We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nick Martinez . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nick below.
Nick , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from believing in myself and believing in a power that is greater than I am. Staying focused on my goals or ideas and not letting outside influence change my direction has helped me reach new levels in business and personal life. Also keep in mind there are people who don’t want you to succeed. Those people can be motivators if you use that energy to elevate yourself.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My journey has changed directions several times in my life. I always heard people telling me to focus on one thing and be good at that. But my heart wouldn’t let me because I knew I could do so much more. I have always challenged myself to keep learning and growing. I worked for a utility company right out of High School. After 10 years of wearing the same uniform and doing the same job everyday I came to the conclusion that I was heading towards a dead end with very little upside. I took some evening classes to learn real estate, then started my own company at 28. This new venture allowed me to provide a great living for my family. While experiencing success in Real Estate I invested into a young Hip-Hop group. My lack of experience allowed a Producer / scammer to take a significant amount of money from me and try to disappear. I found him and got my money back. We found a new producer. Without any experience in the music business I was able to sign the band to an independent record label and shortly thereafter a nomination for best new rap group at the gospel music awards. With that new success I received an offer from a small label to work in the area of searching and developing talent as well as administrative work. I learned a lot from this small label and the artists who were signed there. Always looking for opportunity in any area I could find I stumbled upon an opportunity where I signed 19 out of 23 vocalists to a new production company named Artisan Productions ran by a grammy winning producer. One year later I went completely independent and signed more artist to labels and production deals including the Prince Of Egypt Soundtrack, DePasse Entertainment and Mass Appeal Music. Over the past 27 years I have landed several television shows and movies for licensing music and opportunities in developing new technology. I am currently an equity share holder and working with Environmental technology, Marketing and branding technology as well as Music, Film and Television production. Work ethic and the will to succeed are always driving factors for me !
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Consistency ! Be consistent with who you are, great work ethic and flawless communication. By staying consistent you create a reputation for being dependable, reliable and accountable. Living outside of your comfort zones will allow you to grow and create more opportunities, in addition to boosting your confidence. Knowledge is definitely power but open transparent communication is the glue. Facing challenges head-on with confidence, taking ownership of your mistakes and learning from them are key factors in growth. So many people are afraid of making mistakes and often fail to move forward because of it. You have to move in order to grow and you have to not care about what others think of you. Identify and build your skill set by learning from successful people, reading and researching.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
Good people… I have been able to overcome challenges by working with people who genuinely care. The biggest challenge in any business is finding the right people to work with and grow. These people generally keep a very tight circle so don’t be offended if you’re not accepted into their circle immediately. Trust is a huge factor in working to succeed. Good things come to you and happen almost daily, but great things take time, effort and consistency. I’m most thankful for my parents, they taught me an amazing work ethic, honesty and most of all how to treat people with respect and demand that same respect in return. The quote that changed a lot for me was from a very successful producer – songwriter. After asking him about finding good people in the music business he turned to me and said ” Nice people, find other nice people and work together” After that I got rid of the people who were wasting my time.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.five19musicgroup.com
Image Credits
All credits and permissions are owned by Nick Martinez
