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Artsy Fartsy Engineer

TKRR

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Hello everyone. Thanks for adding me to the forum. After looking at a lot of these kind of pages and books and courses etc… this forum seems like a bit of fresh air. The get rich quick mass marketing stuff has always seemed insane to me. There are supposed “marketing” experts with 800 Twitter followers. It blows my mind. Yet they’ll sell you their course for $199 bucks or whatever.


My story.

I’ve been a musician since I first touched a guitar when I was 10 years old (now in my late 30s). I knew the moment I touched it, I was hooked. Prior to picking up the guitar, I was very much into art, particularly drawing, but essentially dropped it. I’m still hooked (and I still draw).

At 19 I moved to NYC to play music and live the dream, for a multitude of reasons, I got stuck in the rat race of working all the time, but not working towards something. NY has a way of holding you back while taunting you with grandiose. After 4 year or so I moved away. However, I moved there with basically no money, wouldn’t take support from my family even when they offered it, and made it myself, on my own, paying every one of my bills. There were times at first when I remember only eating a bag of “party mix” as my entire meal for the day while I slept on a couch at some persons house. I was determined.


I met my wife and we got married in Ohio. We eventually moved back to NYC and I was taking crappy job after crappy job. After reading about Richard Feynman and his way of seeing Calculus, it opened the door for me to explore engineering. I had at that point done random work for sound design, creating sound systems for churches and clubs in NYC. I always knew how to turn the knobs, but never knew how the knobs actually worked. I decided to study electrical engineering.


I’ve worked in this field for some time now, and at the same time I maintain a pretty regular music schedule. My bands have toured the eastern US and some Europe. I also became an engineer because I finished a degree in jazz and classical music as well. Like I said, I’m obsessed with music.

So why am I here?

You know, when you’re an artist, people always say to you, “when are you going to grow up?” As an engineer, working my safe and good job, all I can think to myself is, “yo, when are you going to grow up and do something with your life?”


I think about my children, they see my wife and me working for the “man”. Just doing what we’re told. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want, but I’d be a fraud to not do it myself. I keep thinking, “when are you going to do something with your life?”


So here I am.

In the last few weeks I’ve started structuring plans for 2 businesses and finishing a book I’ve always meant to write.

The first business I created came out of an argument with my wife. We determined that we were very average. It was tough to swallow, but frankly we are just following suit. We are currently on pace to pay off our student debt in 25 years, our new mortgage in 29 years and basically just be in debt the rest of our lives. Even if we completely excel at our current employers, we might only be able to take a few years off of those estimates, but once our children go to college, all bets are off. We are wage slaves.

The first business we started is a blog/branding opportunity based on the idea that we accept that we are average, we know everything we do will probably suck, we accept it, and you know what, we don’t have to be perfect. We just need to move forward and do something. We are using this first business to be our guinea pig as we test marketing strategies, blog writing, and the principle of breaking the procrastination. I’ve maintained writing blog posts daily, and I’m rather loving it. It’s letting me explore a lot of ideas I’ve had. The theme of the brand is to get people to ignore their egos and just ‘go for it”

The second business I’m working on is finally building up the engineering company I’ve always wanted to make. I am an idea guy, I’m a problem solver. I see how much horrible work is done out there and I know we can compete. You might be surprised at the level of crappy engineering out there. I think we can help. I think we can do something great. At some point I'd like to see what I'm doing incorporate my love of music, but I want to be focused as much as possible here for now.

I’m also 20,000 words into a 50,000 plus word book on musical theory concepts that I’ve been developing for the last 25 years. I have written a chapter every day and making good progress. I’ve got the assistance of many high level musicians to help me edit the book, and I’m excited to share some things. I’m writing this, if for nothing else, for my children. If they ever decide to get into music, they’ll know where my head is, honestly though, I think it is shaping up into something actually really good and missing from the market place. I’m a conceptual thinker, and these concepts aren’t well represented at all.

I have not read the books yet, though, before I knew I could get anything free, had ordered the Kindle and Audio versions of the book which I will begin today for Unscripted . Looking forward to it.

Thanks again, and I appreciate you reading.

Cheers.
 
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Ethan McPhie

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Hi, i feel like i can relate to you a great deal even though i haven't really experienced life. I've had everyone telling me that following engineering and being in that course is what i have to do because thats just the way it works but the whole time i was there i couldn't shake the feeling that this is not what i amount to. I'm really intrigued by your blog and the notion of taking action and breaking out the mould society has got us conforming to. i would love a link to it if thats possible?
 

