Cliff Beach Interview

This is the transcript of my interview with musician, author, and entrepreneur Cliff Beach.

The podcast and video versions of this interview are linked here along with the complete show notes with all the other links.

Cliff Beach:

That's why you want to have those reviews with yourself, because the more often that you do it, it's clunky in the beginning, but then you build a rhythm and then you get used to like, oh wow. Because that little small voice inside you is going to kind of guide you. It's quiet. So if you don't ask questions and take time to actually be silent and listen to that, the noise and the chaos of the world will bury that. And then you won't be able to start unless you know where you're going. You get in the car with your GPS. I need to plug in the coordinates, but I have to ask myself, where am I going? So then I know to put that in there.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leia Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians with in-depth conversations and great music that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. Cliff Beach is an award-winning singer songwriter, author of Side Hustle and Flow podcast host, record label owner, and also works full-time as VP of Digital and operations in the beauty industry. This episode focuses on his recent album and tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, "You Showed Me the Way", we also got into his funk hit "Confident". And the last part of the interview, we talked about some of his valuable advice from his book. Most of the guests I speak with work in music, but of course that always means having many skill sets and a few musicians like Cliff have a day job and also work hard on their music, which is central to their lives.

Cliff didn't write his book for musicians, but for anyone who wants inspiration and advice for making the best of their lives, and I found a lot of what he wrote about resonated with me. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms. And I've also linked the transcript to my website, LeahRoseman.com. The podcast theme music was commissioned from composer Nick Kold, and you can use the timestamps to navigate the episode. Before we jump into our conversation, I wanted to let you know that I have a new way you can support this independent podcast through a beautiful collection of merch with a very cool, unique and expressive design from artist Steffi Kelly. You'll find that link in the description of the episode. This weekly podcast is in season four, and you can sign up for my email newsletter where you can get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links.

Now to Cliff Beach. Hey, Cliff, thanks so much for joining me here today.

Cliff Beach:

Thank you so much for having me, Leah. Excited.

Leah Roseman:

So I read your book Side Hustle and Flow, and we'll be talking about it in detail, but I want to start with some music. You just released a new album and really great arrangements, big band sound, and it's a little different from the strict funk you'd recorded before. So do you want to talk about the inspiration for the album?

Cliff Beach:

Yeah, I really wanted to be able to, I've been a lover of jazz for many, many years. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, just steeped in jazz history. People like Quincy Jones went there, and so I've always had a love of jazz, but never really recorded it or played it. I just was kind of a listener for many, many years. And so I approached this album from the listening perspective. Obviously just writing, sometimes you're like, I wish I could hear something, and you can't quite find it, so you're like, well, I'm going to go create what I'm trying to hear in my head. And so it was exciting because one of my favorite jazz singers, Ella Fitzgerald, and as I would go into different kind of tribute type albums for Ella, there weren't any male Ella albums, which I call Fella Fitzgerald.

There were no "Fella Fitzgeralds" because it just doesn't happen in the space as much. It's usually the opposite way. Women will cover men's songs, songs for any reason. So yeah, I was just excited to be able to do that, but because I had done so much in the funk and soul world, I wanted to make sure that I didn't alienate all the good work that I've done in the past. So I really wanted to make an album that really sounded like me. And so I think we became a very eclectic, interesting hodgepodge or fusion of a lot of different styles, which I found very interesting. I'm sure for people who are purist, they'll be like, oh, it's very different from jazz, traditional jazz, but there's traditional jazz elements. So I think there's something for everybody on the record, and I had a lot of fun making it, which I think is the most important part.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, yeah, it's great. And I was playing a track for somebody and they said, oh, it sounds like Stevie Wonder.

Cliff Beach:

Yeah, yeah. And I always tell people are saying, it's like Stevie and Ella came together and collaborated and had a baby, and they called it this record. I was like, well, actually, in the late seventies, Ella and Stevie did record "You are the Sunshine of My Life" live. And Stevie was a huge Ella fan, and he even talked about her and Sarah Duke talking about Duke Ellington and Ella. So I think all of those relationships are in there, but now we're just bringing them more to the forefront. So yeah, if people say Stevie Wonder, I mean, that's probably the best you can be compared to. So I take that humbly for sure.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Now, the title track, You Showed Me the Way I was curiously looking up who wrote it, and I didn't realize that Ella was a co-writer of that song.

Cliff Beach:

Yeah. We featured two of her songs. You showed me The Way and A Tisket A Tasket, which became her signature tune. And the reason why I liked those songs is because You Showed Me the Way was co-written by Ella. She had just kind of as a teenager, won Apollo and started working with Chick Webb. And so it was kind of like an homage to Chick Webb for showing her the way into jazz. And then it was also actually done first before Ella by a very young Billie Holiday. So I thought that was interesting. And then actually when Tony Bennett in the nineties did his For the Ladies album and he was covering a lot of women of jazz, he did that song and added the extended verse, which you hear on my album. So all the previous versions didn't have that. It was cut. And so I thought that was very Ella, because in her songbook series, starting with Norman Grant and Verve in the fifties and sixties, she would go back and find those verses that were cut and add them in. So I thought that was a cool thing. But yeah, before I had done the album, I had never heard the song before, so it was just doing research that I was like, wow, this is interesting. I never heard her version, I never heard Billie Holidays. I actually ended up liking the Dakota Stanton version. But yeah, I think it's an interesting song. I hope that it comes back into the popular repertoire more because it It's very pretty.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Yeah, I was hoping we could include that track or part of it in this episode.

Cliff Beach:

Definitely. Yeah, any track. You're welcome

Leah Roseman:

Okay, thank you. This is, "You Showed Me the Way"; the link to the album is in the description of this podcast. (music)

So before we get into your book and some of your other projects, I think it might help the listeners to know more about you. One of the things I found interesting when I was researching you is that your church as a child, it wasn't gospel music with instruments, it was acapella.

Cliff Beach:

Yeah. My family were very, very entrenched in the church. My great-great grandfather was born in 1899. He was a bishop of this church for many years. He lived until 98. So great to have that longevity. But essentially, yes, it's like the movie Footloose where they outlawed dancing, they outlawed instruments. And so everyone in my family has really great ears, a really great rhythm, really great vocalist. I would say my extended family is probably 200 plus and 175 of them are great vocalists. I'm not even the best within my family. And the other 25 we just don't talk about, but they still get invited to Thanksgiving dinner, other, and so yeah, it was great because as a kid, as your voice is changing, I was always forced to figure out where I fit in and they'd be like, well, you're alto today. You're tenor today or you're soprano today.

And so I got very good at doing harmonies and moving my voice around, and I still do. So yeah, I think all of those building blocks, you don't realize that at the time, but they become these stepping stones that build up to larger things because I'm unable to hear, and then you just are so close to it that you just feel that's your normal. So for me, it's just like, of course we sing in harmony. Everybody does, but that's not true. So you can take it for granted sometimes. So I'm very appreciative of that. And also just the gospel idiom because there's so many kind of, it's a different type of improvisation. A lot of people learn by rote and by ear music. And so I like having a strong ear because it gives you a lot of flexibility. So even within the jazz record working on it, even though everything was written out, I still made a lot of changes by what I heard, and I felt that was very Ella to do. And so yeah, I think you a combination of all those experiences. So I think definitely I had a very unique vantage point, but I think I learned about music through osmosis by just watching my family. So well sing together, and even now there's videos of us at holidays singing and breaking into songs spontaneously. And so I think there's a part of me that I kind of champion, and carry, every time I get on stage, a little piece of them.

Leah Roseman:

So in high school you did musical theater, but when you went to Berklee, that wasn't your focus.

Cliff Beach:

We had a musical theater club, and I did a lot of musical theater at Berklee. They had a gospel choir as well, but my focus mainly was just on vocal music, piano, songwriting, and I actually have a degree in music business management. So I was trying to find the practical where art leads commerce, because I think that's just a piece of the puzzle that you don't get that you're a solopreneur and you kind of have to know business and social media and other stuff that's kind of outside of just the making of the music. I tell people all the time, I was like, the making of the music is the pregnancy, and then you have the baby and then you have to raise it. And so that's what the PR and other experiences are. So I feel well-rounded to be able to have that. But I think musical theater, a lot of jazz comes from that. So it was definitely prevalent in there. And then just the different ways you can tell a story and be on stage. I still have a love for Broadway and show tunes and musical theater, and Berklee has merged since then with the Boston Conservatory, so there's lots more musical theater over there now than there was when I was there.

