We had the good fortune of connecting with Chris Vazquez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?

Work life balance is something I have struggled with for a large part of my adult life. It’s something I recognized was necessary in my late twenties and have been working towards ever since. As a musician, we are taught to respond fast because if we don’t an opportunity might be lost. This mindset causes many musicians to prioritize offers they receive over everything else in their lives. I suppose I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, in my early 20s this was absolutely fine. Sure, it did a fair amount of damage in my personal life, but I was young and the only thing that mattered to me at the time was trying to breakthrough as a musician. However, as the years went by, and I missed one friend’s wedding after another, one birthday after another, and nearly every weekend with my partner, it began to wear me down. Of course I had no idea it was wearing me down because all I could see was what was right in front of me.

When I was twenty-seven I came home from teaching to grab my gym clothes and head right back out. At home, my partner at the time was walking out the other door as I was walking in. We embraced just long enough to say goodbye and that was the end. She never came back. That loss was the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit of balance.

I think one of the reasons that many artists, whether they be musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, or whatever the case might be, have so much difficulty with balance is primarily because we’re hardwired with a scarcity mindset. Artists often do not develop the skills to think big picture. They struggle to zoom out, and imagine the life that they want to have and then do the work to achieve that vision of life. In many cases, it requires people to say no to things more often than yes. As an artist, saying no is difficult. It comes loaded with self doubt, insecurity, and an irrational fear of missing out.

In my personal pursuit for balance, I created my first business. This is SoundLife Music Academy, an in-home music school that provides private lessons, performance opportunities, band coaching, and various workshops throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The beginnings of this process required me to think very hard about what I wanted in life. I had to ask the question why am I here? And answering that question I had to ask a number of other questions. Do I want a family? Do I want to buy a home? Do I want to live my life in Los Angeles? Do I want to have children? What do I want their lives growing up to be like?

In answering these questions, I tried to visualize what I wanted my future life to look like. Mind you at this time I was going through a divorce, living alone, and spending a lot of time reflecting, meditating, and writing. More questions came up. What am I good at? How can I be of service? What makes me feel fulfilled? I realized that as a professional musician, the aspect of music that most excited me was performing on stage. I knew that there were so many avenues musicians could go down to build a career, to pay the bills, but for me being on stage was the only one that truly made me feel fulfilled. I also came to understand that teaching was one of my superpowers. Not just teaching someone how to play an instrument but using the instrument to help them increase their confidence, learn the benefits of discipline, embrace community and collaboration, and encourage them to reach as high as they possibly can. This also brought me great fulfillment.

Once I knew what fulfilled me and what I wanted, I was tasked with trying to figure out how those things could fit together. If playing on stage and teaching bring me great fulfillment, but I also want to buy a home and one day start a family, what are my choices? For me, this is when I knew I needed to start my own business. I knew that touring for long periods of time, while fun, would not work for the type of family life that I wanted. I knew that relying on artists wouldn’t make me feel comfortable when it came to paying a mortgage, tuition, and other various obligations that would come with one day having a family. But I also knew that I loved performing, and that through that medium, I could bring people great joy. So I needed to figure out a way that I could keep performing, but not have to rely on it. This was part of the seed for SoundLife and the beginning of bringing my life into balance.

When I started SoundLife Music Academy with my business partner Michael Torres, I was the only teacher. I would drive all over the city for my students, teaching six, sometimes seven days a week. Then in the evenings I would play gigs and go out to jam sessions. Looking back I was probably working 60 hours a week, but I was planting good seeds, intentional seeds. Around this time, I met my future wife. Two years later we were married. A year after that we purchased our first condo. One year after that my wife gave birth to twin girls. And just two years after that, we sold our condo and moved into our current home. I do not believe that any of this is luck, but a reflection of what happens when we’re living our purpose. None of these choices were made by accident. Over the years I’ve continued to refine what work life balance looks like for me. It’s one thing when you don’t have kids and another thing when you do.

When my girls were born, I went through another very long planning phase. I knew that I wanted to be there for them after school, on weekends, and that I had no intention of missing any birthdays. This meant learning how to scale my business and delegate appropriately. Over the years I slowly removed myself from teaching, and increased my knowledge regarding leadership and management. Altogether, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on coaching, seminars, books, and anything that I can get my hands on to give me the information I need to get where I want to go. That money is something I have never regretted spending, because it has always brought me closer to my goals.

Today I spend most of my time working on two businesses. As I said earlier, performing is one of the great joys of my life, so once SoundLife had legs of its own, I began to turn my attention to creating a business related to performing. Again, I thought hard about what I loved and what I wanted. Eventually, I met my partner Max Benson, and together we launched a company called GB entertainment that provides jazz entertainment for private events and weddings. Just like SoundLife, this company took blood sweat and tears to get off the ground, but has proven to be a gift that now contributes tremendously to my personal work life balance.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

I’m proud to be part of the leadership team for two purpose driven businesses that provide exceptional services for our customers and opportunities for our team members. Each day I’m doing my daily plan and I write the phrase “I am a leader and I want to be a better leader” at the top of the page. For me being a leader is something that I can always improve upon whether related to my family, my friends or business. And I believe that it’s this mindset that has helped get me to where I am today. It is also the same mindset that gives me the motivation and energy to keep going.

