WOW.
Where do I even start here??
How about this: I’m no longer a CEO…
I’m no longer working at my own company. In fact, I no longer even receive a salary from AJ&Smart.
Apart from acting essentially as an occasional freelancer and being part of our Guides community, I’m out. Like OUT OUT.
For the first time in 15 years I am not running a business, i’m not building a business… i’m…
“Making Art”
And no, not as a side hustle, not as a fun little detour before I give up and get sucked back into the business world.
This new Art thing got very serious very fast, and that’s what this episode is all about.
Below you’ll find the youtube vid where I explain it all (and introduce you to my new music project) you can also listen on any podcast app or read the pretty good AI generated summary below the vid.
Love you all.
Jonny ;)
This is the written version of this week’s episode. The podcast is the full, unedited, chaotic version. This is the good bits, organised by taking the transcript and having an AI tool clean it up.
I gave myself a year to figure out what I’d do next. It took one day.
Not a week. The SAME day.
On the 20th of August I put out an episode called “Goodbye for Now and What’s Next” and told you I was taking a break from everything to go and pursue something more artistic. I didn’t know what. One of the ideas floating around my head was a documentary, maybe. I’m 38, and the whole plan amounted to this: if I don’t pursue this calling now, I am simply going to regret it.
What I didn’t say in that episode, because I still hadn’t properly talked to the team, is the bit I can say now. I am no longer the CEO of AJ&Smart or Facilitator.com. I’m not taking a salary from the company. Laura is the CEO. I am, I suppose, an unscheduled non-CEO.
And on the first day I was officially out, I sat down at my computer and installed Logic. Almost every single day since, I have been writing and recording music, and today the first song goes out into the world. More on that below, band name included (and no, it’s not what you think).
If you’re a business owner who has been “about to” do the creative thing for a decade, this one is about you.
The nuggets (if you only read one section, read this one)
The safety net was the problem, and money was only part of it. Since I was 20 I’ve tried to balance creative work with running a business, and I have never produced anything I’m proud of. When there’s an easier thing you already know how to do sitting right there, you go back to it.
The 3 days creative, 2 days business week does not work. Monday to Wednesday on art, Thursday and Friday on Facilitator. By Wednesday nothing is clicking, I’m back doing what I know, and the art gets treated like a side hustle again. Every time.
“Doing too well to stop” was never going to end on its own. I kept waiting for AJ&Smart to fade out naturally so I’d be forced into something else. It is thriving in ways we never expected, so I had to make the decision myself.
Burn the boats, then watch what happens the next morning. I expected to aimlessly wander for a year. I’d had the free time before, that was the entire premise of The Unscheduled CEO, and I floated around doing nothing with it. The second the salary and the title were gone, I was recording.
Treat the new thing like a job, in a workmanlike way. 9:30 or 10 until 6pm, in the studio, nothing else. 4 out of 5 days nothing works. Then one tiny piece of one thing clicks and it was worth the entire week.
Get it out there as quick as possible and don’t sit on it. That’s the advice from my neighbour, who’s in the music industry, and it’s the same philosophy as this podcast. 5 or 6 songs written, 2 finished, the first one out today.
The tools are absurdly good now. A studio that would have cost around €200,000 when I was a broke teenager is now about €4,000 at home, not counting the laptop. If you played music as a teenager and stopped when you got serious, go back and look.
Okay. The story.
Waiting for the company to fade (it didn’t)
Part of me was waiting for the problem to solve itself. At some point, I figured, the facilitation thing would fade out naturally and I’d be forced to go and do something else. That wasn’t happening in August. It isn’t happening now. The company is doing too well for there ever to be a natural end point.
And I had a suspicion about why nothing creative had ever come out of me in 18 years of trying. Apart from the possibility that I’m just not talented, there was always the safety net. Creative work has no clean answers, and sometimes you go days without creating something you’re proud of. Weeks, even. So by Wednesday of the split week I’d be thinking, this is not working, and I’d slide back to running a company of our type, which is easier because I know how to do it. The painful part never got done.
The decision: no salary, no title
So 5, 6, 7 weeks ago, whatever it was, I decided to burn the boats. I am no longer taking a salary from AJ&Smart.
I’m still part of it, but in a completely different way. I’m still in the Guides project, our verified facilitator thing, and I’ll keep turning up to the meetups. And I’ll still do the rare, very important corporate things: a client who wants me to show the method to 100 people on the same day, or to the VP level of the company. I did one of those in Canada a couple of weeks ago. The blessing of facilitation work is that I don’t need to prepare for it, I just go and deliver, so I can work on music nonstop all the way up to the one day, even on the plane. One one-day workshop in Q4 covers my expenses for the rest of the year and maybe allows me another guitar, which is where it’s going to get dangerous.
