play mean something… when I play a line, it’s not just a series of notes, it’s a sentence, a statement…. I’m really really big on storytelling and every single one of my songs comes from a story.”

He decided to go to music school at the age of fifteen, where “for the first time I felt this incredibly powerful feeling of ‘this is it for me’ I can do this for the rest of my life”.  The drive of his classmates – all of who had a driving passion to be the best of the best at playing jazz – was what pushed him and motivated him to up his game and raise his skill level. Although he went straight from music school to a professional career in music, Mike believes that ups and downs were a definite part of the journey – “it’s definitely not been an easy route, but it’s something I wouldn’t trade for the world… you learn so much when you have that pressure to create and make it work” 

We asked Mike what advice he has for any of our readers who are wanting to pursue their passion full time, particularly in a creative field such as music, and what it takes to make their dream a reality. 

Music and Life Mirror Each Other 

“Music and life mirror each other… you have to want it, for one, but you have to live it… you have to be okay with being obsessed, putting it in your heart and your soul, it has to grab you and you have to love it…” 

Mike strongly advocates that passion is everything when it comes to pursuing something as a career and that you need to be prepared to put everything into your art – that it’s all about “finding that thing that you are so insanely in love with that you will sacrifice so much to delve into it…” because ultimately, there will be sacrifices, there will be hard work and there will need to be some stamina involved if you want to succeed. 

Boldly Pursue Dreams 

However, he also is an advocate for following your heart and encourages readers to boldly pursue their dreams – “to anyone out there who is thinking about making that jump from their day job or whatever they’re doing to something new, I say do it…” and that the key to living an unconventional life successfully is “having faith in yourself and knowing that it’s all going to be okay.” 

Do your Research 

“Get ready to do a ton of research as to what has worked for similar artists in your space.” 

Find an artist in your scene and study what they are doing to try and problem solve. Find out some data points like who is on their team, how often they release music, who is their publicist, what venues they played at on their last tour is to get a roadmap of how they are becoming successful. 

Eventually, the research will be less about other people and more about yourself as you start to know what is and isn’t working. 

Giveaway! 

As a gift to one lucky reader, Mike is giving away a 15 minute Skype call – about music, mindset and life.  

Connect with Mike 

Text him @ +1 917 540 8084 or through  his website 

Many walk the entrepreneurial path with dreams to accommodate their unconventional lifestyle, creating financial freedom, living their passion and accumulating great wealth and financial abundance. There are now 582 million people in the world who follow the entrepreneurial path for a variety of reasons. However, with 22.5% of small businesses failing within their first year, not all entrepreneurs will reach the level of success they desire, nor will they attain economic freedom that drove them to start their own business.

So what is the key factor that determines whether an entrepreneur reaches the level of success and wealth that they desire?

What is the secret to ensuring financial and economic freedom as an aspiring entrepreneur?

Unconventional Life caught up with Garrett Gunderson, to talk about wealth, money mindset and the role that ancestry and programming have in our experience of wealth and finances. Garrett is an entrepreneur, financial advocate, founder of Wealth Factory and New York Bestselling author of Killing Sacred Cows and What Would The Rockafellas Do.

He is passionate about helping individuals dissolve inherited patterns, break free from ancestral programming and develop a wealth mindset that they can leave as a legacy for future generations.

Garrett’s keen interest in wealth and finances came from a necessity to change his long-held inherited belief systems around money and wealth. Coming from a little town in Italy where they didn’t have much, there was a deep mentality of scarcity in his family.

A belief that you had to scrimp and save and sacrifice.

A belief that “you can be separated [from your loved ones] if you don’t hold onto everything you have”.

While his great grandfather wasn’t armed with the same knowledge around beliefs and programming and therefore wasn’t to blame for his scarcity mentality, Garrett was determined to change this programming for not only himself but became inspired by “the legacy you can live and leave” for future generations of his family.

He stresses that the journey to change these beliefs was not just about ‘money’ or being ‘rich’. That wealth to him was “living a life of purpose and love”, and that it’s the pursuit of these things that you should focus on primarily with money as a bi-product.

Money has an emotional charge for so many people and that is largely why it is so difficult to change beliefs around money. While it’s easy to lay down a formula and tell people ‘here’s how you make money’, if you don’t have the rooted layers addressed – the programmed belief systems, the mindset aspect – then all of that becomes useless.

“Money is just a magnifying glass and it’s either going to be something that harms or helps depending on who [you] are” Garrett believes.

We asked Garrett how you can break and dissolve inherited patterns and belief systems around finances, money and wealth.

The most important thing, according to Garrett, is to understand what true wealth is – it is how we live, not just the money we have in the bank. He quotes Benjamin Franklin, saying “wealth isn’t the man that has it, but the man that lives it”.

Being wealthy is having depth and harmony in 5 key categories (finances, soul purpose, mentality/mindset, physical and social). The best thing you can do in order to secure a sense of internal wealth is to find balance and define clear goals in what ‘wealthy’ looks like for you in each of these areas.