Leah Roseman:

Okay, interesting. I've talked to quite a few people who've gone to Berklee, and there must be this network of alumni, and especially you're in LA,

Cliff Beach:

Huge, huge, huge LA alumni network. A lot of us are also a part of the Grammy Academy here near us as well. But the industry is really small. I mean, it's like six degrees of separation or maybe even less, maybe three. You always know someone who knows someone who's working with somebody because all the like-minded people kind of are in the same circles that go to the same clubs, they listen to the same or they absorb music and listen in a certain way. I work in radio and TV and other stuff too. And so those kind of all intersect and connect in LA. But yeah, we have a huge alumni network. We do a lot of alumni events just to continue to bring people together, and they have just so many amazing people who will come and talk to us, Grammy of more winners about their journey, which I really nerd out on and love because everyone's journey is different.

It's not a linear thing. And so we learn from everybody, but at the same way when I was working on writing my book, it's like you write your experience, but there's no way that someone could redo everything you did and have the same result. It's just kind of like this is a blueprint of a way to think and put things together, but it, it's like you kind of have a loose recipe, but you're going to be making changes to it and it's going to become your own through that process. But no, I love it. LA has such a huge Berklee alumni network, and there really is only three main hubs for music with New York, Nashville, and LA. And so that's why I chose LA. Obviously with live music, you have Austin and a few other places as well, but I still think Nashville and New York are the biggest, and that's where Berklee also has the biggest alumni outside of Boston.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, yeah. What you're speaking to really resonates with me because I put so much into this podcast to show the world that there's such a, I always say the same thing, but a depth and breadth to a life in music; it can mean so many things. And I was very interested in your story because of this idea of the side hustle and embracing that. So I want to dig into that. But before we get into that, it might be good for people to understand a little bit of your challenges. Could you want to speak to your cruise ship experience and coming off of that?

Cliff Beach:

Oh yeah. Well, the cruise ship, I worked for Holland America Line for about two years, and it was great. It was great because I got to work with my best friend who also went to Berklee, who's a singer. And so there's so few times in your life where it's like, wow, I got to travel the world with my best friend singing and performing everywhere, and I was really young in my early to mid twenties. And so I think that's the best time to kind of pack up with your bindle stick and go see the world, and you're so wide-eyed, optimistic, and I think there's a part of that that you should try to carry forward, I think, through all aspects of life because it keeps that curiosity going. But yeah, I love the experience of being on Holland America. It was a lot of cover songs, a lot of music, so I think if nothing else, it did give a lot of time to practice, a lot of time to read, and it really helped me to refine what I wanted.

So after coming off of that experience, I went back to get my MBA, and after that, I really decided to start doing music again on my own terms, because I really realized the importance of songwriting and producing and how I wanted to get my thing out there, not because of a narcissistic way, but because I feel like if you don't get it out, you'll go crazy. To a certain extent, I think you also that kind of catharsis to get it out, but you already know what exists in the world and that was someone else's idea. And so if you have your own ideas, why not get them out there? And so that's kind of what kind of put me on that journey. So I think if I hadn't had done it in that way, I know a lot of people who have done cover bands and background gigs and stuff like that, and I think there's room for all of that in music.

And even now I'm starting to do some covers again. But it really gave me an appreciation to take the time to really figure out my own thing. I think there is, within music, I know for sure there's a sliding scale or a tipping point where if you only do covers for a long period of time, then the money is so good, you could kind of pigeonholed in that. Then it's hard to kind start original. So you kind of have to decide at some point if you want to do the original route. It is harder in a lot of ways, but rewarding in a lot of ways. And there's no right or wrong way, but by doing the cruise ship gigs, it really helped me to realize that I did want to do the original route and then I went full force into that after that experience, which if I hadn't had that experience, it could have been different. So I think it's a great experience for people who want to do it. I think travel, I think see the world. I think you meet a lot of cool people. You don't work all the time, so you have a lot of downtime, which is a rarity I think, in some cases. And ultimately it's just like you're throwing spaghetti at the wall and sitting with sticks, and that's a good sandbox to test out ideas.

Leah Roseman:

So you've done a few competitions and you won the John Lennon songwriting competition with "Confident". Could we include that track as part of this episode?

Cliff Beach:

Oh, yes. We're almost to a million streams, so I'd love to include it.

Leah Roseman:

So the band Mestizo, right? Yeah,

Cliff Beach:

Mestizo Beat.

Leah Roseman:

Beat. Metizo Beat, yeah. So how did you meet them?

Cliff Beach:

Yeah, that's a funny story. So I had a musician friend named Rich who lives in an area called Topanga in California. I had known of Topanga only from the girl's name on Boy Meets World when I was growing up, but I think that she's named after that town. And so they love music over there. It's kind of a rich, I would say, hippie community. But essentially I met Mestizo Beat when they were teenagers when I was in my twenties after the cruise ship experience. So probably about 10 years before we actually decided to work together. And through a series of events, we started recording at the same studio, and the person who was the engineer showed me some of their music and he said they were from Topanga. And I was like, well, if they're from Topanga, they have to know the one guy I know he knows everybody.

So I called him, I said, Amit, do you know this man? He's like, yes, I match that band. I just knew he was that hub connector. So he connected it. We did some shows and then I was like, Hey, let's work on a song. And it's funny because when I wrote "Confident" I was actually not feeling that confident, and so it was written as kind of positive self-talk, let put it out there. And so when I sent it to them at a demo, I was like, wow, this is probably cheesy Velveeta, saccharine sweet. I was like, this is going to be something. No one's going to want to hear this. Like I'm confident I'm learning to love myself. I was like, nobody wants a self love. What is that? And so I said to them, I was like, Hey, what do you guys think about this?

And they were like, it's great. And then we recorded it and we put it out and we said, let's just see how it does. And then it was like this playlist picked it up and this place has picked it up and then it won multiple competitions. And it's always that way where it's like the song that you're like, I don't know about it, it becomes that one. But I think it resonated with a lot of people because so many people struggle with self-confidence and you fake it till you make it. But it was coming from a real place. It was coming from a place of, I wasn't trying to be positive for positive's sake, but I was just trying to put goodness out into the world. And so I'm glad that people resonated with it. And now almost a million streams later, it's like, oh, wow, I didn't even know before that song that was even possible.

Before that, we had songs that had a few thousand streams here and there, but nothing to the significance of that. And it opened a lot of doors because a lot of people were listening and a lot of venues and places they go and look at your stats. And so those things do move the needle. It connected me working with the radio station I work with now because it just helps us to get played on more places and more avenues. So again, though, I tell people all the time, you got to put a lot of stuff out there because that wasn't our first song, wasn't our tenth. It's probably like our 19th, 20th. So it's like you got to try again and a lot of nos before you get that. Yes. And again, I think collaboration is the key too. Working with Mestizo Beat, they brought a lot of greatness and energy to it.

I brought what I did, but we had no ego. And so we merged together to create something that was bigger than the sum of either of us separate, and they've since gone on to do some amazing music on their own, and I've done other stuff too, so hopefully we'll come back together and do more stuff together. But yeah, they're just a great team of people, very talented, very steeped in the style. They stick to their guns of what they like and their vintage sound and how they record it. And I just have so much love and admiration and respect for them, and I'm glad that they're doing so well. And I'm always championing and talking about what they're doing outside of what we do together just because they're friends and I really respect their talent. But yeah, I would do it 10 times over again because even if it had no streams, because I enjoyed the process so much,

Leah Roseman:

This is Cliff's Funk hit "Confident" and you'll find all the links in the description of this podcast. (music)

So when you said 19 songs, like with Mestizo Beat, you had done those kinds of collaborations?

Cliff Beach:

I had done different songs with different collaborations with Mestizo Beat. We've done a handful of probably four or five songs together, but of course that one was the first and the biggest. Sometimes you just strike and that one is the one, but we didn't really know at the time. I mean, we thought everything we do is great, but then it just did way better than the other ones. And I remember when I won John Lennon songwriting contest, I was always pitching these things and I would always get these kind of form, thank you for trying try again. So when I got the message from them originally and I'm reading it, I just thought it was one of those, thank you for trying. And then I keep reading it. I was like, why is this? Thank you for trying so long. Why are they giving me all this information? And then it dawned on me halfway through this email, I was like, oh, they're telling you you won because I wasn't even expecting to win. It's a once in a lifetime feeling when you're trying so hard and then something comes through that you weren't expecting and you got to celebrate those wins for sure.

Leah Roseman:

So what kind of prizes did you get with that?

