Meet Kane Crooks

We recently connected with Kane Crooks and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kane, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

This one has been a real ongoing struggle for me. I have found that it is a sort of phoenix-like foe which as much as you can cut it down, in the right conditions both internal and external, it will quickly rise again. To me there is a difference between confidence and self-esteem in both quality and practice.
Self esteem feels more internal and subconscious, making it a lot harder to notice specific issues in, in turn being harder to remedy problems within it. Confidence on the other hand feels primarily an external force to me, easily affected both positively and negatively by the environment and conscious mind, though still impacted by your self esteem.

Even separating the two has been a beneficial start point for me, allowing me to narrow down the symptoms of each and figure out solutions respectively. The most significant development in confidence for me came from a ‘fake it ’till you make it’ approach to both my work and everyday life. Of course the creative process and its product cannot be faked but I have found my ability to both perform and network confidently has massively improved through this. I believe that every time I fake it, and it works or at least doesn’t fail, I am able to hold onto that as proof that being confident can work out. Stemming from this, an approach to self-esteem that has worked has built on this a lot by allowing my own self to shine through on occasions where I have been ‘faking it’. This has had a similar, though more person centred, result in allowing me to prove that my true self can be confident and socially/professionally successful too.

Saying all that, developing confidence and self-esteem, especially when you similarly struggle with it quite a lot is difficult, but the first steps are always to observe, not hiding from but actively looking for the things you struggle with within yourself without pressure to be something you are not.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My brand (which is still something I am getting used to saying and building) is primarily that of a singer/songwriter.

I have always been into creativity of all kinds, but particularly music having been brought up by music-loving parents and being bought my first guitar for my 5th birthday. This progressed to writing my own songs on a guitar I inherited from my mother at age 15 which not only fed my love of creativity more, but gave me an outlet for the many things I was struggling with in my teenage years.

With all of this I could say that my music and lyric writing is authentic (which it is) and that’s what makes my brand special, but that for me feels vague and fairly overused. I also don’t like to insinuate that most creatives aren’t as genuine/authentic as I am because that’s just silly. Instead if I had to sell myself as a brand I would say that though I write my songs initially for me, and whatever I am dealing with or thinking about, I always try to make it at least ambiguous and emotionally abstract enough, that it might resonate with other people’s unique lives, problems and thoughts.

Of course this isn’t to say it is for everyone, nothing is. My hope in making and performing my music is just that it will be able to help, resonate with and inspire others in some way… though it is difficult to come up with something that doesn’t sound totally contrived, that is an art in itself.

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

While of course I think the authentic creativity that shines through in art is a great quality, I think this is a hard one to learn, more just practice, and will rarely get you very far on its own (within a given artistic industry at least). Moreso I believe the first most important quality that a creative person can have is just to be nice. This seems like an obvious thing, but, for example, listening to others, appreciating and giving real feedback on their work and being there to help out when needed allows you to quickly become a welcomed and appreciated part of any artistic community. You can still hold on to an amount of edge or stylish pretentiousness while doing this, if being an everyman is just not who you are, but just being someone people like to be around will push you much further than being an egotist, misery, outcast or narcissist.

Secondly I would say professionalism, as in politeness, reasonable timekeeping and being well rehearsed/practiced will for obvious reasons make you a more desirable creative for both events and collaboration with others. That one shouldn’t take too much explanation, it’s much easier to work with someone who takes their craft seriously than someone who doesn’t.

Finally, with regards to the creative journey, it’s learning that it’s not so bad to be stuck. This one is obviously hard, but realising the opportunity that being stuck on a project provides can really help you both not fall too deeply into creative despair, but also to get unstuck much faster. No-one who doesn’t give up is ever stuck eternally. It offers the opportunity to go in a new direction with total spontaneity, for example if I were stuck wanting to write a song, and couldn’t get any further I could simply turn my mind around and run blind into some passing idea. In essence being stuck is having your mind forcefully cleared, if you go with it and accept the clear mindedness of this you will inevitably create something, even if it isn’t that good, you are creating again.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

Most of the time, when I am feeling overwhelmed, I spiral, dwell, stress and bang my head against the brick wall that is overwhelming me until I become tired and eventually it goes away. This is because, despite knowing and sometimes successfully practicing working strategies, I am not the best at remembering to do so.

What I should do when I become overwhelmed and what I have found massively effective for me, was taught to me first by a woman at a lake near where I live (who was so insightful I am sure she was a ghost).
Just feel it.

First notice that you are overwhelmed by staying fairly well in touch with your body and mind, this is where I normally fall down. Then just stop as quickly as you can, sit back away from it and allow yourself to just feel the way you are feeling. fighting things like this tends to make them worse so doing this, and just giving yourself that time and space to feel is essentially a meditation. I always find that the feeling quickly quietens down when I have done this and I am often in a clearer state of mind afterwards than before I even became overwhelmed.

Still, it is difficult just to notice sometimes, and to force yourself to feel something unpleasant is tough, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

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Image Credits

Madeline Corps
Barry Crooks
Jack walker

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