Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jason Thomas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jason, thrilled to have you on the platform as I think our readers can really benefit from your insights and experiences. In particular, we’d love to hear about how you think about burnout, avoiding or overcoming burnout, etc.
There were a few times I’ve felt burned out or stretched particularly thin. Something that I had to learn to do is recognize the times where burnout is coming on. The first time I got the feeling of burnout, I didn’t recognize it was happening. I got a sense that I really needed to take some time off, but I shrugged it off as some form of laziness and kept working through it. I did that for weeks, until it finally got to a point where it felt like there was nothing left to drive me forward and I ended up crashing. For a while, I felt extremely demotivated and didn’t want to do anything at all. I had this feeling of guilt like I was being weak and that I should be able to just keep going regardless of what I was feeling, like a machine. At that point I started to realize I had this idea of myself that I needed to work as though I really was a machine. Almost immediately following that, it dawned on me that going constantly with no reprieve makes no sense whatsoever, and can actually cause more harm than good. That was a reality that had become undeniably apparent in that moment. Once I felt I had a better idea of what was going on, I made a concerted effort to put down the work for a few days and take some time totally off from what I was working on. When I fully committed to that decision to take some time to myself, it was almost like a weight dropped off of me. It was weird because I realized that, subconsciously, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of taking breaks. There was this idea that if I switched off, I was being lazy or that I wasn’t being as committed as I SHOULD be. Sometimes my mind would flitter back to that way of thinking. The catch, though, was that taking breaks and feeling free to disconnect actually made me MORE productive. It reduced the amount of stress, which freed up space for creativity. Adding your creativity to anything makes it feel much more personal, interesting and fun. So, unexpectedly, I began to feel even more excited about what I was working on, as it seemed like a new approach to how I went about working was presenting itself. There was still focus on a goal and the discipline to take steps toward it, but I also started to recognize and value the benefits of taking time off, even if it’s just a couple of hours at the end of the day. Since accepting the idea that taking breaks isn’t only beneficial but necessary, I feel like I don’t get burned out as much. The few times that I have felt like I may be getting burned out, I take a step back to remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with taking a break, and it might even open up the creative space for a new great idea!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
LastTimeDown is a St. Louis rock band that has had the opportunity to share the stage with numerous musicians all across St. Louis and Illinois. In July of 2021, LastTimeDown began work on their debut album, paying special attention in crafting the specific sound and dynamics of the music. The end result was their debut album “Rose Colored Glasses//First Time Around”, an impressive collection of polished tracks that exude a raw emotionality and energy that is felt throughout the entirety of the record .
In November 2022, LastTimeDown released their first single from that record, “Roses Are Red” , across streaming and download services. “Roses” was quickly followed up by the release of their second single in April of 2023 with “Kiss The World Goodbye” , which was picked up for airplay by 89.1 KCLC The Wood. LastTimeDown continues to be recognized across the broader music scene for their musical prowess, rhythmic ingenuity, and thought-provoking lyrics as they seamlessly blend various genres together, creating an energetic feeling of excitement, fun, and familiarity that is hard to duplicate.
As a band, LastTimeDown wants to create a memorable live experience by creating a fun, high energy environment, through personal interaction, and playing great music. The bands’ genuine love for writing and performing music is reflected at every single performance. LastTimeDown is currently writing their second album, with multiple songs already in late stage production. They are actively playing the St. Louis/Illinois region and have several upcoming performances. LastTimeDown is eager to make 2024 the year of their emergence into the national scene.
Check out LastTimeDown live for the ‘City Nights,Electric Dreams’ show at Platypus in St Louis, March 1st. You can also see LastTimeDown perform at Pop’s Nightclub in ‘Road to Pointfest’ , as they compete for the opportunity to perform at Pointfest 2024. The ‘Road to Pointfest’ show is taking place at Pop’s Nightclub on 3/29. Visit LastTimeDown.com for more future show dates.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say three important qualities that were impactful were resilience, humility, and self-knowledge. Things will undoubtedly get difficult at some point and quitting will seem like a really great idea. It’s very easy to sit outside of a situation and say “well just keep going”, but coming face to face with the reality of the feeling of dejection and the belief that you’re a failure is really disheartening. More importantly, as you’re going through it, it feels like it’s the truth. There needs to be a certain amount of resilience to successfully face and deal with any doubts you have about yourself and what you’re doing. Having the resilience to continue onward toward your goal during the times when you aren’t necessarily believing in yourself reveals that even though it feels like total and complete failure from which there is no possibility of escape, the truth is that it’s only temporary. I feel one of the best ways to cultivate resilience is to learn how to operate in the present. In the words of an old but reliable dictum: “say a prayer, take some action”. If you don’t believe in yourself, believe in the power of the process and the cumulative power of the actions that you take. Eventually, something happens that indicates progress toward the goal and you break through the doubt. What seemed impossibly far away now seems just a little bit closer. That in itself build resilience.
