We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jackie Rush a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jackie, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
I don’t think I’ll ever “overcome” imposter syndrome but rather learn how to use those moments as fuel for pushing myself. There have been countless moments where I feel uncertain of my place in the room or unsure of my ability to do my job, but in these moments now, I try to use it as a time to reflect on why or who is making me feel this way. I’m much more confident in my abilities now who I am overall, but it took a lot of time to build that both personally and professionally. Now that I’ve gone through a lot more experiences, I’ve grown to learn how to handle these moments of uncertainty and am working on being confident in standing up for myself. I think specifically for musicians it’s easy to forget how much time and work we’ve put into our instrument because usually it’s over the course of many years. But in these moments of feeling uncertain of my place, I try to remember how much work I’ve put in and remind myself that I deserve to be a voice in the room too. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but I’m working on diminishing the doubtful voices and standing confident in who I am and what I have to say.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m a drummer/musician in the LA area and have spent the last 2 years post grad working full time as a musician as well as teaching privately. Music has always been a big part of my life and I’ve been really lucky to have been able to study it throughout school and to now do it full time. I graduated in 2022 from Cal State Long Beach with my degree in Music Performance with an emphasis in Jazz Studies and am really grateful for all of the experiences I had there. Post grad, I had the opportunity to go on tour with Laufey on her Everything I Know About Love tour and was able to travel around the US, Canada and Europe in Fall of 2022. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to play around LA with various artists and have also been teaching private lessons through my own studio as well as at a few schools in the area. I really love what I do and have met so many incredible people because of it. Most recently, I recorded on 2 projects for my good friends Jake and Sophia Augustine on their project called JIA as well as for my friend Dakota Noxon on his EP. Both projects were recorded through Wasatch Studios in the Santa Monica area and I’m so excited for them to be released soon. In March, I’ll be joining GeorgiaGetsBy on her LA and Brooklyn shows of her tour which I’m also really looking forward to.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
It’s really easy to get wrapped up in what we “should” be doing no matter what field we’re in but especially for music, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. I, like a lot of people, have struggled with comparison and feeling success in an industry where there is no blueprint. There are a few values I hold close to me that have helped me feel more successful both personally and professionally in recent months. These values are to surround yourself with people that inspire you, don’t lose sight of what matters most to you and to remember that there’s a lot of life to live outside of work. Each of these values really helped put things into perspective for me, especially being in the music industry. I think it’s really difficult to separate work and life sometimes with music, which ironically is one of the things I love most about it. This lack of separation can make it so that work doesn’t feel like work but also can make relationships difficult to navigate sometimes. I really value the relationships in my life and have been lucky to have such amazing people around me. I think this is so important to constantly fuel creativity and drive. The people around me make such a difference in how I operate and to have so many people that I look up to constantly around me has helped both my personal and professional growth. I had a conversation with a friend once where we were talking about if we never played music again who would we be? Honestly I think about this a lot and it fuels me to be proud of myself in and outside of my work. As redundant as it sounds, there is so much life to live and finding balance between all the different aspects that make us happy is all that matters.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
My biggest area of growth has been finding balance and realizing how important that is to me. Being post grad has really put this into perspective for me and how I navigate who I am outside of school. I think this is the most transformative time for me right now and I have spent a lot of time figuring out who I am. I’d like to think I’m doing a good job on this journey, but then again things are always changing so who truly knows. I think it’s nice to be able to go through so much change and growth on my own though and to allow myself to grow into who I am.
But, like I said earlier, it’s easy to get lost in what our relationships look like as musicians and it’s easy to doubt ourselves in what we’re doing because of it. I really value the people in my life and learned this year that this is what I cherish most. For a long time I think music was my job as well as my hobby which meant it was all I wanted to do with my time. I think this is a beautiful thing, in a way, but I’ve learned that finding things I love to do outside of music really makes me appreciate its value in my life now. I take the time to do these things as well as spend time with the people I love and this has helped me balance work and life a lot better now. I feel lucky to love what I do and who I do it with. It truly brings me so much joy to be able to make music, especially with my friends. I think I’ll always be working on balance in my life but I think realizing how much this matters to me has allowed me a lot of growth this year.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackie_rush/
Image Credits
Jordan Fox