Cliff Beach:

Oh, thousands and thousands of dollars of prizes. They sent us all these speakers and gear and stuff really to help build a really great home studio to continue to make, to keep writing and making music. And I've kind of sold some stuff and used some stuff and gave some stuff away. I always try to feel like, who can I bless? Who can I help when stuff like that happens to me? Because I think with the open hand I get more by giving. And so yeah, that's what we did. But yeah, I think we got probably eight to 10,000 worth of gear, which was cool. And the notoriety, I mean that name carries so much weight whenever they're doing the Lennon bus. I think that helped us to tap into getting into the NAM conference and finally headlining this year. So all those little stepping stones help. And then we won other songwriting contest after that as well, like world songwriting competition, global musical boards. So I think they kind of dovetailed off of that for sure.

Leah Roseman:

What was that conference you just mentioned?

Cliff Beach:

Oh, now it's the National Association of Music Merchants. It happens every winter in Anaheim. So we've done a few of them, but this last year was our first headlining year and it's up on YouTube and stuff now. But yeah, those kind of credits when they see that you want stuff and do stuff, they do help or you have a lot of streams. So Confident really kind of opens a lot of doors in that way.

Leah Roseman:

I was curious about this thing with getting on Spotify playlists and these playlist curators. I think you've made some connections that way. Do you have any advice for people?

Cliff Beach:

I do. Well, I mean obviously it's like you want to make sure that you're just in general, Spotify has a great editorial playlist artist platform that allows you for free to be able to pitch. Now with that, you want to refine your pitch, so you want to kind of understand the playlists that are on there, what they're looking for, but there's some algorithm things that you can do. So by getting songs that you already have on there to get more spins as you start pitching, then there's activity for them to start combing and looking through. But yeah, I mean I think ultimately it's just make pitches. That's why from a business perspective, sometimes you'll focus on single Confident came out as a single rather than an album because the more singles that you put out, the more opportunities you have to make more pitches. So it's like if you do a 10 song album and you pitch it once or you split those into 10 singles, then you have 10 opportunities to continue talking to the editorial players.

They may like one song, they may not like another for different reasons in the same way. One time I did an acapella song that we put out for fun, and then it got picked up on this acapella Christmas playlist and it was next to Pentatonics and Take Six in a bunch of groups. And that was for me, a throwaway track. It was just like, oh, we're putting it out there. But because they were just building the acapella playlist at the time of we're releasing, there was serendipity that they put it on there and now 200,000 streams later, it's like that was a song that I wasn't even going to put out. So there is some timing in there, but I think, yeah, it's just create the opportunities to pitch as much as possible, always create the best content that you can for the time, but just realize that your best is going to continue to improve.

So you want to have a balance of not sitting on it too long where it's like you could get it out there because actually the more things that you create, the better that you get. So if you're only making one album every so often, if you made 10 albums the same period of time, your 10th album will be better than the first because you learn through the process. So I think just kind of continue to put a lot of content out and not everything's going to land in the same spot, but the more opportunities that you give yourself to pitch, then the higher the algorithm will see that to then actually give you a chance. And it might take five, 10 times, but eventually if you keep chopping at it, then something will come through.

Leah Roseman:

What do you think makes a good pitch in that context?

Cliff Beach:

Well, it's a mixture of what your promotion strategy is going to be. So I work with a PR company, I work with a radio team. I have a social media manager as well. And so you do want to explain what you are going to do to really make sure that that song going to be maximized to its potential. And then just showing, especially as a listener, what playlists that you listen to and what it's really key of knowing what genres you can fit into and where that niche sweet spot can be. And then also who your chorus sound alikes are. Because a lot of times with an artist, they're like, well, I don't sound like anybody an editor for a playlist, they can't pitch that because it's so rare to have that one unicorn. It's like, okay, they clearly didn't sound like anybody for the most part.

They're like, I still need to for the listener attribute this to someone. If it's James Brown or Bruno Mars or someone, even if you don't sound like that, but that makes me think of something, they're going to be placing it based on that. So there was a book, it's like, Think like a Man, but you have to think an editorial playlist person, which is different from being an artist. You have to think how do they program from a PR perspective, which is different. And then to find interesting things and you don't know what's going to be interesting, but it's like if you can find that one little nugget that nobody else would be saying about that song or that process, if you're like, well, the Black Keys, it's like, well, we created an album called Rubber Factory and we actually did it in Akron, Ohio and the burned down rubber factory. That'd be interesting to a playlist curator. They're like, okay, that's cool. After the hundreds we've heard today, that was the only rubber factory story we heard that was interesting. Sometimes just those little things can move the needle. So I think just try everything, but it's like you're trying to, in a very quick amount of time, a few seconds put something that just makes someone say where they're intrigued enough to want to learn more.

Leah Roseman:

Thanks for that. So I was really curious to talk about your business knowledge and in your book. Yeah, I guess I want to start with you didn't write the book for musicians, you wrote it for everybody. What kind of feedback have you got back from non-musicians?

Cliff Beach:

It's great. I just talked to a woman who is a vice president of a finance company and she's trying to help other women because she has lupus with her health and fitness and other stuff. And so she bought the book, she heard it on the podcast, and I didn't know her. She didn't know me reads the book, and it just really inspired her. So that was nice. It's always nice to hear from people who are just outside of your circle and how it resonates, but I was like, she's the perfect person to read this book because it is written for someone who has a nine to five a corporate job. My main thing for that is, one is that I didn't want people to have an all or nothing approach. Meaning if people are like, well, if you don't do it, you're not a real musician, so you shouldn't do it at all.

It's like, well, then we never will have anything because the likelihood of the 1% of 1% that can do that and sustain themselves, it's hard. It's a hard life, and it's like even if you only put out a song a year, many years to come, that's a lot of songs. It's like, that's better than saying, well, I couldn't get out on the whole album, so I didn't put out anything. So that's one thing that I wanted to combat. And then again, people who have jobs, they don't always have fulfillment or all the fulfillment in that one place, but they may not want to do a whole thing. So it's like you get to figure out how little or how much you want to do that. But the point is that if there's anything that you want to do, carving out 30 minutes an hour, however it is in a week is still better than no time.

So yeah, I think I have an artistic and creative mind and I come from that place, but there's no reason why you can't want to hustle in other areas if you want to build a podcast, if you want to write books, if you want to volunteer more, it doesn't have to necessarily be about money. What other people thought, I was like, well, I don't want to start a side business, but you just want to figure out how you can have the time and make the time for the things that mean the most to you, and you get to decide and drive what that is. And that's different for every person. And so that's why I think hearing from people who are non-musicians, helping people to know they can tap into the creative side. I mean, a lot of people who work nine to five and they work on analytical things and they're just like, I'm not creative.

And I was like, well, that's not true. Everyone is creative. But over time, we know that through our schooling system and life, we just kind of whittle that out of a good chunk of people. And so you kind of have to tap back into that play, back into that creativity. And it doesn't mean everyone's going to become your Grandma Moses and start painting at 90, but if you want to, you could. When I look at Bob Ross, I don't think he made the best painting, but he made you believe you could do it, and he had a lot of fun doing it, and I think that's enough. There's someone who just wants to pick up guitar and play a couple songs at the party and people clap and that's enough. It doesn't mean you want to be a Grammy winner and Beyonce, but if you do, then there's a path and you can make that work.

I think the beauty of music for everybody is that you cultivate discipline to be able to be proficient at anything. You just require that 10,000 hours, 10,000 experiments, and you're just constantly a true musician that's at a feel harmonic level from 20 to 80 in that seat. They practice every day for hours and hours. Now people are like, well, can you get any better? Yes, yes. You can always constantly improve. And so I think that's what I put then into the business world, taking that dedication with piano and music and other stuff, but then also taking the creative aspects that I just think need to be reinvigorated. People can have passion in their lives. They just have stop being as passionate, and they need to know they can tap into their emotions, and you don't have to be an artist to adopt pieces of the artistic mind.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Oh yeah. Some of the stuff that really resonated with me, you talked about having a regular reviews of our lives, this kind of reflection where you're kind of assessing your performance in your life.

Cliff Beach:

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's just so many times that I find that we just don't even ask ourselves the question when we talk in the book about the ikigai. It's like, what makes me happy? What makes me tick? Why am I here with my purpose? Those are self-reflection questions that only you can ask. That's why every chapter of the book has reflection questions assumed that we will ask, but most people don't. And no people can either be afraid to ask or they just are oblivious to even think to ask. But I learned because I did research assistant work for many years at Pepperdine for a very, very smart doctoral professor, and I remember when I was writing a book, I talked to her as my mentor and I said, well, you helped me to learn how to ask questions so I could ask the right questions.

And she said, no, I taught you how to ask questions. So from data you could figure out if it was right or not for you. You don't know until you ask the question if it's right. That's the scientific method. You have to create a hypothesis and then run the experiment. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So basically for everybody until you ask the question and then they decide you can't really make a decision, and then the decision is then what's going to put you on the path? So I think, yeah, everyone should have a daily, weekly, monthly, whatever cadence just to review. It's like if you were hiring you, would you fire you? That's the thing. You have to ask that because it doesn't mean that it's a negative thing. It's like for me, with health, I went to a doctor and I've been cleaning up a lot of health in the last year, and they were like, Hey, your cholesterol is high.

