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

Brad, appreciate you joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I am happy as a business owner, and that comes from a place of holistic fulfillment. I never set out or had any desire to be an entrepreneur. If you’d asked me my thoughts on career goals at 18, I would have told you all I want is to travel around in a van and play music. The fact that 18 years later I’m a full-time entrepreneur in multiple areas – while still including my art – is something that always dawns on me when I think about the idea of a regular job and how I saw the world.

I think the distinction is that business is an extension of something expressive and fundamentally true to who I am. The tenants of doing good business learned and experienced over time have only helped me to better provide service to others with my skills, entertain and inspire others with my craft, and also to guide others with my experience. The most important aspect to me is not necessarily being a business owner, but rather that I am plying my trade, getting better every day, and seeing the results in myself and with those I impact. Embracing being an entrepreneur is a mere causality of that, an inevitable conclusion.

I remember I was at a birthday dinner for my family and my uncle was asking what I was doing for work. I said something like;

“Yeah, it changes every day. I am hosting music programs, playing gigs, web-designing, and doing social media for clients among other things.”

He said,” So…you’re an entrepreneur.”

I immediately said, “No” because I had still so much disdain for anything business related – mainly because of the type of corporate horror stories that I’d seen so often and the lack of culture.

He replied, “Let me get this straight. You don’t work for anyone. You get up each day and go out and try new ideas, creations, and services to make money and people are actually paying you for them?”

“Well…Yeah,” I said.

“Well…You’re an entrepreneur.”

I had never thought of it that way, and think that people try to fit into something because of a perceived benefit. I was about 27 when I had that conversation, and had never had a full-time job. To this day, I’ve never had a full-time job, and I can markedly say that the only time I’ve thought of doing anything else over the years was when it seemed like things would falter. That path seemed stable and safe, and if I had found a job that could fulfill those fundamental needs I believe in – sure I would have done it. I tried along the way and didn’t get any of the positions, which always led back to my natural state.

Figuring things out. If it doesn’t exist, create it. I know I am happier as a business owner because the reason why I am in business is based on that freedom to create, to constantly problem solve, and remove limitations for what can be done. That is who I am and why I became a business owner.

I couldn’t be happy in a “regular” job because I don’t know what that’s like and have way too many experiences in figuring things out and having the freedom to improve processes, operations, and strategies to wait for someone’s permission. I love it, and that’s important. It’s not for everyone. I’ve met business people who hate their day-to-day, and people who work regular jobs for years and can’t imagine themselves doing anything else.

The fundamental difference is not the career, but rather if that person is living into their passion and heart. Whether a business or a job, being able to say that is the true work in this life.

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 back background and context?

My work today is a layered collaboration of various skills that all comprise different mediums of storytelling. I was writing stories and poetry at 5-6 years old, and that honest inclination is something I’ve been blessed to explore and expand on in my life. I’ve played music since was 10 years old and gravitated towards journalism was I got into university, which gave me many skills in design. Combined with a general curiosity about people and cultures, is a really fundamental aspect that has been present my entire life, and I think through study abroad programs, my master’s work in international studies, and my current doctoral work in intercultural new media theories, has further enhanced a sense of service towards others and overall being a “people person’.

Griffin Collective, LLC was started almost 7 years ago and came out of the combination of all of this as I used those media and design skills to promote my concerts and novellas. I didn’t realize the value of those skills until people started asking if I could do the same for them. To this day, no matter what industry clients are from, the most satisfying thing is when we have solved the problem for them. It can be a new website, a resume, an advertising design, a logo, or anything within our host of services. The service for payment aspect is a part of business, but fundamentally, I always want that to stand on the foundation that the customer has been made whole and in a better position than before they met us. That’s something I’m working to transmit to our team in addition to skills and training.

The artistry has come full circle in all this. Griffin got started on the backbone of being a professional musician, artist, and host, but as business grew, I did that less and less. Now my artistic works are standing on the shoulders of success as an entrepreneur with me investing back into new projects and certainly leveraging all the developed digital and content skill gained over the years. I keep the same mentality with my art as I do with providing digital services, although the payoff and application are much different. People send me videos of them having a party or driving to one of my songs, or message me which one of the songs on a recent project is their favorite. When I see someone swaying their head or tapping their feet at a show, that’s what it’s about. There is this ongoing dance between humility and empowerment, and when the balance is right you can really inspire and entertain people – and even yourself.

