Meet Jason Aeschliman

We were lucky to catch up with Jason Aeschliman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, so glad you were able to set aside some time for us today. We’ve always admired not just your journey and success, but also the seemingly high levels of self-discipline that you seem to have mastered and so maybe we can start by chatting about how you developed it or where it comes from?

My self-discipline is rooted in a strong desire to achieve my creative goals. I tend to approach things analytically, often visualizing the specific steps needed to move from where I am to where I want to be. From there, I actively seek out the resources and opportunities to make it happen. What keeps me motivated is the understanding that no one else is going to make my dreams a reality. It’s entirely up to me to stay driven and plan for how I get to my goals.

I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family, always pushing my problem solving skills and fostering a drive for being self employed. I started my music production business in high school, and when that started to generate revenue I started to realize I could be a sustainable career. That’s when I dove 100% in and started learning as much as I could about the industry and building relationships with fellow creatives. The “self-discipline” aspect came out of a necessity to survive and have a livable/sustainable income.

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?

I’ve been in the music industry professionally ever since high school, touring the country with bands and producing music for friends. I decided not to go to collage and choose to continue to build my music production studio and see if I could make a go of it. I am constantly learning new things and building my skills and this has given me so many opportunities to work on projects I could’ve only dreamed of a few years ago. Whether that’s writing music for TV shows, doing cinematography for music videos, designing and installing LED walls, or touring the world as a Lighting Director programming lights for bands and festivals, my “career” has been a blast. The freedom of being self employed and taking whatever projects come up is so much fun, wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I just moved to Nashville, TN this year, making it easier to write and collaborate on music projects with artists, as well as be closer to tour prep and connection opportunities. Very excited about the future here in nashville!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

A quality I think was most important to my success has been the determination to overcome “roadblocks” and challenges. For example, I wanted to put a cello on a song early on in my career and couldn’t afford a cello player – so I found a used cello online and learned to play it for this one song. Or a band I was playing guitar for needed lighting for a tour, and I knew nothing about lighting at the time, but I took on the task of learning DMX and programming, and now I’m an internationally touring LD.

Advice I’d give to anyone getting started in the music/creative industry is to diversify your skillset. Kind of what I mentioned before, I think it’s very valuable to learn as many different parts of the industry as you can. For example, don’t just learn to play guitar, but learn how to record guitar as well. Or don’t just become a music producer, but become a great musician. Once you get a handle on a new skill move on and keep adding to your “skill toolkit”. Mastering as many industry skills as you can gives you more income opportunities making you more “valuable” to someone who’s hiring or looking for help on a project.

In my opinion, if your goal in the industry is to provide as much value as possible to the people around you, it’ll be hard to not be successful.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I think the answer is a bit nuanced. Self-awareness of your abilities is crucial before deciding to go “all in” on one thing. For example, I see a lot of people who want to be professional guitarists, playing huge tours or recording on big records and they go all in, leaving every other skill behind. But often, they don’t actually have the skills required for a gig like that. They may have an inflated view of their abilities, which leads to disappointment and a lack of results in the long run.

If they had honestly assessed their strengths, they might have realized that pursuing a guitar tech position, for instance, would be more attainable in the short term. That path could still get them on tour and in the studio, and potentially lead to other opportunities. I think sometimes what we believe are our greatest strengths are actually just our dreams, not our real strengths.

In my case, I originally thought my strength was being a musician. I play guitar, keys, drums, basically anything I can get my hands on. But as time went on and I explored more areas of the industry, I realized my strengths in producing and tech far outweighed my musicianship. If I had only pursued being a musician, I might not have been able to make a living creating art.

So yes, go all in on your strengths and your dreams, but also be realistic about where you are right now. That kind of clarity can open up paths you didn’t even know existed.

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Portraits of Resilience

Sometimes just seeing resilience can change out mindset and unlock our own resilience. That’s our

Productivity
Perspectives on Staying Creative

We’re beyond fortunate to have built a community of some of the most creative artists,

Confidence
Kicking Imposter Syndrome to the Curb

This is the year to kick the pesky imposter syndrome to the curb and move