You may think about this, you may think about that. If I didn't have that feedback, then I can't make any positive food choice changes. I don't know. And so you have to ask so you can find out. And if you don't know, then you ask, who knows about this? So I can go ask them. But that's the trajectory. So the reason why you have those reviews is because the more often that you check in with yourself or the more you check anything, the better it will become. So if you change the cadence, like you were only doing a yearly review, whether your employees, for instance, if you do a monthly review, you have 12 opportunities. If you do a weekly review, you have 52, you'll have way more with 52 check-ins than one. So that's why you want to have those reviews with yourself because the more often that you do it, it's clunky in the beginning, but then you build a rhythm and then you get used to being like, oh, wow, because that little small voice inside you that's going to kind of guide you, it's quiet. So if you don't ask questions and take time to actually be silent and listen to that, the noise and the chaos of the world will bury that. And then you won't be able to start unless you know where you're going. You get in the car with your GPS, I need to plug in the coordinates, but I have to ask myself, where am I going? So then I know to put that in there. Otherwise I'm just driving around and around and now I'll tire myself out.

Leah Roseman:

Do you journal yourself?

Cliff Beach:

I have several journals. I was a huge proponent of the Miracle Morning. I don't know if you're familiar with how, but I was doing that for a while. So has journaling, which he calls scribing as a part of this process. Lately though, I've been doing a five minute gratitude journal, forcing myself like a vitamin to be grateful, not because I'm not naturally grateful, but I think it's just, I love it because they have all these prompts and in there you'll put it's like what went well today? And sometimes you're just like, I don't know, and you just have to sit with it because you're probably bypassing something little. It's like, well, I woke up today, I'm healthy today. The sun is shining. Those are all good things. It's like those things you just take for granted, like it's just expected. Of course, it'll be a decent day, so then you're like, Nope, I have to put that down.

And so I think gratitude is something that everybody can work on. So I like having that. But in terms of journaling, and I do other journaling for mental health and therapy and stuff, but I do believe journaling in terms of writing down your ideas or just skeleton plans of what you want to do. Every time I have an album, I always are like, these are the songs I want to do. This is what I think I want to work with. And then I can see where there are gaps to fill placeholders, et cetera. But I think when you commit it to paper, it makes it more real and you somehow just start to gravitate towards that. Then you'll start sharing it with people and then sharing it with people will eventually build a team. It's like, because any dream that's really big requires more than you.

That's why I tell people all the time, no self-made anything because it's like, well, who bought your product? And somebody had to take a chance on you at some point. So I think, yeah, write it down. Journaling. I just think sometimes with journaling, if you just say that, it can be intimidating to some people. They're like, do I do it with, do I do it on my phone? Do I get an app? Do I write it down? It's like, don't overthink it. It's like just get something down in whatever medium you can commit to. And the good thing is that if you miss a day, then just pick it up when you think about it. Sometimes we get into these things where it's like, well, I thought I was going to do this every day. I miss a day. And then you just never go back to it and you don't want that.

It's like whenever it comes back to your mind, do that. But you can definitely do tricks of put it by your nightstand or put it in your car wherever you're going to be, where you'll see it, and then try to create triggers. It's like, okay, if I do this first thing when I smell the coffee, it'll trigger in my brain. I'm journaling for that first 30 minutes. I think definitely with The Miracle Morning, and there's a few other things about artist pages and stuff like that, but if you do it first thing, I think everyone should do something before work just for them. So lately I've been doing Qigong or Tai Chi before work and also with Tony Robbins. I was doing the priming exercises, but I think that's helpful. I think the morning you first wake up, you don't want to be into the news or into your text messages or into your email.

I think you want to do something that sets the tone for the day in a very kind of calm, or I'm doing this little piece for me. And the beauty of the Savers for the Miracle Morning is you want to build it where you're doing these six things for 10 minutes is an hour, but there is a micro version of you only have six minutes. You can do each one for a minute, which is still better than not doing it at all. And I think everybody can find six minutes to do that. That's why I do the five minute gratitude Journal, you know, can find five minutes. So I think underwhelm yourself said something you could do, but I think you can do it anytime, but you can do it at night. But I think when you first wake up setting the intention of doing something just purely for you and your betterment first thing I think really sets the tunnel for the rest of the day.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I started journaling maybe five years ago. I mean had when I was a teenager, but not since then. I'm in my fifties and literally because I heard a podcast, Dr. Chatterjee on Feel Better, Live More, he was talking about how it's very beneficial for your mental health. So it really has made a huge difference. And then the pandemic hit and the boy, it really helped me through that. All these important people in my life, family and friends, I'm always trying to get them to journal and they won't do it. And I'm saying, well, really helps me. And just trying to gently encourage them, but people have to want to do it.

Cliff Beach:

Well, I think I heard it said this way, I've been doing a lot of productivity study with David Allen is getting things done, but he keeps saying the same thing over and over. It's like with the brain is great at having ideas. It's terrible at holding them. So you got to put it out, you have to dump. When I was doing the book, there was a whole thing of just vomit draft. You just have to dump all your ideas out in the beginning because you have a lot in there. We get 50,000 images I think coming to us every day in our mind. So it's like add that up over days. It's like a system where your cast and your memory is slowly becoming bloated where you're like, I just can't handle it anymore. And so people, when they start journaling, it's hard in the beginning, but as they pick up a rhythm, they're going to feel, I think lighter in a way.

You're just getting stuff out. I remember one time I was doing these type of journaling where you would write something down and you would table it, so you'd write it on the piece of paper and then you would fold that page over and that signified, I'm tabling this because there's some things in life that's like, I have no control over that, or there's nothing I can do about that at this time and I need to either delay that or delete that because it's just going to tire me down. And someone else was saying to me the other day, they were like, you don't know how heavy gravity is until you weight lift. And I think the journaling helps you to do that. It helps you to get some of that weight off of you. Some things you're just like, Hey, I'm writing this down and I'm probably not going to come back to this, but I feel better getting it out and there's maybe something I didn't want to express or say to someone.

So it'll just live in my private thoughts in my private journal. But if I do want to go back to it, you can do that sometimes it's great to go back and see what you were going through a year ago. Because what I've realized is that I used to email my mom when I was younger, all these different problems, and I would see these emails later and I was like, that's like a blip on the radar. I'm so far away from whatever was happening at that time, but I remember I was, at that time, I felt like everything is happening. This is the worst. And then it was like, yeah, it actually was just okay. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was at that time, or I've moved on to something else. So it's nice. And I think it's good to see your progression too, especially when you have good goals with dieting or exercise, keeping your journal keeps you accountable to that and you see those changes because it's like now in the year, I've lost 50, 60 pounds, but when I started in the beginning, I lost two, three pounds.

You saw no difference in pictures and stuff. But the journal kind of helped me be like, okay, it's slowly happening. It's slowly happening. So when I go back and look six months ago, a year ago at the Journal, I'll see the building blocks. Sometimes it's like hindsight is 2020. And the journal helps you to have that hindsight or something that actually definitively go back and like, oh, that's what happens. Because life is a journey, but life is like a tool. The people who really become successful are able to utilize that information to be like, okay, I won't make that mistake again, or I'll try something different this time with new information. But at the same time, there's no judgment in your journaling or your thoughts, there's just your thoughts. And meditation I think can be helpful too with that journaling practice. So I think people will have different ways to do it, but now there's ways that you can write and then it'll just automatically go into an app and go digital too. So you can have the best of both worlds. Some people will still dictate into their phones different information and have it that way. I just say again, start small, start with a journal where you just do one minute and you just write a little something. What's good about today, here's the prompt. And then eventually you can go longer. Once you build any good habits over, I would say 40 days plus, then it's easier to extend on that. But I think the first 40 days are the hard ones.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Hi, just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. I wanted to let you know that I have a new way you can support independent podcast through a beautiful collection of merch with a very cool, unique and expressive design from artists Steffi Kelly. You'll find that link in the description of the episode. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leahroseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. You'll find that link in the show notes along with the merch store. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now back to the episode!

One of your quotes I like of yours, I don't know if it's your original way of putting it, but you say putting together life is hard.

