We caught up with the brilliant and insightful MIguel Antonio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi MIguel, thanks for joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

Each path we choose in our lives presents its own unique challenges and struggles. Pursuing music on my own terms has been a journey of choosing the struggles I want instead of having them handed to me by someone else.

I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with music. I’ve quit the journey several times. I would become overwhelmed, throw in the towel, and decide to simply go after money and stability.
The most recent time I quit I truly thought I was done. I was going to “grow up” and get a real job. I wanted to use all the skills I’d acquired as a band leader over the years to step into the business world to find stability and consistent money flow. As a married man with four boys and a house, I felt like it was the prudent thing to do.

I spent time learning LinkedIn, building a resume, reaching out to the networks I built across the nation, finding a way to market myself, and going to interviews to rebrand myself as a marketer and leader. I ultimately landed a job as a marketing/content creator at a landscape company that also cracked the door open for me to potentially buy into the business long-term.

This new role propelled me into market research, building new networks, and learning a whole new industry. But, it was coupled with a great amount of fieldwork. The days became brutal and as I stepped into the part of the business I potentially would buy into things grew even tougher. Learning the machines, dealing with them when they broke down or when I broke them, and pushing against different leadership styles in the company took its toll.

It all came to a head for me on a particularly brutal day in the field and I knew it was over. I called my wife and said, “everything has its $!@#$ to deal with. Everything is hard. I’d rather deal with all the $!@#$ of something I love than deal with it every day on something that makes me miserable” My wife laughed and explained she knew that I would always go back to music and simply let me have the space to work it out for myself. She knew that’s where I was supposed to be and what brought me joy despite the struggles. That day set things in motion to no longer look back.

Do I enjoy being an artist?

Absolutely.

Is it hard?

Absolutely.

I’m just at a place where I’d rather choose my own struggles to build the art and life that I love on my own terms. I get to create things that connect with and impact others. And I get to invite my own kids into the process to hopefully inspire them towards carving out their own path in life. That’s worth the inconsistent revenue, self-doubt, long hours away from home, and a to-do list that never really ends.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

The day we released our recent single “At Least You Tried” I received messages from listeners on how the song was impacting them. One friend who is a musician and entrepreneur as well texted, “Just listened to the new song and I’m sitting in my car right now with tears in my eyes”.

The lyrics ask the listener;

What if your book has not been written?

What if you have one more song left?

What if you have what it takes?

What if you have what’s been missing?

What if there’s someone who needs your words, needs your melody?

It was amazing to see that this song is already impacting others who are on a journey to build great things with their lives.

It’s stories like this that keep me and us as a band moving forward.

Our band is on a mission to become an internationally touring original band that impacts others. We hope that can be seen pouring out of our songs, live shows, and online content. We get excited to think that maybe this song and others could propel fans to create their own music, write their own books or start their own businesses ultimately putting more great things into the world.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A year and a half ago I almost died running a 30-mile ultra-marathon at the end of June. I finished the 30 miles and walked into my house on a runner’s high. The high slowly dissipated and that’s when things got weird. Suddenly I could barely speak slurring my words. I fell to the ground and was unable to move. My wife called the ambulance, I got to the hospital and everything went black. When I finally woke up the next day the doctors explained that I almost died. I had put myself into Rhabdomyolysis where my muscles began to deteriorate releasing toxins into the body causing my kidneys to shut down. I had also overhydrated depleting my body of electrolytes causing my brain to stop functioning properly as well. I literally almost ran myself to death.

My doctors would go on to break down my training program. And it was a simple case of over-training. I had just run a marathon two weeks before the 30-mile run and already had on the calendar a 41-mile run just two weeks later (which I did not do). I was also still scheduled to race an Olympic distance Triathlon and then on to the Full Iron-man in California.

The doctors explained that if I didn’t want to die I would have to find a new approach to training.

I began to value rest and recovery and yoga. I had to work smart not just hard and understand better methods of training. I discovered that you can actually go further faster in endurance racing with less work if you are doing the right type of work during your training sessions. The strategy was the most important part and the pros weren’t training like I was. And that’s why they could win. They actually built their bodies up instead of tearing them down.

I learned a lot of lessons that week. But, the most applicable here is the lesson of don’t run yourself to death. The greats in any field don’t simply work harder. They think deeper and spend time formulating better strategies. They have clear minds to make better decisions and healthy bodies that can keep up when their business is thriving.

Ultimately I’ve had to unlearn my tendency to just push through no matter what. This has allowed me to take a step back and find better options that bring more joy to me and those around me as well as move the music and the business forward quicker.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Once on tour, our van broke down in Oklahoma City, on our way to the next show. We tweeted asking if anyone knew someone who could help. Within five minutes we received a message from a fan saying her husband fixes cars and they live nearby. Within an hour he was in the parking lot of Walmart at 10 pm fixing our van for us and getting back on the road. It was an incredible experience to see the connections we made via social media.

Social media is such an integral part of what we do. It was one of the key components that propelled us to the Middle East and back and gained #66 on the iTunes alternative charts as an independent band. But it has become so much more than just “social media”. It’s a true connection with real people. They have been invested in us and we in them. We took a break as a band for a few years and now we are working to rebuild that same community connection we had previously.

But, truth be told I was super skeptical about social media early on. The band’s drummer Daniel Cole is brilliant at social media. When we first hired him he asked if he could try some things online for the band on Facebook and Twitter. I told him I thought it was a waste of time (😂😂) but if he wanted to he could.

Fast forward to six months later and he was building us a small following. I noticed people were interacting with us from all over the world. That’s when we invested in coaching to learn how to execute social media even better. Over the years that cultivated a following of people from all over the world willing to buy our music, share our content and yes even fix our van in the middle of the night.

Contact Info:

• Website: runwithitband.net
• Instagram: instagram.com/runwithitband
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Runwithitbandoffical
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justthemiguel/
• Twitter: twitter.com/runwithitband
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2h0v2hcUbiKIolNFqBsAfX?si=rj25UwhHScSNVfGeojkmrg

Image Credits
Ben Mcbee (main photo with us on barber chairs and rooftop photo) Katharine Kitty LeClair (photos with “freedom Fest” banner in back) other photos are in house.