Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Beth Secrist. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Beth , appreciate you joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

There are a lot of things I learned from my parents, but I’d say some of the most important things I learned that have impacted my life and career are that they instilled a very strong work ethic, to be a person of my word–that if I made a commitment to do something, that I followed through and did it to the best of my ability, to be honest in all my dealings and to give more than you get. These are all principles I try to live by to this day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I began studying music in elementary school and had known from a pretty young age that I wanted to be a musician. However, I didn’t start piano lessons until I was 9, while most of my friends started a bit younger. I took to it pretty well and progressed pretty fast the first few years. I started playing as one of the church pianists around 12 and also started accompanying the school choirs around the same age and continued to do that throughout high school. My first paying job came when I was about 16 years old. One of the local schools hired me as their accompanist for their school musical–West Side Story and I was to play with about 10 members of the Buffalo Philharmonic–it was also my first experience playing with professional musicians (yes, I was super-nervous and they were wonderful to me). I had also started teaching at this time and continued to do so through high school and into college, where I continued to study (and majored in) music. After school, I worked in a variety of industries–none of which were music and for the next several years, I continued on the corporate path. Several years later, I was feeling restless, anxious, and probably a little depressed, I had lunch with a friend that encouraged me to go back to music. At first, I really didn’t believe it was a viable option–I wondered if I could really make a living in music. I had all the doubts, all the fears, worries, what if’s but the thing I had suddenly that I hadn’t ever had before was that I knew the only thing stopping me, was me. It hadn’t really occurred to me before that I was getting in my own way and that I wasn’t living my dream, because I hadn’t given myself permission to go for it. I had been letting fear stop me up to that point and all of a sudden I knew that all I needed to do was take one step–it didn’t need to be big or monumental–it just needed to be a step in the direction I wanted to go. The next day after having lunch with my friend, I decided I was done working in corporate and that from now on, my focus was building my music business. Side note: As a teenager, I had secretly dreamed of starting my own conservatory of music but thought that only the most talented, famous, and well-connected people could take on such an endeavor, so I kept it a secret and never told anyone.
Now, all these years later, I was going to rekindle the dream and turn it into a reality. Two weeks after having lunch with my friend, I had started working in music again and started the beginnings of my school. That was in 2008. In 2012, I started Maestro Music Institute and just a few days ago, we celebrated 11 years in business, have grown from teaching only piano to more than a dozen others and have nearly 20 teachers on staff. I also co-authored Maestro Music Methods and The Workbook with a colleague and dear friend, Emily Mesenbrink (now Keelan). One of the areas we specialize in is our preschool music program for the very young pianist–we start kids as young as 3 years old in piano lessons, and yes–they actually play in the very first lesson!
I’m most proud of our students, many of whom started with us at 3 and are still with us! To this day, the most fun part of this whole business is teaching students–watching them grow and reach their potential–especially when they often don’t know what they’re capable of. I can’t tell you how great it feels when you watch your students accomplish something they never thought possible–makes me think of when The Grinch’s heart grew 3 sizes–it’s something like that.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Well, I left a “stable” job to start my own business at a time when gas was nearing $5/gallon and I was driving all over Denver to teach on-site at schools, and churches. It was just me in the beginning and then I hired a teacher to help, and then another. Then, I rented space so students would start coming to us. A couple years later, we outgrew that space and I found a commercial space, which was really scary at the time. We were tripling our rent and it made me nervous–what if I couldn’t fill it? What if I couldn’t keep our teachers busy enough? But, we continued to grow and things were going well. We hired more teachers, expanded to more instrumental offerings, continued to work with local schools. Then 2020 happened and it was terrifying! No one had ever had to deal with something like this (in my lifetime)–we had never shut down the world and told people to stay home–again, I was terrified. The arts are notoriously the first on the educational chopping block, and the last to recover economically, One of the things that I believe contributes to this is that the arts are often presented as an “activity”–“extracurricular” instead of a valuable part of education. That’s another discussion for another day. So, in the early days of the pandemic, we offered virtual lessons as an option for anyone that wanted them. When the lockdowns were announced, we went totally virtual immediately and dialed it in pretty quickly and I really think that made a difference for us. Some of our students are still doing virtual when they realized how convenient it can be. We now have students in Europe and on the east coast still doing virtual lessons and it works great!

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

There are many! Recently, I was turned on to Mind Valley and have gone through a few of their courses online–it’s a tremendous resource–absolutely enormous library of courses you can take on a very wide variety of topics. I just started a course a few days ago through Robert Kiyosaki after reading Rich dad poor dad. The E-Myth Mastery was also excellent.
I listen to Joe Dispenza and Greg Brayden quite a bit too, and while their focuses aren’t really about building a business or entrepreneurship, they focus on helping people become better people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.maestromusicinstitute.com
• Instagram: maestromusicinstitute
• Facebook: MaestroMusicInstitute
• Youtube: @maestromusicinstitute6904
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/maestro-music-institute-arvada