Cliff Beach:

Yes, putting together life is hard. I remember one time I went home to play some shows and I had to work, and so I had driven from Maryland to Virginia and back and something, and I saw my grandma, I wanted the show and she was like, it's so nice how everything just came together. I was like, no, no, no, no. Life is curated. Did not just come together. I had to plan and execute a specific plan to be able to do all those things and get those ducks in a row. So yes, I don't think a life is easy. Jim Broan says, life never gets easy. You just have to become better. And I think, yeah, it's not easy, but it's like nothing ever is. If you want something that's worth anything, it's going to be hard. It's going to take work, it's going to take discipline.

There's going to be dead ends, there's going to be delays, there's going to be disappointments, and you just kind of have to work through it. But resilience is a muscle. So it's like the more you push against it, the stronger you become. And you don't know how strong you could be until you've attempted the impossible. And it's like everyone that you admired did something that somebody said wasn't possible. You look at the railroad, you look at the cars, you look at the airplanes, the airplanes. The Wright brother's father was a pastor. He said flying is for the birds. That's impossible. He was also at Kitty Hawk when they got the plane off the ground. These two guys who were bicycle mechanics who didn't have any money, but they had curiosity. And so if they said it was impossible, then we would just be still doing whatever.

Henry Ford them people asked him. If he asked them what they wanted, they would just say faster horses. Nobody knew about cars and assembly lines, and it was just a novel idea. He said he wasn't even the smartest person in the room. He just was like, how can we do that? So again, I think everyone should try things that are scary because that's where the growth comes from. There is no true growth in a comfortable thing. It's like a ship that's docked all the time. It's like, well, if it doesn't hit the sails and go out there and rough water, then it's not going to earn its stripes. And yes, it's safer at the docks, but it's not really a ship in that way. I mean, our queen area is like that I guess now. So yeah, I think you got to get out there because it's like those wow moments when you have that where you're like, wow, I did that.

When you run that marathon and you break through that tape and you're like, wow, I was the first person. Yeah, that could be you, somebody that was them. I had a friend that was running a marathon this year the first time it was like he used to be much heavier and out of shape and out of breath, and he ran every day and built himself up into that. But it's like that high that you get from breaking through something that previously was impossible to you. It's something that only you can give yourself because you have to attempt it. You have to take steps to make that happen. But yeah, it's like I know exactly that faith that I make when I have that aha. Like, wow, I tried that. When I look at the jazz album, I have it in my hand. I'm looking at the cd, I'm looking at the reviews or whatever or the book.

I'm holding it in my hand. I'm like, wow, I did that. This was something that was just in my brain. This was something that didn't even exist five years ago. I wasn't even thinking about this five years ago. And it's like, that's how all ideas are. They all start as a seed and then you plant them and then they germinate and you water and you wait and you wait and you wait. And then they grow, and then that plant springs up fruit and then they plant more seeds. So it just becomes bigger than you over time.

Leah Roseman:

And you talk about planting lots of different seeds, which I agree with

Cliff Beach:

As well. Yeah, because you don't know what's going to spring up. They're not going to all spring up at once, and some are going to fall on bad soil and some are just, for whatever reason, runs and aren't going to grow. Or some are like a bamboo tree. You got to wait five years to see anything. But it was building all these deep roots that you couldn't see. That happens too, almost everybody I've seen, especially in the publishing world, you look at something like a chicken soup for the Soul. 40 people said no, Dr. Seuss 37 publishers said no. JK Rowling, like eight publishers said, no, but how many people have given up after? So and said, no. Once or twice, almost everybody is going to hear nos, and that's hard to live with. But in my experience, I talked to my mom today, something happened and I was like, oh, it didn't work out.

It's okay. I was like, man, I was like, there's not one thing I picked that was easy. Everything is hard. But who I've become, I wouldn't have been through those challenges. Anyone you look up to had problems and they learned how to solve those problems. And if you learn to solve a problem for yourself. You probably learn to solve it for other people in the same way. It's like you'll be able to help other people, which eventually will help you because it's like the right president. It wasn't like they were just trying to make a plane so they could fly, and no one else had that technology. They were making that for the entire world. And yeah, I just think we need more people who have the courage to try. It doesn't mean that you are going to slam dunk every time. It's like you look at a Michael Jordan or whoever, they miss more shots than they ever make in their career. You have to, it's the process. But we're talking about them years later because they were out there and when they made it, the reason why they had that star potential was because they were there every day shooting those 400 baskets. That's commitment. That's the real commitment. And not everyone goes in, but I got to still go out there and make my 400. If they feel, they're like, oh, I only did 375. They go back, I have to finish the 25. That's the grit. That's the true commitment.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. So Bill Withers is one of your musicians you really enjoyed the most, and I didn't know who he was. And then I looked him up and saw the hits he'd written. I was like, oh, that guy. Right? And then I was really curious to read about his history. Do you want to speak to Bill Withers?

Cliff Beach:

Well, I have so much love for Bill Withers for so many reasons. What I love about him is just how true to himself he was. So you look at a man, he was blue collar. He worked, he was in the Army by the time he had his first single, he was over 30, which was old for the time. And his first album cover, you see him in his construction working outfit with his lunch pail in between doing his implanting toilets, seats in the airplanes. And what I love about him the most that people don't get that he had a 10 year career. And then one day he just was like, I'm good. He didn't like the industry and what was happening, and he just walked away on his own terms and I respect that. But he wrote a lot of songs. So when you look at a song like Angel of Sunshine or you look at a song, Lean On Me, you listen to them and you're like, wow, they're so simple.

Because he was learning how to play guitar and piano when he was writing those songs in real time. But they resonate with so many people because they're simple. Even in "Ain't No Sunshine", there's a whole part where he just says, I know. I know, I know. And people were like, oh, that's interesting. He was like, oh, that was supposed to be lyrics, but we had no lyrics. So we just said, I know over and over. And they just said, keep it. Even when he got his recording contract, he went to a bunch of places. He ended up in a place called Sussex that was run by Clarence Avon, who they did a great documentary, the Black Godfather. But essentially he played him this tape of a song called Grandma's Hands. And at the end, the record executive assign him because he's like, I've never heard a song about grandma's, but everybody has one. And that was the beauty of Bill Withers, is that he could take something so pure and so simple and so honest and just show it to you where he wasn't trying to be anything. He just was. And I respect that.

Leah Roseman:

Was he an artist you were listening to as a teenager or when you were older

Cliff Beach:

So as a kid, I feel like Lean On Me became the standout, and then there was a reggae version by GB 40. And so that got played a lot. And so I liked him. And then eventually there was a backlash where I was like, I don't want to hear this song again. And then I started to get into his other stuff and I was like, wow. He had so many other cool songs that were way more interesting than Lean On Me, but I still respect what he did because it's a great sentiment in Lean On Me. It's like about being brotherly. And if someone, we all need someone sometimes is universal truth, who cannot, you can't say no to that. It's so infectious in the way he did that. But I look at his Carnegie Hall live and it's just like, wow, he had a fervor.

But I like that he always, no matter how much money he made, he made millions on his writing. It didn't change him. You see the documentary years later and he is just like, here's where I'm from. It's a little town. And I just say hey to everybody and everyone gets a hardy handshake and a hug, and he treated everybody the same. And I do like that. I don't think that's easy. I don't think that's easy for people to have come from nothing, make it and then not change them. And he was, to me, seemed very unfazed. And he just wrote and stayed true to himself. But I mean, outside of Lean On Me, he had so many songs that are interesting. And I remember he was in a documentary, they went to film in Africa with James Brown and BB King, and he was in that too. It's called Soul Power.

And then come to find out, one of my Toastmasters friends, an older lady called Lola Love, she was a background dancer in that film. And so we get to see a young her and she has a funny story where she's just like, I never learned to dance. They just saw me dancing and said, can you come dance in the store? And I was out. She's like, everyone was dancing on the street. But you can tell she just has a good energy. But anyway, in that documentary Bill Withers has this really sentimental song, and what I like about it so much is that everybody was trying to do songs that were just hard hitting in your face. And he was very good at just doing something that was sentimental and understated and very few people were playing just acoustic guitar. And he would do that. And so it was a breath of fresh air to have him be able to be like, I don't have to be anybody else. I'm not trying to be Stevie Wonder. I'm just trying to be Bill Withers. So I think that's what I like about it the most.

Leah Roseman:

And there's one of your original tunes on this album, the Gift of Blues?

Cliff Beach:

Yes. Yeah. I mean, as a songwriter, I always love to show where the space is going and obviously just let people know that I do and I to get my ideas out that way. And this song was actually written a few years ago for a jazz artist, a female vocalist, and then she ended up not picking it up, so it kind of just sat in what I call hard drive records. It had been sitting on my heart for years. And then finally when this record came around, I was like, we should redo this. And it was actually written originally as a ballad, and I was like, okay, there's too many ballads on the album, so let's flip it and do uptempo. And I really like how it kind of got, I say a Ray Charles, a little bit, treatment to it, which I like. So yeah, I really enjoyed doing it.

