We recently connected with Patrick Stafford and have shared our conversation below.

Patrick, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I earn a full-time living from my creative work.

I joined the military in 2018 with no sense of direction in my life, other than thinking I may want to try my hand working as some type of intel or computer-related specialist. The Air Force had other plans for me; however, requiring me to pursue my career as a mental & behavioral health technician in Alaska instead. As I grew & developed in my military life, I started developing more of an interest in making music, something that I had only briefly dabbled in back in high school. In early 2020, I started learning a new skill with no idea how much it would change my life – producing beats. Music has always interested me in a way that nothing else has – there’s so many unique elements that go into music that make it nearly impossible to break down based on a single listen. This passion for music quickly transformed into obsession; I’d spend my downtime at my Air Force job browsing reddit and youtube for new information & concepts to try out when I got off of work, trying to imagine all the new styles of beats I could try making. I joined online communities, developed relationships with smaller artists I’d find myself listening to often, and worked harder than I ever have in my entire life.

I never cared about anything as much as I cared about music. Often times I’d find myself wondering why I didn’t seem to care too much about other things going on around me – relationships with my high school friends, my professional career, parties, etc. Music was the first thing to make me FEEL fully – it’s a way of expressing the ideas and feelings I have in a way that feels authentic.

This fixation on music lead me to learn a ton about the business side, which unlocked something that I didn’t know I had in myself – the ability to run a business and find ways to monetize nearly anything I do. I spent the next year or so grinding every single day without any signs of slowing down. Sometimes I’d find myself laying in bed at night, scrolling around Google Maps of LA and Atlanta, imagining how cool it would be if I, some random producer from Colorado, would eventually be able to make it out to those big-shot cities where I’d be able to prove myself to the world.

Fast forward to mid-2021 and by all the luck in the world, I’m able to leave my military career early to become a full-time musician. This was by far one of the happiest moments of my life. I spent some time traveling from state to state, linking up with some artists and producers I had previously met & worked with online until finally settling down and moving in with a couple artists in Raleigh, NC. That year, I’d begin hosting events that are known today as “Underground Retreats”, where every 3 months I bring together anywhere from 30-100 artists from all over the world to fly out to live in a mansion for a week. Everyone spends the week networking, creating music, recording content, and partying & going out as a like-minded group of creatives. This event continues to go viral every couple weeks, and is one of the most successful ventures I’ve ever been part of. Around that same time, I was continuously making trips out to Atlanta and LA, making some amazing connections and fulfilling my dreams of going to these big cities. I still remember the feeling of euphoria when I touched down in LA on the plane for the very first time.

In 2022, I founded my first online company, “The Producer Crate”, which is a website & platform for musicians that features a podcast, a marketplace-style digital store for music producers to buy sounds from, and community events & challenges. The website quickly grew as we started featuring more and more vendors that sell sound kits & participate in our podcast episodes, including some individuals who are Grammy-winning & have multi-platinum records. As this website continued to grow and my events were flourishing, I moved to Canada with my girlfriend at the time, spent the year growing my businesses, and stepped more into the education & content creation space. I’d spend a lot of time mentoring producers, creating videos on how I got to where I am, and always looked for the next “thing” that I could get into musically. This is also the time I had my first $10k+ month between my various sources of income, which pushed me to keep grinding as much as I could.

Come 2023, I ended up moving out of Canada suddenly, leading to a massive drop in income, content, and the motivation to do a lot of what I was doing. I moved into a much smaller space, felt less inclined to push as hard as I had previously, and watched as videos stopped going viral & business became slower than ever. Luckily, I was paying very little in rent at a place in Baltimore, MD due to my friend letting me move in with him and was still able to make enough to live as a full-time creator. I don’t know if it was the low rent, the small space, the heartbreak, or just a change of heart, but I didn’t feel the same sense of love for music as when I first started. I really let it get to me for a while, thinking “this is it. The end of my music career”. For a long time in my life, I had battled depression, feelings of not being good enough, and a lot of self-negativity. Up until this point, I had been sure that I’d won, and that I’d never feel like that again.

I was wrong.

