We were lucky to catch up with Adam Mason recently and have shared our conversation below.
Adam, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I think confidence starts with naivety and imagination when you’re young. It begins in youth with the belief that you are special, or that you have a greater purpose, or that you’re just invincible. The world is full of wonder and opportunity. As you grow older and mature you realize that’s not necessarily the case, but then you replace an overly active imagination with gritty mission accomplishment. I feel that as an adult, setting short and long-term goals and then accomplishing those goals is what generates confidence. It’s the knowledge that you can do anything because you know you can! You have tried, and even after potential failures, you have found the way to complete the task and achieve the goal. You eventually take the phrase “I can’t” out of your vocabulary and instead simply find the way to make it happen. There’s always a way, always a creative solution to be found. For me, I first learned this valuable lesson in the military. I also find that life is full of fears and instead of avoiding those fears, you must find a way to face them directly – headfirst. Challenging yourself by placing yourself in uncomfortable situations and coming out on top on the other side will certainly instill a sense of confidence. You have to go out and suck at life to learn and grow and eventually get good at things, and the more you do that, the more you create a pattern of thought where anything is possible and you know you can believe in yourself.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a musician (bassist), business owner, and music producer. My brand 45 Riots, based in NYC, curates top-tier live-music ensembles from our boutique collective of talent for high-end private and corporate events around the globe, as well as performing in concert or backing known artists onstage, while our in-house record label produces and releases creative and original works spanning myriad musical genres. We have hours of music media on our website (www.45riots.com) under “Riots TV,” and you can find 45 Riots on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Instagram.
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?
Ingenuity, resilience, and adaptability – three traits that really can go hand-in-hand together. Problem solving and finding a solution in the face of an obstacle, the ability to stay the course even though you are completely overwhelmed and take things one step at a time with great organizational skills, and being able to deal with constant changes and setbacks without losing patience or throwing in the towel and instead just side-stepping and then finding a way forward – these things are all intertwined and of the same singular mindset. A military mantra comes to mind: “Soldier first, mission always.”
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
One great obstacle, as the owner of a live-music entertainment company serving about 150 private event clients a year, is dealing with the freelance industry and mindset while running a business. Our clients get fixated on what is in front of them with individual talent and fail to realize that the brand and the vision is unmoving and coming just from one person, and the strength of the performance is in the ensemble as a unit, not this one person or that one person. That means that even if personnel come and go over the years in the freelance industry, the product stays exactly the same, or grows, but does not diminish. I was mentally prepared for this when I began, having already been a freelance musician for years prior to creating 45 Riots. I know musicians will go on tour or move from one gig to another as it might suit them, and that is industry-wide. To plan for this, I simply evolved my band into a large family of players which is ever-expanding, and we work so frequently and have so much history together even outside of our events, that we can easily move players around if availability changes without affecting our quality. Everyone is easily changeable, equally talented, and we are constantly nurturing fresh talent within the scope of the brand that we built. The constant is me. I have a singular vision for our identity and business protocols, and from the top down with a chain of command model, I manage every minute detail of music, logistics, event production, clients, and personnel. There is a glue to the brand identity and product, being the musical performance, no matter if players shift around here and there as they navigate their own personal commitments and career journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.45riots.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/45riots/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-mason-64143593/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3FCZBH5irzNg8SQ29utlEw/videos
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5cYyRSD0PnQjQLeTTACdVx
Image Credits
Sean T. Smith