Right now, I am most excited about the impact we’re making in both SoundLife and GB Entertainment. This year both companies expanded their offerings. SoundLife now offers workshops, day camps, open mics, additional performance opportunities, and open house jam sessions. These supplemental opportunities further our mission to instill creativity and confidence through music. Along with our core services, band coaching and private in-home music lessons, we are not only reaching more students, we are now able to further increase their growth and nurture their inspiration.

With GB entertainment we recently launched a complete redesign of our website. This took months of work, but set us up for the future, providing us with the opportunity to add more offerings and optimize our flagship offerings. Along with our redesign, we launched our solo musician offerings for both piano and guitar. This new platform sets us up to introduce clients to more incredible musicians and people within the Los Angeles music community and to offer more work for the members of that community.

My personal mission is to change the musician’s story by teaching creatives to thrive. I don’t like to see musicians struggle. I don’t like that our culture views creatives in general as broke, despondent, unreliable vagabonds. That’s now it has to be, not how it should be, and in many cases not at all how it is. Entrepreneurship, financial literacy, goal setting, and system building are all topics that I have needed to master to reach my goals in life and I feel very passionate about sharing everything I’ve learned. I am deeply committed to helping musicians and all creatives to leverage their expertise in a way that allows them to live more freely, with more certainty, and more fulfillment. This mission is realized every day through our work at SoundLife, at GB, through interactions with our clients, through social media, and out in the world at gigs, lectures, and events.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
One week in Los Angeles might look something like this.

Monday – Inglewood / Southbay

9am – Breakfast Pann’s Restaurant
11am – Playa Del Ray for Beach and Biking
1pm – Lunch at Playa Provisions
3pm – Visit the Redondo Pier
5pm – Happy Hour @ Hudson House in Redondo Beach
7pm – Grab dinner and a beer at Three Weavers Brewing

Tuesday – Westside

9am – Breakfast @ The Rose in Venice
10am – Walk the Venice Boardwalk
11:30am – Drive The PCH up To Malibu
1pm – Lunch @ Malibu Seafood
3pm – Visit Paradise Cove, stay til sunset

Wednesday – Mid City / Hollywood

9am – Breakfast @ Republique
11am – Visit stores along Melrose
1pm – Lunch @ Canter’s Deli
3pm – Walk Of Fame / Chinese Theater
5pm – Visit Hollywood Sign via Beachwood Canyon
7pm – Tacos & Beer @ All Seasons Brewery

Thursday – Eastside

9am – Breakfast @ Eggslut
10am – Visit Olivera Street
12pm – Lunch @ Phillip’s Original French Dip
1pm – Visit Griffith Observatory
5pm – Catch a show at the Greek or The Hollywood Bowl

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I honestly have no idea where life would have led me without the help of mentors and positive role models. It would be impossible to name just one person. In my youth, I was blessed with a wonderful village. I need to give a shout out to my mother and father, as they always provided me with the tools and resources that I needed to be successful. I would also be remiss not to mention the Baltimore school for the Arts. This arts based public high school truly changed the direction of my life. In this environment, I learned the power of being surrounded by like-minded individuals working towards common goals. I also had many guitar teachers throughout high school, the most notable being my first teacher, a man named Mike Booze, and Baltimore legend Carl Filipiak. For college, I attended the Berkeley College music in Boston, and this environment further sharpened my saw, providing me with more musical tools than I could use in a lifetime.

My career as a musician would have staled out early without the help and guidance of great musicians and humans such as Dontae Winslow, Markay Fairley, Martin, Estrada, Andrew, Perusi, and Aaron McLaine. These guys truly took time to help me out and teach me the ropes. From there, the list of positive, encouraging mentors is endless. Not to mention the incredible artists and business leaders I’ve had the great fortune of coming to know over the years. Every day I say I prayer of gratitude for their presence in my life.

When it comes to books, my reading list is never ending, but the one that stands above the rest is “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. This, I believe, is not just a must read book for beginning entrepreneurship, but for all creatives, who by default are entrepreneurs themselves, creating their brand, their systems, their network, and so forth.

Website: www.soundlifelessons.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/soundlifelessons

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-vazquez-79a973a5

Facebook: www.facebook.com/soundlifelessons

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/soundlife-music-academy-los-angeles-2

Youtube: www.youtube.com/soundlifelessons

Other: www.gbjazz.com www.instagram.com/gb_entertainment_

Image Credits
@dbushphotog @tylermilesphoto @kellyelainephoto

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