I thought one bari sax wasn't enough, so we added two bari saxes. And it was fun just to, it's nice to see how things can breed to life and songs. They really are timeless. So even if it was written five, 10 years ago, because the genre has been around for a hundred years, you really can just kind of redo it. And I think that's the beauty of jazz. And you can do multiple versions. I think Tony Bennett, when he was doing his last album with Lady Gaga, he had done in a 60 year span, Fascinating Rhythm in the fifties and now and the 2020s. And so I think why not as you change and become more seasoned, then you'll have different variations and versions of what you do. But obviously I always love to show that I respect the style, but I want to add to the American Song book so that we have more writers that are continuing to grow that book. It's not just a stagnant or static thing. It should be living and breathing and continuing on.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Well, congratulations on this album. I'm curious about the band. Had you worked with everyone before?

Cliff Beach:

I had worked with the horn section. So Evan Mackey is my horn arranger, and so he was a section leader and music director for this project. So most of the horn players I knew before, we added two new ones, but three of them were the same for my funk stuff. And then we added a new rhythm section because the way it was arranged, it's through compose like classical music, so it's just like start to finish all written music, which I had never done before with the arranger, a Japanese arranger from Berklee who's currently in Japan named Moon. And so I had to find different rhythm section players that were able to almost read musical theater scores where they were just very, I sent it to a few people who said, wow, you used a lot of ink, which means you wrote a lot of material information out there.

But it actually helped a lot because once you go into rehearsals with all that pre-production ahead of time, we recorded everything in two days. So it went really smoothly because we had so much thought behind it. And I think jazz is just one of those mediums that requires a little higher level of sophistication of thought beforehand, even though it still has a lot of improvisation in it. So yeah, I was excited. I think as you add new blood into anything, you get different energy and it keeps you on your toes and makes you grow out of your comfort zone and do new things. So I hopefully will make another record with this group because we really enjoyed the process of making this one.

Leah Roseman:

This is Cliff Beach's composition, "The Gift of Blues" from his album "You Showed Me the Way". You'll find the link in the description of this podcast.(music)

You mentioned Toastmasters, would you recommend it to a lot of people?

Cliff Beach:

Yes, yes. When I was reading and listening to interviews with Warren Buffet, I mean obviously Warren Buffet's one of the richest people in the world, but beyond that, I thought it was interesting because he was like, I don't put my degrees on the wall. The only thing I have is my public speaking certificate. He was like, that's the thing that will carry you 50 years. And I was like, well, this guy who I feel knows what he's talking about says that it's true. Because he was like, before he learned to speak, he couldn't. And when he couldn't speak and communicate, he couldn't have done what he did because he needed to get people to be like, let's invest in this, let's do that. That requires communication. And what I like about Toastmaster is that you learn communication, effective communication, and you learn leadership and leaders are not born, they're made through the work.

But I recently heard and learned people think that they're communicating, but they're actually just talking is half of communication. But it has to be able to receive and send a signal. So if one is happening and not the other, it is just monologues going both ways. And if people can't absorb the information, then that's not really effective communication. So I think with Toastmasters allows you to do that, is to be comfortable with pauses, with taking time to articulate your statement, to make sure that you've given that in front of a bunch of people. So you've worked out the kinks and just a lot of public speakers and authors and people use it. I really love how they track your filler words, your ums and your errs. You don't realize, but sometimes you can be one of the most intelligent people, and if you have, a lot of people will just think you don't know what you're talking about or you're very nervous and it may not be true.

It's just something where, again, getting that feedback, you can make different changes. And so by having someone tracking that and deputizing you as the Wizard of Oz that night, then you learn like, oh, I need to actually take a beat to pause, or this is my crutch word when I'm thinking. So I will just inaudibly not use the crutch word. Toastmasters is almost, I think it's celebrating its hundredth year now. And so I, so many people have done it. It has so many clubs around the world, and I think it'll go hundreds of years into the future because I do agree that being able to communicate well is probably one of the best skills that, and also just investing in yourself. There is no downside to that.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, it's very interesting. As a podcaster, I'm very sensitive to filler words when I'm editing, mine and my guests, and I've noticed, and this may be a very superficial observation, but I think the people I've interviewed in which English was not their first language used fewer filler words.

Cliff Beach:

That is true. I have noticed that as well. Also, people who have previously had stammers, stutters typically are very on top of their word usage as well. But I think it's just a skill. And again, you're not trying to necessarily have perfection, but it's just you want to do a little bit better every time. And that's why, again, with those extra check-ins, by having a sandbox to test out your speeches more often, weekly going to other clubs, then you get better. Tony Robbins said when he was learning to speak, he would work in an office with people who would speak once a month. He was like, well, I'm going to speak five times a day. So it's like you get much better if you're doing it a lot. Believe me, the audience is going to show you what works and what doesn't work. If you are taking that feedback, you will improve when you get through the full Toastmaster program, which can take years, you've given at least 50 speeches and your 50th speech is much better than the first icebreaker is very clunky, but we stand up for you because we know how hard it can be.

Now some people definitely have hardships and fears of just speaking in general, and that's a whole other thing. I didn't have that, but I can definitely tell you I've seen people who 50 speeches later, we can't shut them up. So I think it's worth it to do Toastmasters or something like it if you can. And for the price, I think it's very affordable for the amount of work you can do. I think it's probably probably less than $10 a month.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I bet it would help a lot of musicians who are performers with their stage fright with their instruments.

Cliff Beach:

Yeah, it definitely would. And I think the thing for me, I was always pretty comfortable speaking in front of people. So when I was getting my MBA, people were like, why would you do Toastmasters? You're already really good. I was like, because you can get better. But also I was like, you can't rest on that because just because you maybe singing in front of audience I can do well, doesn't mean I speak exactly the same at the same level. It's like I didn't get proficient at singing by only doing it once. So yeah, I don't think you should rest. I mean, even the most popular speakers, they still practice their speeches ahead of time. They're not just winging it. That's very hard to do. Even things that look winged in the jazz world aren't, there's a lot of practice that goes into that. I think if someone said they saw Picasso sketching a little doodle and a lady asked us for it, he's like, that's $10,000, and he's like 10,000 for that dodle? He is like, that doodle took 10 years. The practices you didn't see would make that now flawless in a few seconds. So yeah, I think people should do Toastmasters. I always recommend it to people no matter how proficient you are, because you cannot be proficient at all the levels. There's so many little micro aspects to speaking how you use your gestures, how you use PowerPoint, how you use handouts, how you show emotion and when to put that in there. Some people don't tap into their emotions, so all their speeches come out very robotic. So now you have to work with a person and be like, well, if you're speaking to all engineers, that's one thing. If you're talking to a whole group of artists, that's a whole different thing. Sometimes you're talking to two and you're the in-between, so you have to be able to speak two different languages and then cross-culturally, you give a speech in one. In China, it'd be different from giving it in France. There's different rules and different things. So yeah, I think Toasmasters is one of the most beneficial things that people can do, and it's always free to try. I think just go and sign up and see if it works for you or not. It won't work for everybody, but I know it's worked for thousands and thousands of people, so it must be good.

Leah Roseman:

I was curious, your name Cliff Beach, is it a chosen artist name or is that your given name?

Cliff Beach:

That is technically my given name. Cliff is short for Clifton, but that is my real last name and I've always gone by Cliff since I was a kid. I always tell people sometimes it's deceptively simple where they want to make it more complicated than it is, and people are like, is it Beats? And they know it's Beach, just like the beach. It's just like it sounds and just like it spelled. But yeah, people always think that I've made it up as an artist's name, so I was like, it's cool. I mean, if I was named Sinbad, I'd be a pirate or a comedian. So the beach is okay for a musician and an author, but I come from a long line of other Cliff Beaches, my dad and my grandfather, so I'm just carrying the torch.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. So this book we're talking about you narrated the audio book and you made a Udemy course as well.

Cliff Beach:

Yes. Yeah, they're all offshoots, but out of all, I must say, I love the audio book because I was able to put my music in there. I love authors when they read their books just because I think it gives a different layer, especially when it's a personal story, but it is a lot of work. I mean, I think it's almost seven and a half hours. So we were talking and talking and talking. I got to a point where I was like, I don't want to hear any more of my own ideas, let it be done. But then once it was out, I was like, wow, this is cool. And then it was nominated for a world entertainment award, so that was exciting. But yeah, I really loved just getting this book out there because I always thought it was interesting and hearing just the feedback from other people, they get what it is. And then I just wanted people that weren't afraid to try and to fail and to fail to fail again and fail better and fail forward and fail fast. Because that's just the only way, I mean, it is just like when you're a kid, a baby, it's like they fall a lot of times before they learn to walk. That's the process. And they don't fall once and then say, I can never walk, and then that's it. And so we just have to tap back into that part of ourselves that we have that resilience muscle.

