It may not seem it from those who have met me, but I'm an *extreme* introvert. If I didn't have to leave my house ever again, I wouldn't. So, over my 13+ years in games, I've had to find ways to make networking work for me. Essentially, I have to either enjoy it, or find some way to be forced into it. For me, what's worked has been: 1. Hosting a podcast - I get to stay at home and meet tons of interesting new people from all over the world. 2. Helping run the Seattle Game Aud

Some of the best advice I ever got from Ramit Sethi was "Do things that don't scale." When running a business, all of the common advice focuses on scaling. Can the work be done faster/cheaper/with fewer people? But, when we overfocus on scaling, we lose our humanity. We see the results of this daily with the enshittification of products, customer service, and the internet as a whole. When we do things that *don't* scale, we actually take the time. We respond to our students t

There's an intermediate stage where, as freelancers, we start to think of all of the extra stuff we could/should be doing. Should we start a new part of our business? Should we build a new product? Should we do more more more? Sometimes, the answer is yes. But, I've noticed that we think of "doing more" as a way to avoid doing things *differently*. We get into a state where we're doing a lot of hard work, but ultimately, have very little productivity. Sometimes, "more" isn't

Allow yourself to make garbage. It's the easiest way to practice your craft. Whether it be a redesign, a preset, some layering work, a new piece of music, or literally anything else, just allow it to be terrible. *Try* to make it terrible. No one needs to know about your trash experiments. They never need to be shared. But, if you stick to it, you'll wow people with your skill, and they'll assume you've never made anything bad in your life.

We've all been there: you have a meeting at 4:00PM and it's currently 7AM. Of course that means it's time to just sit there and stew for 9 hours until the meeting actually happens. This is doubly-true for my fellow ADHD-havers. But, I've started to do the following to help mitigate that Meeting Miasma™: 1. In the morning, I acknowledge that the day is going to have interruptions, and that that's fine. I'll schedule less on my plate as a result. 2. I still allow myself to sit

A common question that every creative asks is "can I work for free?" Of course, there are a thousand nuanced answers to this, but my simplified take is: "you can work for free, but don't work for nothing." Ideally, yes, you get paid. Even if you're at the early stages of your career, it's good to at least try and get some sort of monetary compensation. But, barring that, ask for *something* in return. Connections in the industry, tickets to conferences, profit shares, and ski

Unfortunately, internships and beginner-friendly entry level jobs in game audio are few and far between. So, it’s more important than ever before to generate our own experience. Whether it be through game jams, student work, or mini-projects that satiate your curiosity, all of those little bits of experience go a long way. The output doesn’t always need to be amazing, but the sheer fact that you’re doing something, *anything*, of your own accord is immediately impressive.

As we become more advanced in our skillset, we can also become more frustrated. The smallest things start to become tougher as we refine, hone in, and improve in the tiniest ways. And often, our attempts feel like they yield no results whatsoever. It feels like the total opposite of when we were a total beginner, where massive improvements were much easier to make. But that frustration is often a sign of learning and progress. Yes, a good teacher, system, or tutorial can get

Many moons ago after one of my classes at Berklee, I remember overhearing the always-wonderful Michael Sweet say something to another professor: "Anyone can be taught to be a good composer." Even though I was but a humble eavesdropper in that moment, that statement has stuck with me ever since, and I feel you can fill in the word "composer" with almost anything. While it often feels that meany of the skills we need to learn to become full-time creatives are mysterious and imp

Many of my online and 1-on-1 students have been asking: "What about AI? It can make music and sound, so there's no reason they would hire a person instead." I get where this worry is coming from: We're hearing constant fear-mongering about how the AI revolution is here, and how we just need to roll over and realize that our work is just going to be replaced. But, there is a skill that my fellow audio folks and freelancers can focus on that is irreplaceable, rare, and will be

I’m in the midst of running my cohort-based course for boosting the careers of those in game audio, and this week, we started to work on our positioning. We’re really starting to think more deeply on the sorts of problems that we audio folks are truly solving. Ultimately, we’re wondering: What are we helping with that goes beyond just “making good sound/music?” All too often, we think just because a developer or director says they need audio, that that’s the only issue we’re

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