I Spent 10,000 Hours in a Soundproof Room
Here's the one secret I learned about imitation that is essential for discovering your own unique voice.
In music school, my life was a tiny, soundproofed practice room for 8 hours a day.
No joke.
I once told my advisor, and former saxophone player for Earth, Wind & Fire, that I was only practicing 5 hours a day… he laughed and said, “do more.”
My assignment, for months on end, was to study the great jazz drummers—Max Roach, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones.
But “study” is too soft a word. We were told to become them.
We’d sit with headphones on, transcribing their iconic solos, painstakingly learning every single note, every ghost note, every syncopated rhythm.
Our final exams were graded on one thing: how perfectly we could emulate the masters.
It was all about precision and imitation.
But here’s the funny thing our professors knew, and we slowly discovered: the goal was never to become a perfect copy.
The paradox, which every great musician understands, is that you have to master someone else’s style, note for note, to build the foundation strong enough to discover your own.
That process of deconstruction didn’t stop in the practice room.
It has become the blueprint for my entire career- let me explain.
I deconstructed my heroes. I absorbed their frameworks, analyzing their structure, their cadence, their tone of voice, their idiosyncrasies.
It was the same deliberate process I spent my undergrad experience mastering.
Because it works. It helps you discover…or rather, unlock your own voice.
And then, one day, a shift happens. It’s a moment every artist or entrepreneur eventually reaches.
Yesterday, I felt that shift.
I had a day packed with three keynotes and multiple coaching calls, squeezed in.
When you’re moving that fast, you don’t have time to consciously apply someone else’s model. You don’t have time to think. You just have to act.
Your instincts take over. And your instincts are where your true voice lives.
I walked into the first talk with no deck and just had a raw, present conversation.
The energy in the room was electric, and it created the kind of connection that builds deep relationships.
I went into the second-a huge keynote- and it was one of those moments where everything just clicks, you know. Some people call it, being in “the zone.”
The message landed, the energy was palpable, and I left the room feeling like I changed the life of just one person.
In my last keynote of the day, I embraced every human flaw, laughed at my own mispronunciation of words (if you know me then you understand this 😂), and was so in sync with the audience that we could just laugh, learn, and be human together.
All 900 of us!
And in the quiet moment driving home, it all became clear.
It’s not that I don’t need my heroes anymore. It’s that their lessons have become such a part of me, they’re no longer an external model to copy. They’ve illuminated the parts of my own voice that were always there. (This is the part you should read 2x)
This is the final, most important stage of any creative journey. It all comes down to this simple truth:
Stop trying to find your voice. Start trusting the one you’ve built.
Your heroes teach you the phrasing. They give you the licks. They show you what’s possible. But they can’t write your song for you.
For years, you practice and transcribe their solos. You learn the rules so intimately that you finally understand how and when to break them.
And then one day, you finally play your own.
So how do you apply this to your own journey? Too often, I hear entrepreneurs say, “I can’t create content that is uniquely my own. Where do I even start?”
It starts here.
The 3 Stages to Playing Your Own Music
1. First, Deconstruct the Greats. You can’t skip the woodshedding. The path to originality runs directly through the work of the masters. Deeply study the people you admire. Learn their frameworks. Understand the “why” behind what they do. Earn the right to your own style by first honoring theirs.
2. Identify Your Unique Cadence. As you absorb the greats, pay attention to what feels most natural to you. Is it your specific stories? Your weird analogies? Your sense of humor? Your faith? These “imperfections” aren’t bugs; they are your signature rhythm. They are what will make your music... your brand... your story... original and authentic to you.
3. Dare to Improvise. Trusting your voice means having the courage to go off-script. It means embracing the raw moments and the unpolished ideas. That’s not where the performance breaks down; it’s where the real connection begins. It’s the moment the audience stops admiring a performance and starts connecting with a person.
The world has enough cover bands. It’s drowning in them.
What it’s desperately waiting for is your original song.
Go play it.
"Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song..."