But yeah, I think the writing of the book was the harder part because the editing process takes the longest, 'cause I'm more of a gist person. So the actual rough draft took about 90 days, but it took years to do the 10 edits. And that was definitely where I was like, that's the best, it's going to do stick a fork and I cannot read this again. But it was great because refining that process really helps you to kind turn the fat. So the book really got condensed into exactly no fluff, no B material, all A material. That was exciting. And then the audio book was great, so hopefully we'll do another follow up because I really enjoyed the audio programs. I listened to a lot of audio books too, so I feel like that resonates with me. The Udemy course was kind of based a little bit mixture of the audiobook and a little bit of Toastmasters to have little vignette speeches for each of the modules.

And again, I think by having that Toastmasters experience, it allows me to be able to feel comfortable with using my voice in that way. And I don't know if I would be as comfortable if I didn't, just coming from the music background. So I think they all work together. They're kind of side interrelated things, lateral things. But yeah, I mean, if I have the preference of listening to a book by the author, I always look for that first, especially with the self-help, even if it's clunky, I just like to hear from 'em because sometimes someone else reading, it's just a little too polished or it just takes you out of the elements. Or sometimes if I really gravitate to them from other content where they're speaking a lot and I'm used to the cadence of their voice, then hearing it from them, it's like they're my source of truth for that information.

But at the same time, I totally understand why some authors are like, I have somebody else read that because that's not their skillset or it's daunting. I mean, if you're doing a lot of talking, then that would be a lot for your voice at once if you're already giving a lot of speeches to also on top of that, record the book. But I've seen some people like Damon John, one of the Sharks, he'll read the beginning and end and someone else will read the middle. So they're figuring out some hybrid ways. I think Tony Robbins has been doing that in his last book too. So I think there's no right or wrong way. I've also seen what I think is happening is some books are done purely audio first because at least or somehow the person has just adapted a style of reading that sounds very conversational, but I hear some that are so conversational, like a podcast that I feel like they did them first with audio and then transcribed and wrote the book. So I think that'd be an interesting approach since I've seen it forward way.

Leah Roseman:

I interviewed for this podcast, Stephen Nachmanovitch, who wrote "Free Play" and "The Art of Is", and the way he writes his books is just from his speeches, just transcripts, and then they're fine tuned, but that's actually just, and he's so articulate the way he speaks. One thing you mentioned, the many roles we play, I could really identify with that. Of course, I'm a performer and a teacher and other roles I play mom, friend. But as a podcaster, I do all the jobs, I do the production research, publicity, all that. And the way you were talking about, yeah, R and D because like most musicians, I have zero business backgrounds, never taken a business course in my life. So this whole idea of research and development generating you ideas, of course accounting, which we should all be more aware of, really good list. I really appreciated that. There's a lot more to it, but that's some of the stuff that stuck out to me. And you did reveal in the book that you had struggled with debt early on, and of course your educations were very expensive. That's something a lot of people are dealing with. Do you have advice for people how you got out of it?

Cliff Beach:

Yeah. Well, I mean it's like, again, you look for mentors though. I definitely read a lot of books from Dave Ramsey and Suzie Orman and a bunch of stuff. Just to understand one, I think you just have to understand that I tell people just like with productivity and with money, the deck is stacked against you because you're often taught wrong about life, and there really is no life 1 0 1. So it's like if your parents didn't know and they couldn't teach you and their parents didn't do that, and school didn't teach you, because school doesn't really go over those types of life things, it really prepares you to take a test and to chunk information. You can tell, because when you think of school, they're like, well, you can cram for a test. You cannot cram for life. That doesn't work. And so it really should be where you're learning for learning's sake and learning how to learn because that will be more beneficial in the future.

So I think just accept where you are. You may or may not know about it, but you can learn about it. And then from there, you just try to do a little bit better. So I think sometimes we learn and we talks around these things like platitudes, and people are like, well live within your means. They have no idea what that means. You hear it a lot. It's like, well, what does that mean? And also just statistics. It's like you kind of have to make a certain amount to be able to do other things. If you're at the poverty line, then there's only so much you can do. You have to increase your income. That's a part of that equation. And then you figure out, okay, well what can I do the side hustles to build upon that? And how can I also climb the ladder if I'm at work and I want to do that?

What did that take for me? It was like I had to invite my CEO out to lunch. I mean, I invited him, he paid, but I invited him to be like, Hey, I need to move up. What do I need to do? And I had just learned that from a podcast listening to Automobile University. I was like, ask and you'll receive. And so I asked him, and then he said, work with your boss. And I learned that he had hired my boss and they knew each other. So then now my boss, knowing that I talked to the CEO, who hired him, who hired me, he's like, yeah, let's put a plan together. So I think that's something. But then, yeah, in terms of debt, in terms of school debt, for sure, people just need to tap into certain resources. It's better to go low and slow and mitigate some of that debt.

I think how you look for scholarships that exist out there, fastweb and things like that. There are tools that just, they're out there, but they're not talked about that much. And so the easy route was always like, well go and take a loan and figure it out later. It's like, well, yes, you can do that, but you are morgaging the future and you're robbing Peter to pay Paul and that kind of thing. So it doesn't mean you can't do that. It's just like there'd be some pros and cons to that or start a community college, work your way through it. I think sometimes we are so rushed to accelerate and everything has to be immediate and everything has to be, now most of the world is not a microwave. It's okay to be a crockpot. It's okay to be a slow boil. If you come out of school and you're debt free, that's probably a better situation.

I mean, there's some people who didn't go to school at all who are financially in a better situation than a person who took on the debt. But in the long run, going to school probably would be beneficial to you, but you have to survive the short run. So it's just something you have to think about. But I don't think there's any right or wrong way. Just put the information out there and then from that, decide with open eyes what you want to do, but you're going to make some missteps no matter what you do. There's just only so much information you can have, and sometimes you are going by into certain things. But I would say in terms of getting out of debt, especially the consumer debt, the debt snowball, really just trying to tackle the smallest thing and then building momentum to take that to the next, to the next.

Those little baby steps and stuff, they do work. And again, when you do that and you get that small win, you say, okay, I paid that first 50 bucks off and now I wrote that 50 bucks to the next thing that's a hundred. You feel good that you did something. And it's like you have to digest your life one bite at a time. So you make it so that you can cut it up, then eventually you can eat it. But if you're trying to eat that whole elephant at once, that's going to be really difficult. And then you get discouraged. And once you get discouraged and other things set in, because once you feel a certain way, whether it's right or wrong, your mind will then just start giving you more information that validates that. So you just have to be careful, but where you are today isn't where you're going to be.

It's like when I started 20 years ago, I wanted to be the best singer. I wasn't thinking about having a record company and a publishing company and being on television and having a radio show, but it expanded when I expanded. And so even if you are in debt, like I said, you can just start small, start with what you can do. If it's on the income equation side, if it's starting side hustles, if you're just tackling the smallest debt first, it's like if you take an ax and you keep chopping the tree, it might take a long time, but eventually it'll come down. So just take your time. But intention, thinking about what you want to do and then setting an intention and then slowly moving towards that is always the best way. Whether debt or goals, as if, and small steps.

Leah Roseman:

In terms of mastering the art of cold calls, I've certainly been doing some of that with my podcast. You also talk, maybe you want to speak to that actually before I ask you another question,

Cliff Beach:

Cold calling. Oh yeah. I mean, I did have kind of what they call dialing for dollars at some point. I worked for Merrill Lynch for a time calling people up. I don't love that. I do mostly cold emails. But yeah, the thing is, there was a Ted talk about rejection therapy. If you just ask a hundred people, someone will say yes at some point. The thing is the numbers game, and you just have to prepare yourself to grow a thick skin for people to say no. Not that you're expecting people to say no, but it's part of the process. And so if you have such a hesitation and fear of putting yourself out there that you don't put yourself out there, you just have to remember that if I don't put myself out there, I have a 0% chance of anything happening. At least if I put myself out there, I have some chance, even if small, somebody will hear it and do something about it.

If you take that a hundred people you message and make that 10 XA thousand, you have even more chance of somebody saying something. So you just have to do that because when I was looking for a publisher for the book, I sent out about 400 queries to find out one, and so many people didn't get back and said, no. So if I only sent it to two and both said, no, that'd be that. So I think the numbers game is out there. And with email and other stuff, one, there's a lot of ways just to find people. So it's like you can find their email if you're really looking for it, or find someone who knows someone who could find it for you and put it out there. It was like for the jazz album, I knew there was a radio station who wasn't playing me, and I knew there was a show by another DJ on there.

