Anxiety Is Jet Fuel

In 2013, with my bandmate Cy.

Anxiety and perfectionism are like jet fuel: incredibly powerful and capable of propelling you to extraordinary heights but dangerous to play with.

I clearly remember sitting alone backstage at a Tattletale Saints gig in Tauranga, New Zealand, in 2014, drinking tequila straight out of the bottle to calm my anxiety butterflies and thinking, “I just have to make it through the set.”

I was so anxious about ticket sales, capturing content, the travel schedule, and managing the perfect tour that I considered the performance something I had to get through. 

The reason I’d started booking tours in the first place—to perform music—had become something I was trying to survive.

I was probably sitting alone because I wasn’t that much fun to be around back then when I was in “tour manager mode.” But I didn’t care because I believed the stress, anxiety, and lack of enjoyment were worth it to be making something happen for the band.

Because I was making something happen. We had just won a New Zealand Music Award for the album we recorded in Nashville, and we were about to permanently relocate to Music City USA.

Anxiety and perfectionism are incredible fuel for chasing your dreams, but the cost is your health. 

A few weeks later, sitting on the floor of my mum’s apartment just days away from relocating to Nashville, I had my first full-blown panic attack. And it wasn’t fun.

That day started a very long journey to finding a different, more balanced way to be a professional musician.

You can absolutely choose to let your perfectionism and anxiety propel you forward in your career. But when the cost of that choice becomes too high, there’s another way.

I created my coaching program to show you the alternate path.