Meet Zac Colwell

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zac Colwell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zac below.

Hi Zac, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
My optimism comes from my life experience. I was rejected from Southwest Texas music school, so I joined a circus band to gain some life experience and played in jam sessions all around the country. I moved from Austin TX to NYC and started all over with making friends and meeting new collaborators, which was painful at first, but led to a new career and musical adventure. After touring with my bands for 15 years I decided to settle down and focus on music for media. It was painful to let go of my dream of being a rock star! However, I learned to really collaborate this way and this skill allowed me to work with choreographers and film directors in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do before that. So my optimism comes from reinventing myself over and over and proving that there are many more acts to life, if one can just stay inspired!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am a musician, first and foremost. I compose music for myself, other artists, commercials, short films, ballets, and really anyone who reaches out. Now is a great era for collaboration and innovation. I think the “general public’s” ears are very highly educated and refined, moreso than any other time. This could be due to the rise of youtube, spotify, and the effects of hip hop on our culture, where people explore the original recordings of the songs used as sample in the production of hip hop. People have access to so much music from the past and from around the world. This means that new music can take more risks and be more nuanced and receive a better response than in the past. This is easy to hear in today’s music that gains popularity. Today’s music doesn’t need to flatten itself in order to appeal to a larger audience. I like making music especially that doesn’t feel attached to a specific time and place. Music that feels like it could only have been made today but could also feel at home in a playlist of songs from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, or 2000’s.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The skill that has been most impactful on my journey is probably my open personality. Being open and not overly rigid. I respect young people who have a strong vision for what they want to do. Of course we must assert ourselves when we feel strongly about something, but treating other peoples opinions as valid is a good asset. As I’ve gotten older I am very thankful that my youthful vision was NOT realized because I wouldn’t want to be stuck with that now. I’m free now to have a flexible identity and artistic voice. Also, “it’s who you know” is very true but misleading, in my opinion. Everything in my life that I’m grateful for has come from the help of friends who trust me. Every opportunity and collaboration is one where I’ve left space for others’ opinions and creativity. Collaborations are the key to a happy creative life, in my experience. Avoiding procrastination is kind of a platitude, but if you apply it and get started right away, you can do things that might even impress yourself! I taught children once in a rock n roll music camp and I noticed that if I gave a beginner very small, bite-size tasks – just one chord, for example – the next day they would have that chord perfect, and I could add the next chord. But if I showed them 3 chords all at once, then they would be overwhelmed. So, getting started right away, but not overloading is a great skill I learned. Sleeping during development is important. I believe our minds solve the problems that we give ourselves while we sleep.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
A book that played an important role in my development was probably “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” by Carl Jung. It’s pretty dense, but it makes us realize that our minds are not only as vast as the cosmos, but that everyone is connected by the greatness of our vast imaginations. It helps musicians and creative people understand where ideas might come from, why they might not be coming, how we self-sabotage, and also embrace others’ work, since we’re all working on a huge cathedral of creativity in our work that is a shared project. The eternal themes are relatable to everyone because of this shared network that we operate on.

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Image Credits
Maurisa Arieta

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