Episode 100: Petra Kolber on Her DJ Journey
“Your Dreams Were Given To You”
So here we are, a new year, a new decade, the 100th episode and a new podcast name “Your Yes Life Now!” So I thought if there was anything I could share with you, that I have experienced recently about what it takes to live your yes life now, your best life now, not your perfect life now – it would be my DJ Journey.
The journey began on August 18th, 2018, the day of my book launch for The Perfection Detox in NYC. During the event, I had a Q and A, and was asked, “What’s next?” My answer was that I would love to explore DJ’ing, and right then and there, three people came up to me with the sole goal to help me make that dream become a reality.
The journey was long, humbling, frustrating and exhilarating. It is one of the most challenging adventures I’ve undertaken and during the year where I was practicing and mentoring under the eyes and ears of Mike Babbitt, from Yes Fitness Music, I had many ah-ha! Moments and many more moments when I wanted to quit.
In this episode, I share some of the lessons I learned that can be applied to both work and life and what it took for me to keep going when all I wanted to do was give up.
Life Lessons From The DJ Booth:
- Bad habits set in early. So review often and fine-tune and Up-level as needed.
- Number two, liking music and knowing your music are two very different animals.
- Three to pursue a big audacious goal, you need two things outside of you:
- A mentor, time-trusted and someone who believes in you.
- An advocate who sees your vision and opens a door to an opportunity that holds you accountable.
- The time you are most likely to give up is right before you have earned the wisdom to know that with effort you are capable of doing the work and making your dream a reality.
- Music in your headphones sounds very different on a big speaker, because sometimes the headphones just lie.
- Dreams, curiosity, and learning keep you young.
- Technology is your gateway drug to creativity if you use it correctly.
Then a week before I was about to DJ the V.I.P party in Toronto for over 500 people, my second and greatest lesson appeared. I’d gone down to Washington for a tune-up mentorship session. For the past six or so months, I’d been practicing for hundreds of hours, but now looking back – I hadn’t been practicing, I had been perfecting a set. Note for note, transition to transition, but that wasn’t DJ’ing, that was curating a playlist.
During my session, I realized I was no longer spontaneous. I had lost all my curiosity and I had lost all my intuitive skills for trying to be perfect. I had forgotten that nothing worth doing is easy and that perfection will kill your creativity. Life just as a DJ set is best lived and created when being in the moment, and reacting to what is versus what do you have planned for.
It was a disaster and I only had 5 days before the big event. I have never been so scared, and have never wanted to quit more – ever. And so what I spent the rest of that week doing, in the five days left before the event, was being in the moment, mixing songs in different ways, trying different intros, outros, fades, beat matching, not beat matching, fading out, fading in, echoes, reverbs. Not being perfect but working with the music in the moment.
And then the evening arrived, and it was magical. It was messy and spontaneous and the dance floor guided me the entire evening. It was a conversation, and a relationship between me, the music and the dancefloor.
The dance floor was packed until midnight, and what it taught me is that it’s about being in the moment, not being in your head. Leadership, your voice, your course, your new podcast, your new keynote, your new class, your new romance, it doesn’t happen in your head, it happens in your heart. It happens through curiosity, it through connection. It happens through doing the work. It happens from your failures. It happens from feeling that fear and recognizing that this is a sign that you need to lean in, not back away.
And that’s why I have changed the name of this podcast from The Perfection Detox to Your Yes Life Now! Not your perfect life now, not your flawless life – your YES life. I’m excited to hear what you will say “YES!” to this year.
Mentioned In This Show
Podcast: Play in new window | Download