Mule

I never wanted to be a business person.  It still makes me feel awkward just to write it.  I just wanted to make things and support myself doing it.  I had attached (have attached) a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be a businessman to that word, even though I am that word.  It still affects how I act even though I disprove those deep seated assumptions daily.  Interesting right? Its based on assumptions I made about something I hadn't earned an opinion on. (More on that later.)  "I would never" "They are like.." "It must be so..."  Where did all that come from? The most important lesson I've learned in this resonator guitar thing is being more sensitive to when I'm acting -or not acting-based on something that just popped into my brain without basis. Without merit- you know merit, the thing you earn.   This happens all the time, right? We lie to ourselves constantly. When we think something, immediately justify it as being validated by our own experience and then spout off as it being the way things are, that's assuming. "It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what you do." What have you DONE to prove your assumption?  If you think something would save/destroy your playing, your family, your nation what actions have you done to prove what your saying to be true?  If your actions have not been on the scale being discussed has it been earned? "They won't hire me because I don't have enough experience." "The amount on your bill is correct because we calculated it that way. Have a nice day. " And the worst offender of all, that hamstringer of dreams and funeral pyre of ambition: "That won't work because..."  "You know you should..." Vocalize an ambitious idea within earshot of people and see how quickly you get every possible notion of how it might, possibly, probably, fail. I started off with that original piece of steel with nothing but desperation and assumptions.  The first forced me to become aware of the second.  Why was this so hard? Why is it not working? Why is it working now? Use this as a starting point to more personal thought: What assumptions do you make about instruments and how they are - "should be" made? What about your own playing? Note: Find the things you believe in first, the things you always do. Some, all if you're bold, are assumptions.