TKRR

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Hi, i feel like i can relate to you a great deal even though i haven't really experienced life. I've had everyone telling me that following engineering and being in that course is what i have to do because thats just the way it works but the whole time i was there i couldn't shake the feeling that this is not what i amount to. I'm really intrigued by your blog and the notion of taking action and breaking out the mould society has got us conforming to. i would love a link to it if thats possible?


Thanks Ethan. I don't regret doing the engineering thing, it has taught me to think differently and to become an extremely efficient problem solver. However, I could have done without the endless student loans. It’s also opened my mind to a whole of ideas and opportunities that would be impossible, in my opinion, to see otherwise. Unfortunately, along with this knowledge, often comes, a normal steady kind of job. The good thing is you will always be able to get a good job. Despite the fact that there is a lot of encouragement for people to do engineering, it’s hard and a lot of people quit. The market needs engineers, particularly electrical, computer and chemical.



I’ll message you the website address, I don’t really know the rules here as far as sharing websites and such, if an admin says it’s alright, I’m post it on here for others.



Thanks for reading! Cheers!
 

Niptuck MD

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the feynman lectures was what gave me the last hope to pass university physics... there is such a huge gap in academia nowadays especially in STEM programmes due to the lack of comprehensibility in subjects such as polymer science, physics, chemistry (inorganic and organic) and mathematics. Richard Feynman, Leonard Susskind and others were the last straw for me; if it had not been for them I would not have passed nor continued my staunch interest of the sciences.... Welcome to the forum btw;
 
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TKRR

Bronze Contributor
Read Unscripted!
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Nov 27, 2017
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Ohio
the feynman lectures was what gave me the last hope to pass university physics... there is such a huge gap in academia nowadays especially in STEM programmes due to the lack of comprehensibility in subjects such as polymer science, physics, chemistry (inorganic and organic) and mathematics. Richard Feynman, Leonard Susskind and others were the last straw for me; if it had not been for them I would not have passed nor continued my staunch interest of the sciences.... Welcome to the forum btw;


Feynman is a hero of mine on many levels. A true scientist, maybe the most pure scientist the planet has known. He left his opinion out of the way when discovering things, unlike Tesla and Einstein who had romantic ideas that prevented them from seeing the way the world really works. Feynman just accepted reality as reality. On top of that, he is a master story teller and teacher. His books are pure gold.
 

TKRR

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Nov 27, 2017
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Ohio
Thanks Ethan. I don't regret doing the engineering thing, it has taught me to think differently and to become an extremely efficient problem solver. However, I could have done without the endless student loans. It’s also opened my mind to a whole of ideas and opportunities that would be impossible, in my opinion, to see otherwise. Unfortunately, along with this knowledge, often comes, a normal steady kind of job. The good thing is you will always be able to get a good job. Despite the fact that there is a lot of encouragement for people to do engineering, it’s hard and a lot of people quit. The market needs engineers, particularly electrical, computer and chemical.



I’ll message you the website address, I don’t really know the rules here as far as sharing websites and such, if an admin says it’s alright, I’m post it on here for others.



Thanks for reading! Cheers!

I do want to point out, college I general though, is kind of a joke. How can every specialty essentially take the same length of time to master? Why can't you test out of classes? Why does it cost do much particularly these days? It's insane really.

I should rephrase and say that you could learn to think this way alternative ways, but I'd think yours need a teacher or mentor. However private lessons would cost a fraction of schooling and you'd probably learn more. Unfortunately, there is extreme degree bias in engineering, which drives me crazy.

I'm starting to rethink these things.
 

Ethan McPhie

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Don't get me wrong i can see the value in an engineering degree but as months went on i found myself getting sunk into books about entrepreneurism and discussing business startups with people I've met on shapr. Have you found the skills you developed during the course are benefitting you in your work now?

I think you're right. I believe there's other ways to learn than in a lecture, ill definitely take your advice and look for a mentor or coach to help with that aspect of thinking. I'm interested in what you were saying about Feynmen, is there any books of his you would recommend?
 
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TKRR

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Nov 27, 2017
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Ohio
I think of you have entrepreneurial opportunities and spirit, it is worth exploring before you have 6 figures in student loan debt. Engineering is valuable because of the skill, not because of the schooling...if that makes sense.

All the Feynman stuff is amazing, but probably start with "Surely, you're joking Mr Feymman" also there are a ton of great YouTube video.
 

Ethan McPhie

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Nov 27, 2017
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That was exactly my thinking if this all crashes and burns, i can always pick up my course where i left off but thats not going to happen ;)

I will start with that, thanks very much.
 

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