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

I mentioned earlier a time when I had more or less been on the fringe of the arts. I had become disenfranchised with music specifically because I got tired of dealing with the bar mentality as it related to gigging. I took it out on the craft rather than the application, actually had intended to quit in 2018. However, when I got back to Europe – guitarless – I realized how much I missed it. It wasn’t the crafts’ fault, but rather how I was applying and monetizing it.

It was easy to be upset because with business taking off the way it did – and being fully remote since 2016, the physical overhead associated with setting up for shows constantly on location was nonsensical by comparison.
I was sitting on my ass at home or cafes making multiples of what I did as a musician with less stress, lower touch communication, and less physical involvement. Still, that is not the fault of the craft.

I was really taking storytelling in artistic mediums for granted – half-hearted, infrequent gigs, unfinished projects collecting digital dust on hard drives. That was until I had an accident with a cigar cutter that completely severed a tendon and nerve in my finger. Everything stopped. I couldn’t work out, I was only able to use my left hand to type and design websites and was faced with a situation I had never been faced with before.

Would I be able to play guitar again? And if so, how would I play?

3 months of physical therapy gave me a lot of time to slow down and think about everything. I’d been taking a lot for granted, but definitely, my skills as an artist which had been a part of me for 25 years – but rarely got the attention it deserved compared to other things. Lessons in humility and gratitude for what I have and what I am here to do were daily reminders while struggling to put pants on and massaging scar tissue for 3 months.

That was Jan 9th, 2021. I played an open mic in June 2021. I cried in the bathroom before and after the 2-3 songs I did. Since then I’ve realized a single and a 6 song EP, signed a music consultancy agreement, and a sub-publishing agreement, write songs for myself and others and perform. I don’t feel as well in the finger and the bend is not as flexible or dexterous as the others. I get occasional flare-ups of nerve pain and have anxiety about doing any intense activity. I spent the first 25 years playing the instrument with a completely different hand, but the one I have had for the last two years is the truest one. It’s grateful, humble, intentional, and motivated to create. It’s one of the best things to ever happen to me and I am a better musician and person because of it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think there is a similar struggle that non-creatives AND creatives struggle with. Both can struggle with viewing the other as having more value or capability, which I don’t think the thing is fundamentally true. I learned to be more organized and business oriented because it helped harness my applications, but my natural state is as a creative. It hasn’t and doesn’t stop people from looking at something like a concert or even certain parts of my lifestyle with some sense of romanticism. I think that the general public tends to view artistry in an exalted manner because it’s more visible. There are no CPAs on stage doing taxes in Madison Square Garden – for example. (Although that sounds kinda cool…)

I think that a culture of romanticized visibility can inspire people to devalue where and who they are. When you look behind the curtain, creatives are still just people. Good, bad, and all of the in-between. I’ve had situations where people expected me to be a certain way simply because of being creative, and when they got to know me it was a bit too real for them. A lover thinking I would be as flowery and emotional as my songs in person, or a business associate being shocked that I can’t stand to be late for engagements. We build ideas around the other side of the creative spectrum instead of just getting to know people.

In the same breath, that was a lesson for me from the other side. I know artists. Trust me. There are some things that creatives definitely have a deserved reputation for, and we even laugh and joke about them amongst ourselves. However, when I was getting more into business and working to build a business, I made the same mistake. I felt so insecure going into board meetings (even as a member of management) because people we were meeting with came in with suits, clean cut, briefcases – basically what you would expect of a board meeting – while I maybe had a blazer, never cut my hair, and have 20 dollars to my name. I felt like I was clawing to try to be something like that image I saw and had such an idea of what that meant, but a lot of times when you really got past that meeting and saw how those suits behaved – their character, their intentions, their hearts – they might as well have been wearing rags. For everyone who was a non-creative of poor character, greed, and deception, I can trade you a creative who works and claws to make tips as a musician and bartender who’d drop everything and every dime to help someone.

And vice versa.

People aren’t always what they seem at first even despite what generalizations may hold truth. Understanding a journey should start with you first, and its best we strive to show as much grace, compassion, and patience as we can to truly get to know others and their struggle – creative or not.

Contact Info:

• Website: bradbasker.com griffincollective.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradbasker/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VanBasker/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradbasker
• Other: https://linktr.ee/bradbasker