I regained a lot of those old and forgotten feelings & let the success (or lack-thereof in this case) of my businesses drive my emotions into the ground. For nearly 6 months I was lazy, unmotivated, not working out as often, and putting minimal effort into projects. This wouldn’t last forever though, in the back of my mind I knew it. An opportunity came up for me to visit L.A. without having to pay for an AirBNB or hotel, which I couldn’t pass up. I went with the intent of making music, but that trip would end up changing my trajectory as a creative. The friend I stayed with in L.A. is a concert photographer, and during my visit I got the opportunity to shoot a couple smaller shows alongside them with my little vlogging camera I had. I had no idea that taking pictures of people in concerts was something you could get paid for, much less make a career out of it.

That visit to L.A. changed everything for me. As soon as I got home, I began learning more about cameras, looking into small shows in my area in Baltimore & D.C, and took on as many opportunities as I possibly could. It was the same feeling as when I first started making music – eager to learn, excited about the possibilities, and wanting to learn every aspect of photography that I can. The deeper I got into camera work, the less I felt the negative feelings I had been feeling before, and the more motivated I felt to work on the businesses and events I had created prior. I spent most of late 2023 and early 2024 learning how to shoot for businesses, music videos, portraits, concerts. and even real estate. I used some of my music connections to get into some huge concerts with A-list artists to take pictures for them, and quickly saw the connection between music and the camera. Also during this time, I had produced the most viral song I’d been a part of so far – “FIGURE IT OUT” by Chandler Matkins and YNG Martyr which got tens of millions of views on TikTok and IG.

In early 2024, I moved to Florida to be closer to my Dad & take on some photography opportunities I had. I was able to move into a nice house with one roommate, had space to work on my businesses, and felt more motivated than ever. I’ve taken a lot of time to reflect on the fall of my emotional well-being during 2023 and have since been working on developing a happier mindset, which has been immensely helpful to my well-being not only as a human being, but also as a creative. My businesses are starting to do the best they have ever done, and I’m continuing to build up new sources of income consistently with my vast range of skills I have to offer.

First of all, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for listening to my story. There are a few key takeaways I hope that you learn from this:
1) To make it as a full-time creative, you’ll have a much easier time if you build up multiple streams of revenue. If one starts to go down, the others can still support you.
2) Don’t let success determine your happiness. Be happy to be alive and able to create. That’s what is most important.
3) Take risks. Too many people don’t take chances enough, and they’ll never know what could have been if they just took that one risk.

Patrick, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

(a lot of this was covered in what I sent in the prior response)

I run a few businesses:
-Underground Retreats: an event that happens every 3 months where 30-100 creatives fly in from all over the world to live in a mansion for the week in various locations, where they spend the week making music & content, networking, and partying

-The Producer Crate: a marketplace-style store for music producers to buy & sell sound kits. We also have a podcast, a tutorial channel on Youtube, and a Discord community to network with other producers

-The Visual Crate: similar to The Producer Crate, except for photographers and videographers

-Stafford Beats: my music producer alias. I sell beats, offer mixing & mastering services, and mentorship/guidance to other business owners and music producers. I’ve also gone viral several times with songs I’ve produced

-Stafford Visuals: my photography alias. I offer photoshoots of all types, cover art, music videos, commercials, and more.

I stand out because I do so many things, and most of which are at a decent level of success. The quality remains similar in all of these ventures as well. My life goal is to disprove the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”. Instead, it should be “Patrick of all trades, master of many” lol.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The pursuit of happiness and feeling like I made an impact on the world is my #1 goal as a creative. I do not care about what that looks like materialistically because I am skilled & have passion for so many different things. As long as I do good for myself, my family, and the world, I am good.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I highly recommend reading $100M Leads and $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi. A lot of the skillsets taught in these books are relevant to nearly any creative.

Contact Info:

• Website: shotbystafford.com, theproducercrate.com, beatsbystafford.com, thevisualcrate.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/staffordbeats_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@StaffordBeats

Image Credits

Main image: @taylordidmypictures

Photo 1 (striped chair) – @moonlitepix

Photo 2, 4, and 5 (me holding camera & polaroids) – @paigeturnerphotos

Photo 3 (polaroid @ soundcloud HQ) – soundcloud