We have a big old natter about:
- Growing up in Swansea
- The problem of doing what you want on your wedding day - when others want you to go with the flow (one week after this conversation Damian was getting married Vegas)
- Moving to New York
- The problem of describing what he does; Musician v Builder of Businesses
- The creativity of building businesses
- When he gets bored it's time to move on
- Being a five-star failer
- Good drummers = good videographers
- Playing Wembley Arena & Hyde Park
- Meeting your heroes
- Being paid to do what you love
- Failing all his GCSE's
- Joining a band
- Signing a record deal and the anticipation of becoming a rock star
- The 9 months of anticipation being followed by being dropped by the record label
- Getting a job in the local shampoo factory
- Realising that he didn't want to get used to a very boring job
- Why everyone should do a very boring job
- Reacting to rock-bottom
- Being more scared of staying at the shampoo factory than he was scared of the unknown
- Understanding that failure isn't fatal
- Finding his 'lane' which is working very hard to overcome any lack of talent
- Competing with himself not others
- Why he doesn't want to look back on his life and wish he'd done something different
- Why life is like a computer game
- Money is like oxygen - you don't really care about it until it's gone
- One holiday in his 20's
- What are holidays?
- Having a Dad with no ambition whatsoever and reacting to that
- Taking personal responsibility
- Contentment v Ambition
- His very supportive mum
- Having a Stepdad who introduced fun and was a big influence on his life
- Sliding doors moments
- The importance of the mentors in his life, particularly Bruce Dickinson
- When 'Why Not?' is the answer
- The amazing Princes Trust
- Going to Rock School
- The different lenses through which we look at life and why alternative lenses are essential for growth
- The importance of doubting that your stories are the only important stories
- When snow forced Damian to move from Rock School student to Rock School teacher
- When Damian became the Rock School's Sales & Marketing Manager
- Following/stalking his mentor Bruce and how they set up their own music college (BIMM)
- Damian's focus on giving students the best music education possible
- How in the first 3 years students were involved in 24 Top 40 hits (including the Kooks)
- The importance of remembering students names (and at the height taking 3 weeks to remember 1,000 students names)
- How the scale of BIMM became a problem
- Leaving BIMM
- How becoming a millionaire was overshadowed by a sense of failure
- Losing confidence
- The 'what next?' moment
- Feeling like Jason Orange
- Going back to the comfort of his bass guitar
- Learning to sing and having too much work
- Starting to manage bands and having to employ people to help out
- How learning is a confidence builder
- His Mum's words 'do it while you can'
- Unwittingly becoming the social media guy
- The irony of being asked to write a book when the last book he'd read was Fantastic Mr Fox
- Writing 'Fuck Plan B' which became 'The rulebreakers guide to social media'
- Understanding that both success and failure are fleeting and just part of the game
- The importance of doubting the stories you tell yourself when the story is that you can't do something
- The importance of creating meaningful experiences or 'legacy'
- Damian's next adventure and why it feels like he's burning the ships
BIMM
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
https://www.youtube.com/user/Damiankeyes
