Meet Mike Rellick

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mike Rellick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Mike, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

I found that in my life there’s been a consistent pattern of moments of overwhelming need to accept the call to adventure and take the risk. Back in my junior year of high school, I was taking part in a computer science program that had me spending every single day for half of the day at another school learning IT servicing, coding, and cyber security. While I always had a passion for music and performance I thought it to be unrealistic to try and become a creative so this computer science track would be perfect to get into university and get to pick the corporate ladder that I can climb. Throughout this year I grew increasingly miserable and dreaded every day being surrounded by my peers who were extremely passionate about the work we were doing in the program and had to keep asking myself is this it? One day, while sitting at my desk, half asleep, we were notified that a shooting had occurred a couple of streets down and the gunman had entered the school we were in. Fortunately, no one in the school was harmed but for a moment being faced with my own mortality at 16 made me realize that I no longer could accept not taking the risks that come with the pursuit of self-actualization. Later that day once I returned to my high school I learned another very important part of this pursuit which is to never fear asking for help when i turned to the choir teacher to help me figure out how to really study music. Since that day I had taken private lessons, joined every performance group possible, was accepted to 8 out 8 of the universities I auditioned at, performed at national conferences, toured Italy performing at places like the Pantheon, St. Francis of Assisi, and the Pope’s Mass in St. Petersburg, founded a student record label, acted in a film version of Philip Glass’s Hydrogen Jukebox which won the American Prize and received 1st honours at the National Opera Association, and then graduated university with a degree in Vocal Performance and another in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship. Following university I immediately jumped into a job as a festival production manager and worked many fantastic events such as High Water Music Festival, Rail Bird, and Bonnaroo to name a few. While this job might have been more in my field than computer science was, I began feeling that same miserable feeling that comes with rejecting the call, because through all of this what I truly wanted was to tell my own story through the creation of music and if I didn’t give this my 100% at least once in my life I would spend the rest of my life wishing I had, so, I left the job and began writing music, forming a band, and managing a brand. How did I develop the ability to take risks? I can’t afford not to.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am the leader of the band Rellick, and we’re currently on our 4th single released, with an album on the way. We are a Cinematic Rock band which means we use rock, indie, blues, and alt styles to create vivid stories about the human experience. We play locally all around Cleveland-based venues and have an ever-growing schedule that you can find on our website Rellick.net and at all our social media platforms @rellicktheband

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

As I find throughout all professions and general areas in life the most important part is being a genuinely kind person and connecting with those around you. Humans didn’t succeed because of individuals, it was because we pursued common goals together.

To grow on this idea of connectivity is to recognize the part that you play in the greater scene of life and how important it is to encourage the mutual growth of your peers. The garden is only beautiful when the flowers bloom together.

The final thing I would want to say is that sometimes your gut feeling is wrong but you’ll never feel like you did the wrong thing when you follow it. The best thing you can do for yourself is take chances, make the mistakes, and never letting indifference take you down, but you never know, I might be wrong about all of this; who’s to say?

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

The challenge I’m currently facing is sustaining consistent growth among all of our mediums (performances, recordings, marketing, etc.) and avoiding being burnt out by this pursuit.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

@Clevelandfoto
Andrea Johnston
AJ Designs

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