Humility is important, or was important for me at least, because it helped me to accept the fact that I needed to up my game. There were(and still are) a lot of things that I didn’t know how to do. Sometimes I felt stupid or like it was something that I should know already and was really resistant to admitting my lack of know-how. Humility helped me to accept that there are lot of things that I don’t know and there will always be lot’s of things that I don’t know, and that’s totally fine. Admitting to myself that I wasn’t as knowledgable as I may have wanted to be on a particular subject opened the door to accepting that I wasn’t as prepared as I needed to be to maximize my chances for success. It’s easy to be humble about something you don’t really care about. It gets a little more difficult as you become more emotionally invested in being “good” at something. If I was unwilling to acknowledge my weakest areas, there would have been no way to strengthen them. As it was, I came to recognize where I excelled and where I was weak, which allowed me to focus on those weak points. A great way to cultivate humility is to just practice being ok with being bad at something. Try doing something you’re bad at that you deliberately avoid, but wish you knew how to do. Accept that you want to learn how to do it but currently aren’t as skilled as you’d like to be. It’s fine not to be the “best” at something and with practice you can become as skilled as you want. This usually helps take some pressure off and makes learning a lot more fun.
Saying that self knowledge is an important quality almost feels like I’m cheating in the sense there are so many things that fall under that umbrella and so many benefits that come from it. Understanding what makes yourself tick and witnessing the subtlety and nuance of your own thoughts and personality becomes a method by which to better predict, understand and direct your own behavior. In terms of how it has impacted my journey through music, it has given me a context by which to understand the emotional highs and lows that come with being in a band and pursuing a career in music. The times where everything seems to be going wrong and resilience feels to be in short supply, understanding what I was feeling and my own reasoning behind why I was feeling it helped me to put things into perspective and see where those hardships fit in with my bigger picture. It also helps me to find the clearest ways to express myself lyrically in music. One great way to develop self knowledge is to be aware of what you’re feeling/thinking as you’re feeling/thinking it , and trying to recognize the correlation between that and what you’re doing in that moment. Diving into where exactly those thoughts/feelings/actions come from and how they became predominant behaviors can be eye opening, and when the thought pattern behind behaviors are identified, that behavior tends to become less compulsory. This becomes really useful when you hit roadblocks or difficulties and there is a compulsion to procrastinate and push the issue off continually due to the discomfort of not having an on-hand solution and the desire to avoid something that is predicted to be unpleasant.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think it’s a little bit difficult to say. What some people consider a strength, other people consider a weakness. What I would say is that it’s best to go all in on yourself, improving any skill or aspect of yourself that will help you to be more successful. If a person can learn the most effective way to learn, then improving a weakness or honing a strength become pretty similar in their execution. A lot of times, when you are first starting out at something, you don’t even really know the full extent of what strengths and weaknesses you are starting with in relation to the field you are entering. For example, I took a few architecture classes in college. I had a good mind for math and I considered that as a massive strength for that situation due to my limited understanding of and unfamiliarity with, the field of architecture. I thought that I was in good shape for the heavy amount of math that would be required in an architecture class. What I somehow didn’t realize, was that drawing was an extensive and integral part of that architecture class and there was almost no math whatsoever. There were some true artists in that class who had an amazing natural talent to draw. I did not have that talent. At all. Before taking that class I wouldn’t have even considered drawing as a strength in that particular setting. It wasn’t until I had already started that I began to realize the extent of what I didn’t know. As it usually happens, my actual strengths and weakness in this particular situation started being put up against what I believed my strengths and weaknesses would be. My expectations were unceremoniously shattered. This experience, among many others, has helped me adopt a mindset that acknowledges my own unfamiliarity with a given area, and helps me to recognize my strengths and weaknesses in that area as they arise. There is a focus on learning the things that will be the most useful now and in the future, whether that be something that I feel naturally comfortable doing or not. Bruce Lee said something that I think describes it succinctly: “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.LastTimeDown.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lasttimedownband
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lasttimedownmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lasttimedownband
- SoundCloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/lasttimedown