For the record, I’m not going to pretend to be broke to get some sympathy. I’ve been running AJ&Smart since I was 23, I’ve got a good amount of savings, and I am lucky with this situation. I’m just happy I finally took the jump.
Day 1: I installed Logic
Laura can run most of AJ&Smart with or without me, which was the whole premise of this show, and in all that unscheduled time I never found another thing. Then all I did was remove me, and the same day I was recording music, already locked in. The instruments behind me were a potential option, NOT the plan.
Since then, I’ve been treating it like a job. Every day between 9:30 or 10 and 6pm I’m in here making music and doing nothing else. 4 out of 5 days nothing clicks, and then one tiny piece of one thing does and the whole week was worth it. It’s been the most calmly satisfied I’ve been creatively since I was 12 or 13, making comic books all day to show my friends.
I have no idea how to use the recording software. I’ve been asking the AI tools things like “how do I dampen this drum” and watching tons of YouTube tutorials. I edited the video in Final Cut Pro, which I hadn’t touched since college. The whole home studio cost maybe €4,000 without the laptop.
It’s also turned into a social thing, which is rare for me. This morning at 9am Kyle, our finance guy at AJ&Smart, was at my apartment reprogramming drum fills I’d put in and didn’t like, because I’m not a drummer and I don’t know what I’m doing. He played drums on the track. I don’t want to hang out and talk with people. I want to make stuff with people.
And when people ask what I’m doing now that I’ve quit my job, I tell them I’m going to try to be a successful musician. The reactions are quite funny, because I don’t think people usually say that. Kyle’s description of the music, by the way: a combination of Radiohead and The Offspring. I can work with that.
Jonny Woodcock (it’s not a dick joke)
A couple of months ago Laura and I were watching The Phantom Thread, as part of a let’s-watch-every-Daniel-Day-Lewis-movie thing. It’s about a dressmaker who, once the novelty of a new person wears off, starts to get irritated by them. He can hear them chewing. At the end of the film Laura and I looked at each other and, I don’t know who said it first, but let’s say it was Laura: you are Mr Woodcock. And yes, that is how I am when I’m locked onto something. I notice when people are chewing.
That was around June. Then I wrote the second song, which I’d called Woodcock, because it’s about a character who is irritated by everybody and retreating from his friends. In the chorus I sing “people call me Woodcock, tell me who’s shocked.” Then, sitting next to Laura at the airport in New York, I said: what about Jonny Woodcock? Solo artist, friends brought in when possible. She said that’s perfect, and I bought jonnywoodcock.com right there at the gate.
Then Jake Knapp, who I’d sent the song to maybe 4 or 5 weeks ago, messaged to say it was stuck in his head, and then: what do you mean by “people say I would cock”? (W-O-U-L-D.) And I thought, oh no, this is going to cause so much confusion. And then: who cares. I’m not trying to do some deep serious thing here. Jonny Woodcock it is.
The song is called Golden Goose. Eli was busy on Friday, so I filmed the practice room on my phone and edited it myself. The website is one of Laura’s paintings with the video on top, and I asked Claude to put it online. It’s probably a bit janky. It’s a music website with one video on it, which is all it needs to be.
What I do differently now
Make the space first, and make it properly. Not a 3-day week, not a side hustle. Remove the thing you’d fall back to, and see what you do the next morning.
Then treat it like a job. Turn up at the same time every day, accept that 4 out of 5 days produce nothing, and stay for the one that does.
Ship fast. I’ve been shamelessly asking everyone I know in the music industry for advice and connections, and the best advice so far was get it out there and don’t sit on it. From about day 3 I was sending people recordings.
If you’re in it right now
If you’ve been “about to” start the thing for years, I’d just gently point at the pattern above. For 18 years I thought I’d weave it in. The week never had room for the hard, unclear thing when the clear, easier thing was right there.
I will not be offended if you don’t like the music. It’s kind of loud, it’s a demo, I don’t know how to mix properly, and I haven’t really played since my early 20s, so there are probably a ton of mistakes in there.
What I can tell you is that the people I met at the creative retreat in New York a few weeks ago didn’t say “Jonathan, that’s a really risky move.” They said “fuck yeah, do it.” I appreciate that energy more than you know.
I said the last one was the final episode. I think I’ll occasionally still do this, because I enjoy the process and I love the people who listen. Maybe next time I’ll be announcing a little live Jonny Woodcock gig somewhere.
Cheers,
Jonathan
P.S. The full episode has the song in it, plus a lot more rambling about pedals. If you know one business owner who’s been sitting on the creative thing for years, send them this one.
P.P.S. If you go to www.jonnywoodcock.com or the Jonny Woodcock YouTube channel, subscribe and leave a comment. If I’m ever talking to record people and they have a look, it would be nice if there was a bit of activity under there. And I hope the chorus gets stuck in your head. A couple of friends say it has.