I messaged him, he got back to me right away, and the next week he played the song. And that wouldn't have happened if I didn't cold call him. He didn't know me. I didn't know him, but I said, Hey, I listened to your show. This is what I heard. I think I'd be fit for this. I like what you're doing. So it wasn't all about me. I think the hard thing that sometimes people put, look at me, look at me. This is for me. Well, yeah, you're not going to get much response there because people want to know what's in it for them. It has to be a mutual thing. So that's one thing. And it's like I was already listening to his show and whether he did it or not, I was a fan, and so I could talk intelligently about it. So it's like if you're trying to pitch to do stuff on a podcast, well, you need to listen to their podcast and you need to know what they're doing, and you can then speak to them.

I listened to your episode on Money and Women, and this reminded me of this thing because then they're like, I want to talk to you. That's interesting. And you took the time, even if a few minutes to at least have some investment in there because people like that. They gravitate to people who take an interest in them, not the opposite, but by you taking an interest in them, but they will want to reciprocate taking an interest in you. So I think that's the approach to the cold thing, is that you just put it out there knowing that people don't know about you. So even if they take a long time, it might take seven times, eight times to break through to them, but then they're going to start to get to know you, and then eventually they will know you. And some people will get to you right away.

Some people, it takes a long time, but nobody will know if it just lives in a vacuum. So you've got to have to put yourself out there and you're going to feel a certain way, but it's never you think it is. Someone will say yes at some point. It may take a while, but somebody always does. It's timing. You have to catch them at a certain thing. You have to realize there's a lot of information cutting past. So emails get buried and stuff like that, but you look at people who are like, all they did for years with Cold Call and they made money and did other stuff. So it's like, well, yeah, it can be done. And who you become. Wow. If you get good at telling your pitch that much, it gets good. It gets really good because you'll learn very quickly, oh yeah, that piece of that pitch is not important.

No one cares about that. But you know what they do hear about this. When I pitched my thing to the guy at the jazz station, I was like, this record is about my grandma. My grandma tried to fight Ella Fitzgeral when she was six, and she was from that city, and he was like, that's interesting. And it was a true story, but it wasn't even about me. I was just like, I want to honor her, and I think this is cool. And he probably thought about his grandma in that story. So you didn't tell me the story. Oh yeah.

Well, my great grandmother passed away maybe five years ago, but she was from Pittsburgh, and when she was six years old, she would walk by Ella Fitzgerald's house, and she was married to Ray Brown, famous bass player in Pittsburgh, because Ella was originally from Newport News, and obviously we had ties to Harlem, so they were in Pittsburgh at the time. And my grandma would joke that at six years old, she would see Ella and she would always kind of roll her eyes because she had a school girl crush on Mr. Ray Brown. And so she's like, hi, Mr. Brown. And she's like, Hey, Ella, whatever. And so I dedicated the album to her just because she was kind of a feisty pistol. And she showed me the way into, because my grandparents kind of love of music, and they would always have artists when they were in town come to their house and they had a jukebox, and they love to dance and they love to play records and stuff.

So I thought it was cool. And because she's no longer with us, being able to tell her stories keeps her alive. And so I talk about her whenever I get a chance. But I think that's the stuff that people feel, those touchy feely things really sometimes move the needle that didn't get people into the music and into you. But it's nice to be able to talk about something that's like, it's about me. But on the side, sometimes it's hard to just, you don't want to talk about your accolades all the time. It gets a little weird. So it's like, well, my grandma, who she never was looking to do anything, but I think she was an interesting person and her story should be told. And since no one else can tell it and I have a microphone, then I'll do it. And then people see, they see their grandma or their mother figures in that story.

And the same way with Toastmasters, I had this story and won a ton of awards talking about my mom. It's called" My Mom is No Betty Crocker". And I tell this whole story about how my mom was a dangerous cook, and she was a working mom, and she would make through, and it was terrible. By the end, it was like she wasn't the world's best cook, but she was the world's greatest mom. And everybody cries because they're like, I get it. I get it, that she did her best and that was enough, and you loved her and she loved you, and that was that. So I love being able to tell those stories because I came from such strong women and I feel like they're a part of me. Everywhere I go, I carry a piece of them in each song and each performance.

And yeah, I'm excited about what's to come because there's just so many stories that I forget. So by writing other books and other mediums I have now and podcasts, I have other ways to tell stories just besides music. It's like there's so many ways to get stories out there. I remember with Robert McKee and in historic clinics, he talks about a book versus a movie, and people are like, why is the movie not the same? Well, because they're different mediums and you tell the story different. It's like, if you have a series, I love Law and Order. It's like, well, having a character over 20 seasons is a whole different thing than a three hour movie. So it's like none of them are good or bad. It's just like certain mediums lend themselves to things. That's why my book was the medium to tell that story. That was a book. It wouldn't have been an album. So I think people opened themselves out to knowing there are different outlets and they can add a different outlet at any time to get their idea out there.

Leah Roseman:

To close this out, I was wondering if you wanted to reflect. I know you had some challenges growing up. What music meant to you through that?

Cliff Beach:

Well, I mean there's a Michael Jackson song called Music and Me. They're always kind of together. You can't separate the two. That's how I feel. But for me, especially with singing, I feel like in its purest place, through all the challenges and problems and things I had, whether it being sick as a kid or family issues or whatever it was, I always had music as the backbone of I could always go there for solace and contentment, and I wish the whole world sang even if they're terrible. I think there's something about singing in the human voice that connects us in a totally different way with the universe and the world. And so I just never felt alone with singing. And there's an old Quaker hymn that's like, when I go through all this tumult how can I keep from singing? And it's like, yeah, it's like sometimes I start spontaneously singing.

I feel good or bad or in between. And there's so many styles of music like Blues where it's like, it can be happy, it can be sad, but it's like people, they get through it together. I learned that you don't get over many things in life, but you can get through a lot of things in life through music and through laughter. And so I try to do as much of both as possible. In my shows, I'm always trying to make people laugh, always trying to tell jokes. I'm always trying to entertain because it's nice to get people out of their state and out of their bubble and out of their hardships. And I think it's made me really aware of wanting to help others because I know what it feels like not to get that help. And so I really try to give back through mentoring now, and even through the content, I'm not just trying to do it for myself.

I'm really trying to push someone else to want to live their best life, even if it's just a few people. But music, yeah, it's always there and it is never over. Its like that's why when you talk about yoga or you talk about music and people are like, it's always a practice. It never really ends. It's supposed to be forever. Your whole life. You should be continuing to improve until that chapter is done. So I think for me, not everybody will do music, but I think everybody should find some art, something to get their catharsis, whichever way they can. I've seen it. I've seen it with people who create amazing meals. That's an art for sure. I've seen it with people's money, people who just, not only that they're able to make money, but they're still into it and interesting in what they're investing in and how they see companies and how they take them public and do evaluations.

That's an art. There's an art to almost anything you can do. Teaching is an art. Working with kids, mentoring, volunteer work, all of that's an art. People who work with pets, that's an art. You ever worked with a trainer? How do you get a dog to do all that? How do you get a monkey to do all that? I don't know. So scientists, all those things are art. It reminds me of James Brown. James Brown had a thing where he was talking to his whole band and he's like, what are you holding? And the person's like, I have a saxophone. He's like, no, it's a drum. Everything's a drum. What are you doing? He's like, you're a drum. I tell everyone, you're an artist. You're an artist, you're an artist. And if you think from that vantage point you'll create because you're an artist, even if you're doing the most boring thing, someone who knows how to do that as an artist will make you interested in it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about the universe. That's interesting. Wow. Because of the way he talks about it. You hear a podcast, you're like, wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, because you could see people come to life. What I love is when I see the oldest musician who looks like they're literally going to pass out, and then you put them in front of their instrument and they burst to life like they're 20 years old, and that's the beauty of music is that it hits you in a place where it's like you can get old, but it's just ingrained in you.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. It's our best language as people, I think.

Cliff Beach:

For sure.

Leah Roseman:

Well, it was a delight to meet you and hear all your great insights and your music. So thanks very much for this.

Cliff Beach:

Thank you so much, and continue just doing what you do. It's so nice that people are talking to people and having meaningful conversations and getting their content out there and their dreams, and I look forward to seeing all the interesting people you meet and hearing more of your content.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I wanted to let you know that I have a new way you can support this independent podcast through a beautiful collection of merch with a very cool, unique, and expressive design from artist Steffi Kelly. You'll find that link in the description of the episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.