We recently connected with Erica Holloway and have shared our conversation below.
Erica, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My work ethic took time to develop. It is most definitely something that didn’t come naturally to me and was something I had to learn. As a musician, playing an instrument takes precision and attention to detail. I had to learn how to practice and be patient with myself in the learning process. When I was in middle school, I heard a recording of cellist Jacqueline DuPre performing the Elgar Cello Concerto. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a professional cellist and wanted to do whatever it took to learn cello. It was very eye opening to realize how much work it takes to progress on the instrument. I took private lessons and participated in every performance opportunity I could to gain experience. In high school, most days I practiced anywhere from 1-5 hours a day. In college, I could easily practice anywhere from 3-6 hours a day. That’s what it takes to make steady progress when learning an instrument. There were plenty of days I didn’t feel like practicing. I think for me, a lot of it is a mental game of powering through the “I don’t feel like it” days. I usually tell myself “just 10 minutes of practice” and once I get my instrument out I usually wind up doing more.
Fast forward to how this has translated over to other areas of my life. As you can probably imagine, after spending a decade of practicing so diligently, burnout hit me….HARD! I had a total career swap and became an insurance adjuster. I was very successful in this role and quickly moved up in the company. I attribute my success in the role to all my years of learning hard work and attention to tiny details on my instrument. I saw many of my co-workers struggling with task paralysis and being stuck in their same role for years at the company without promotions. They have the desire to get promoted but not the work ethic. Again, this circles back to the mental game. I always start small. I start with just responding to one email or 10 minutes of very productive work. My feelings regarding the task don’t matter. The task needs to get done and I set any feelings aside. I also have learned that if I get plagued with the “I don’t feel like it’s” then my tasks get piled up and it just feels too large to handle. I function better if I work on tasks daily and little by little. This is anything from work related tasks to household responsibilities.
I also attribute much of my success to lessons my parents taught me. They taught me if you are at work and have nothing to do, find something to do. There is always a task that needs to be done and do not be idle. If you want something done, don’t wait on other people. If you are waiting on a call-back, follow-up, etc be annoying and don’t wait. You follow-up with them as many times as it takes. You will receive a response.
I worked as an adjuster for 6 years but at the core, I am a musician. My music career was really starting to blossom and I was regaining my passion back for music. I made the career swap back to music and started a wedding business called Elite Strings. We offer string duo, trio and quartets for weddings and other events and perform around 100 events per year. When I started this business, I didn’t have the budget to hire a team of professionals to start it for me. I had to learn every aspect of starting a business from website design and SEO, graphic design, taxes, contracting, etc. So many hours have been put in to learning new skills and my consistent daily efforts have paid off. The daily effort and progress feels slow but if i’m looking at how I started and where I am now, the difference is huge.
While it may sound like I work all the time, I don’t! Part of working is also protecting my free time which can be so hard as a self-employed person. I have scheduled days off, work hours I have set for myself and time for self-care. It has helped me to develop a daily routine (which is hard as a musician because our schedule can be insane).
For anyone reading this, I hope your takeaway is that you are capable and able to accomplish your goals. It takes daily effort, persistence and commitment to achieve success. If I can do it, you can definitely do it! Just know with any success also comes failure. Use the failures as opportunities to learn and grow and do not let the failure define you.
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 business partner Tiffany and I decided to start Elite Strings because we saw a demand for amplified string instruments in Atlanta that was not be met and wanted to be the first! We offer string duo, trio and quartet options for weddings and other events. We have very high standards for our group ranging attire to a clean set-up for a polished look. In addition, I personally arrange a lot of our pop covers we perform and my arrangements are sold worldwide.
Our big standout is of course…our amplification packages! We own high quality gear that can elevate our performance from light background music to a feature at events.
In addition to Elite Strings, I have some new cool projects in the works! I will be launching a new project called Electrika that is a string quartet played on all electric instruments. My goal is to launch the group by the summer.
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?
Looking back, I think the most impactful skills have been my work ethic, willingness to fail (and learn from it) and my knowledge on my instrument. These 3 pillars have set me up for success in my field. My advice to anyone getting started is daily commitment and allow yourself plenty of grace when you make a mistake. Mistakes are teachable moments you can learn from and be even better at. For any goal, whether it’s starting a business, starting a health journey, etc…as long as you commitment time each day and learn from mistakes, you will have success. I know there are days it feels impossible (and some days it is impossible) but it’s the persistence of each day showing up and working towards a goal. I always think about a quote from Jake the Dog from the show Adventure Time that is so spot on:
“Dude, suckin’ at somethin’ is just the first step towards bein’ sorta good at somethin”
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
The biggest obstacle is work/life balance! I have an 18 month old daughter and the challenge of running a business, being a cellist, a mom, having a somewhat clean house, food in the fridge and somehow finding time for myself, my friends and being a good wife. How i’m working to manage this is working on multi-tasking skillset. I have always been the type of person that works better when I can fully immerse myself it in one task until it’s completed. I definitely can’t do this while also being a mom and am forced to multitask. I’m finally getting much better at it! The other thing that has helped me is I really have to protect my free time and my time I spend with my husband and daughter. I am way more selective with what I say yes to now.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://EliteStrings.com
- Instagram: @EliteStringsAtlanta
- Youtube: @EricaRansbottom
Image Credits
Brenda Upton
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
