We were lucky to catch up with Barbara Brighton recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Barbara, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I have lived a long life and have had many experiences. Some pretty great and some terrible, but I have learned something through all of them. The important thing is to not abandon myself. I have learned that the storm will end and that I will come out of it, maybe a bit ragged but I’ll still be there. If there’s something that’s really important to me, I stick with it no matter what. Certainly there are times when I’m scared or lose confidence or feel that I want to give up, but I have learned through my life experience that things may not turn out the way I thought they would but they will turn out someway. If I just hang in there and hang onto myself and do what I believe is right and be a good person and not abandon in my beliefs in terms of what is right and wrong, it’s going to be OK. There have been many times in my life that I have been scared to make the move I know I need to make to better my life, or bring my dreams into reality. It’s ok to be scared. Do it anyway!
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I was a single mom at 24. My four-year-old daughter and I were on our own and things were very difficult. I did not have much of a support system, and was poor and desperate. I decided that I needed to go back to school so that I could have a career and could always take care of my daughter. I fell in love with psychology and pursued a career as a psychotherapist. It was a pretty difficult road but I was very determined to be successful especially because there were people around me who didn’t think I would make it! I don’t recommend that as a motivator but I guess it worked pretty well for me! I was determined to prove them wrong. I started my practice and became quite successful as a psychotherapist. I was a consultant for a comprehensive breast center for 19 years where I worked with breast cancer patients and their families. That was incredibly rewarding and it strongly affected my life perspective. When the Breast Center closed, I continued to work but cut back my hours slightly. I started playing the piano when I was four years old. My father had been a big band leader as a young man in the Catskills and turned me on to a lot of music. That was a huge part of my life growing up. I loved jazz but really became obsessed with it when I was about 16. Throughout my career as a psychotherapist I always found time to go to clubs and meet musicians and listen to music and that was a very important part of my life. It’s a long story but suffice it to say a woman that I knew who was the director of a jazz label encouraged me to start a music business. Sadly, she died of breast cancer and I decided that I would start a jazz business in her honor. That was about 25 years ago. I did The Young Artist Jazz Series at Catalina’s Jazz Club in Hollywood for about 21 years. I had the opportunity to get to know some remarkable musicians, young and seasoned. I met numerous people in the business and found myself in a new career. Mark Winkler, a jazz singer and songwriter asked me to produce his album. That was the beginning of an amazing adventure for me. I’ve now produced over 22 albums and I still continue my psychotherapy practice two days a week. This year I produced four CDs. Mark Winkler (My 9th with him), Lauren White with Musical Director Quinn Johnson, Julie Kelly with Josh Nelson, and Robin Spangler with Musical Director John Beasley. These 4 projects will be released in the first quarter of 2024. This is such an exciting time of my life and I really feel like I am living a dream that started in childhood.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The 3 qualities that enabled me to get to where I am today, are
1) Determination. Never giving up no matter how difficult the obstacles appear
2) A willingness to listen to people who know more than I do. Be humble.
3) Do the work. Show up. Do whatever is necessary to make it work.
My advice to my granddaughters :
There’s a line between being reckless and courageous. Know where that line is.
Show up, do the work, be willing to get your hands dirty.
Show respect to those who know more than you.
Learn from everyone.
Don’t be petty.
Be kind and respectful. That will come back to you.
Don’t be scared to share your ideas.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
So many people have helped me along the way. I have a list! In my psychotherapy career, Robert Hoffman, MD has been someone who has had a dramatic role in the direction of my life. I was a volunteer at the VA while I was in the first year of my return to college. Someone told me that the new chief of staff of one of the units was looking for an assistant and that it was a work study job and I could get paid. Plus, I would have a great opportunity to work with this psychiatrist. I interviewed and Dr. Hoffman hired me. In that time he gave me opportunities to study with the best doctors and go to seminars that would ordinarily not be available to undergraduates like me. We became very close friends and when I graduated with my master’s degree, he and I started our first practice together. He brought me to The Breast Center and has been like a brother to me and a mentor for over 45 years now. As for my music career, I met Bill Traut at the very beginning of my intention to start a music business. I had no idea what I would be doing! Bill and I had a nice connection from the start. We were at a music convention and he told me that he had a client, Kurt Elling, who was up for a Grammy and he would like to bring him to Los Angeles but didn’t know exactly the best way to do that to introduce him to the Los Angeles music population. I suggested that he book Kurt in a different venue every night for a month in Los Angeles and that it would have a great momentum and would be a way for people to get to hear Kurt in all these different venues. Bill loved the idea. He took me to Blue Note records and proposed my idea and they hired me to take on this job. I booked Kurt in 28 venues in 30 nights and it was extremely successful. From that point on, Bill was always such a great supporter, always introducing me to people and talking about the Kurt Elling event. He was brutally honest about things and taught me invaluable lessons about the business and the music. He was always available to answer questions and teach me. Bill passed away almost 10 years ago, but he is still with me. Often I wonder, what would Bill say?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bjbjazz.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553595424223
