We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amick Cutler. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amick below.
Amick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?
As a creative, there are many facets that Embody that label. A lot of my creative friends can do many things well but typically we only make a living with one or none of those things. I chose to make a living in the design industry, however my heart and soul is music. I remember one time sitting across the table from a new friend and business mogul. He was asking me what I like to do aside from work. I was in the middle of helping him brand a new venture and we were just catching up on life. I was reluctant to answer because sometimes when you ramble on about something you love but aren’t really pursuing it, you can kinda sound pretentious but I proceeded. I told him about my history of musicianship and songwriting and how I always wanted to go all out to record an instrumental album. Rarely do songwriters waste that kind of money on a record that doesn’t really say anything lyrically but I always wanted to try because I’m inspired by instrumental music personally. He said casually, “you should do it!” To which I replied, “I’d love to, but I’ve added it up and I don’t have the $50k to do that, but maybe someday” He smiled and said, “no, you should do it”…then gave me the $50k to do just that. It was pretty unreal, and definitely the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Months later I flew out to Oregon and spent 2 weeks recording that record. It was pretty amazing
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was always a little different. Slightly OCD, a dreamer, and constantly created from the age of 5. I tried to go to college. Dropped out 4 times to earn a design degree. It never happened. One of my art professors even let me teach the courses to make me come to class. It was fun for a while but once I realized I was paying him to do his job I quickly was bold enough to drop out for good and try to make it on my own. I worked probably 30 different jobs in the course of 4 years to pay the bills, all the while doing as much design work as I could for free. Back in those days every application for a design job had the pre-requisite “4 years experience or a degree in design” so my goal was to do so much work to build a portfolio that they never asked for proof of a degree. By the time I got married I still had not landed a full-time design job but I was dedicated to make my first year of marriage about her so I took whatever job. We just had one of the worst hurricanes in Pensacola, Florida so half of the businesses were closed and there were no jobs hiring. It was pretty dismal. The only job that had an opening was pest control. Pretty much the worst experience haha. I almost quit many times because of so many experiences as you can imagine but I hung in there for my wife. It wasn’t long after I got a call from an audio company I really wanted to work for. They said my resume was on file and they had an opening as a receptionist answering phones. I took the job immediately. I didn’t want to answer phones but it was a foot in the door and I wouldn’t be hauling anymore dead opossums out from under houses. That single decision changed everything. My first day answering phones I would have to hand new customers collateral as they walked inside. I noticed it all looked horrible so in my free time i redesigned it all, printed them and replaced the old with the new. Within 1 month I was promoted to the design team. 6 months after that I was promoted to design manager. A year later I was over the entire marketing department, web and catalog development. The next couple years gave me enough relationships professionally and more than enough professional work in my portfolio to go out on my own. I left and started my own business and never looked back.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
My entire professional career I’ve pivoted. It’s definitely been hard in seasons but it’s also the only way I’ve been able to keep going. Sometimes I’ve pivoted for family, sometimes I’ve pivoted for opportunity, and sometimes I had to pivot for my own mental health. There may be many others that do what you do, but you’re the only one that gets a say in how you do it. And boy do I do it differently. I never did any of this to build an empire, to get rich or fulfill ambition. I did it because it’s who I am…I can’t not do it…and I need to provide for family. How that happens changes as often as the wind because if not, your quality of life suffers. And what’s life at all without enjoying it. I remember learning as much as I could when social media came out to maximize growth for my business. It gave me anxiety and I hated everything. What did I do? I deleted every social account and told every client” I don’t do that…sorry”. Yeah I took a hit but I still always had enough work to provide without it. On 3 different occasions I grew my businesses to a point where we struggled as a family. The pivot wasn’t to make it work. Instead one time we shut it down, packed up and moved to North Carolina. Another time we shut it down, sold everything, moved into a camper and traveled with our kids for 3 straight years. The other time, I took a sabbatical and never went back. Guess what? In all those insane situations I never stopped designing and doing music, I never stopped providing and I absolutely never regretted it. Pivoting is all about going a different direction and doing what is necessary to keep moving. If you’re a decently talented person with any amount of work ethic you will always figure it out….but you will never have that opportunity with family again if you ruin it. I just turned 43 and had a mid-life crisis meltdown. I just wasn’t ok anymore and there were a lot of reasons why. The answer for us was to figure out how to live again. So I left work in July, my wife took over and I never went back. I sat on the porch and wrote music for months until I felt better. Then once I was better going back felt like putting on old shackles so instead of doing that again I’m now doing music full time because that’s the most natural thing in this season. Why muster up “the courage” to design again when I’ve written over 1,000 songs that just flowed out like water. Once again, a necessary pivot for the quality of life.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
After that amazing friend gave me $50k to record a record I ended up writing and recording a lot more. I came up with these marketing plans to leverage social media and influencers etc but in the end it felt so burdensome. I mean you spend all this time and money on your craft and hope to recoup your investment but it’s also debilitating. So I made the choice instead to burn all my social media accounts and never promote anything. Haha sounds ludicrous right? But that’s what I did. Months later I received a random email of a guy who said he heard my music on Spotify. That was laughable because I’m pretty sure it said “monthly listeners 0” but anyways he asked to license some of my music. I said yes, and he uploaded my songs on his platform. 6 months after that I had forgotten about it and woke up around Christmas time (when we needed the money) to an email that said. “Thanks for a great year, here’s $10,000 of earnings for sync licenses this quarter”
I was floored. It was the confirmation I needed that unconventional is ok. It’s more than ok. It’s actually what makes me, me. And even I can have success if I stay true to who I am.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amickcutler.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amickcutlermusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AmickCutlerMusic
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/amick-cutler
- Other: https://www.chiefwild.com/ https://music.apple.com/us/artist/amick-cutler/881049186 https://open.spotify.com/artist/7zjVm2iitZTTKIEfDXH0wG
Image Credits
Blake Jones