Meet Jake Faun

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jake Faun a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jake, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

By accident! I’d almost say I didn’t find it, it found me but that would be too cliché. Either way, I started playing guitar when I was about 11 years old and immediately fell in love with it.

I never had a plan or thought this would be what I’d actually do for a living, I just enjoyed spending all my free time playing, learning and never gave up. When I first started playing, anything that was difficult or complicated just meant I had more to learn. That was part of the excitement and intrigue of the instrument.

I assumed it was like this for everyone, but it wasn’t until a few years later I realised that not everyone took to playing guitar in the way I had. I’d hear people tell me how difficult it is, or they would only practice once a week, or just never enjoyed it. I couldn’t understand, as to me playing guitar was the coolest thing.

After a few years of playing, the passion really started to become ingrained and playing guitar became not just something I like to do every now and then, but part of my identity. I suppose when one reaches this phase you could call it your purpose.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a guitarist, my goal is to make the people I play with sound better, be it live or in the studio. I also teach, write music, create content, among many other fun things we have to do to stay relevant in this day and age!

The most exciting part of my job is that I rarely think of it as a job, I get to play guitar, travel the world, meet many interesting people and am fortunate enough to (just about) make a living doing so.

Currently one of my main bands is the Legends of Classic Rock. You can catch us on the Icon of the Seas, one of Royal Caribbeans cruise ships just about every month, if you happen to be on one, keep an eye out for us!

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?

1. Take calculated risks – No risk no reward! Many of the best things in life come from doing something uncomfortable or scary at first. Sometimes you have to throw yourself into things you don’t want to do to get to a goal you want. Then you look back and think what was all the fuss about? That being said, it’s not fun being in a situation where you genuinely overextend yourself, lose control and mess up badly. Take risks but be smart about how far beyond your comfort zone you’re willing to go.

2. Don’t be a difficult person to be around – This one is key for everything in life. It’s not always the most highly skilled person who gets the job, rather the person who can do the job required but is also fun people to be around. Obviously this is a simplification, however it is generally a good rule to live by. Do what you can to make someone else’s day better and much of the time that means being easy to get on with.
The older you get, the more you value peace. Highly emotional people can be tiresome to be with. Diplomacy is key, you don’t have to win every argument. Recognize people have different personalities and what works for one person doesn’t always work for another. The most important people in your life will notice this.

3. Never stop learning – Be a student for life! You hear stories of elderly people in the final years picking up new hobbies because, why not? No matter how good at something you are, there’s still more to discover and that’s one of the exciting parts of getting really good at a skill.
Most of us have heard of the Dunning Kruger effect, this is a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a specific area overestimate their competence, while experts often underestimate theirs, because the less skilled lack the self-awareness to recognize their own shortcomings, and experts understand the vastness of what they don’t know. I took that straight from Google as it was able to summarize what I spent about 10 minutes faffing around trying to word.
We see this all the time today, it’s very noticeable when observing others, but can be difficult to detect in ourselves. This is why it is always important to remember there is always more to learn and a little humility goes a long way!

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Competing against AI – Well maybe this isn’t the number one challenge in my life at all times, but it’s definitely something for all of us alive today to be seriously thinking about. In the not too distant future artificial intelligence will be able to do your job better than you. We all need to be prepared for this and be thinking about how we can stay relevant when we are no longer needed.
That sounds doom and gloom, I know, and it’s not something to be all ‘end of the world’ about, but rather to learn how this new technology can be a tool to help us do what we do better.
It’s scary to now have apps that can create fully produced songs in minutes and most people would never be able to tell it was AI.
This technology is causing a lot of disruption in the music industry, for understandable reasons. This is either happening to you right now, or it will be very soon. I’m trying to think about ways I can use AI can help me do what I do better, whilst still recognizing many concerns people have about it.
Judgement day could be closer than we think, where’s John Conner when you need him… I’m going to enjoy the ride in the meantime!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakefaunmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jake.faun
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jakefaun

Image Credits

Zzyzx Photo
Mattys.jpg
Powell Concert Photos
Scott Waters Photography