From there, your mindset will be ‘wealthy’ and you will be able to attract success and money you desire.

Garrett also believes it’s about asking the right questions like ‘how do I become a better investor?’ and ‘where can I scale my business?’ instead of asking ‘where do I invest my money?’ which is the mistake most people make.

Investing, according to Garrett, isn’t necessary to become economically independent. But, if you are interested in becoming financially independent, here are the things that will allow you to achieve this freedom in 3-7 years.

Five levers to Economic Freedom and Lasting Wealth

1. Having a “Peace of Mind” Fund + Plugging the 4 I’s To Efficiency

Making sure you are being financially efficient in the following areas which Garrett calls the 4 I’s: taxes, interest, investments, insurance. Using the money you’ve saved in these areas and by automatically saving a percentage of money off the top of what you earn, amass a “Peace of Mind” fund. This should cover 6 months of personal expenses that you set aside.

2. Engineer Wealth

Find out what your monthly “number” that you want to bring in is and reverse engineer from there – what would you have to do to create that income?

3. Accelerate investment income

Turn on the cash flow of existing investments. Rather than focusing on what the ‘next thing to invest’ in should be, focus on capitalizing on and growing the investments you already have such as your own business, real estate you own, etc.

4. Scaling business revenue

Scale the business you already own properly. Prioritize the things that you want to do and that are worth your time. Give yourself an ‘hourly rate’ and only do tasks that are worth that rate. Outsource anything that costs more time or effort than your hourly rate is worth.

5. Make it count

Build a life you don’t want to retire from. Enjoy life along the way so you are the best creator you can be.

If you are looking to get noticed as a business professional or entrepreneur Linkedin is definitely where the buzz is at.

With over 630 million users, Linkedin its the largest professional network in the world. If you think the site is just a place to keep your online resume, your missing out on some great opportunities. 

This week on the Unconventional Life show we caught up David Tash, the co-founder of Tashrizzo which is an executive recruiter network.  During this episode, David shares with us 5 valuable tips that we can use to go from zero to hero in the LinkedIn nation and much more.

1. Optimize your headline

Your headline is one of the most visible sections on your profile, making it ultra-hot real estate for getting your message across. David shares that the headline should be branded to speak to your potential clients. What values and skills can you bring to others? What problems do you solve? 

To make it simple, here is a formula: “Your Title, Helping X do Y” or “Your Title. 

Example: “Enterprise software executive | Helping retailers find better performance, productivity, and profitability”

 The headline should pique interest and curiosity so that people engage with your profile and want to discover more about you. 

2. Summary page

David reminds us that “It’s not about you, it’s about who you help the most” 

—> Position your product or service as a solution to all the problems and challenges that your customers are facing.

—> Have a call to action – where do you want to drive customer traffic to? Your best recommendation is to have a link to your landing page. The landing page is an extended description or your product or service, the goal is to convert visitors into sales or leads.  A few other calls to action are;  a calendar link( eg.calendly or hubspot) to set up a  short consultation, inquiry forms, or any preferred method of contact. 

3. Gaining Traction

—> Find your target audience and business collaborations using the Boolean search function. A boolean search quickly refines your search criteria to pinpoint your buyers, influencers, and stakeholders so you can start having conversations with the right people. 

Once you have found your prospect list start to reach out to these people via direct message. Less is more here, the key is to deliver a “benefit-driven message in a genuine way” who are you and how can you help them. 

In your spare time, engage with your prospects & comment on their posts with relevant content related to their interests. They will see your profile & headline and instantly know how you can support them. 

4. The Value Sandwich

Keeping people engaged in your product or service requires a specific formula. If you pushed SALES, SALES, SALES, You would be ignored and forgotten for being too salesy. David’s golden ratio is Value- Pitch- Value. 

The pitches should aim to sell and self promote, while the value is aimed to tell a story, trigger’s an emotional response or starts a conversation. 

It’s important to content that is catchy and interesting enough to grab hold of someone’s attention or it will be lost in a sea of memes, cat photos, and selfies. Use Buzz Sumo to find popular and relevant news about your product or service and share it. 

5. Advanced Support

—> Supercharge your leads by setting up the Linkedin sales navigator. (Ps. Click the link for a free 30-day trial) This allows you to find the exact people you want to market your product and service while driving organic and paid leads to your landing page. Install the Facebook Pixel and Google Conversion Tracking Tag and the Linkedin Insight tag. This allows you to re-market to the same people you target on Linkedin on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. Pixels also collect data that can help optimize ads and measure your ads’ results.

These are only five of the points that David covers in this episode, so tune in to learn how to supercharge your LinkedIn potential

This week, David is giving away ONE personalized consulting packing – A 1-1 experience to help YOU revamp and set up a direct response client strategy on LinkedIn. 

Also, you can connect with David Tash via his website, where you can click the “resources”  tab to receive complimentary sales scripts, sample contracts and loads of free training.

To be entered to win the giveaway, click here. A winner will be selected next week.

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