We recently connected with Brooke Mackintosh and have shared our conversation below.

Brooke, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

How to make a living as a creative sharing highlights and stepping Stones.
Please utilize what’s necessary. I wrote a book for you.

My process of earning a living through music has been a lengthy journey on the road less traveled. Learning the hard way through failures and disappointments, all while continuing to follow the path of hopeful breadcrumbs left by the Universe, before finally realizing success is not a final destination, but a feeling.

I started at the bottom, as a child, singing like a bird whenever possible because I loved it. From campfires to the stage, gaining confidence in front of friends and family, developing my natural gifts, while learning as much about music from any source available, from the media to my dad, who played piano and guitar by ear, to every song and musician I have and will continue to encounter to this day.

As I have witnessed and experienced, once you become aware of your talent, the Universe reflects this confirmation by offering one of two paths. The quick path to stardom, which is terribly enticing, dresses well, is rich and charming, offers immediate rewards and is considered the crossroads, otherwise “selling your soul.” The other is the road less traveled, which is fairly simple, doesn’t come with immediate success or instructions, doesn’t start out dressed well at all and is humbling from the bottom to the top. It is a life full of lessons, living fully the journey, the soul path towards a dream. This path may take lifetimes, but it is the path I chose and continue to choose to this day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, as a young woman who understudied the paths of the Stars who found fame before me, I was not completely impervious to the idea that there was an obvious correlation and was guided towards not only a path that would take me off of my soul’s mission but one that would take my soul right along with it, dangling my hopes and dreams, like a golden carrot, leaving me in chains of my own making. I am forever grateful for those who have helped me pull myself out of that trap time and again. These are my people. My soul tribe.
Every step I took on that path could haunt me to this day. Thankfully, I have been able to utilize what I’ve learned in order to protect myself and anyone else I see headed towards a similar fate. Being enticed to not only sell themselves short, but to sidestep the road less traveled is to ultimately overstep the sole purpose of the dream itself, to learn, to grow, to realize your truth and to love and appreciate every moment of the journey.

The next step is the soulful battle between you and yourself, releasing the mistakes, missteps and failures, while rediscovering who you really are, what you are meant to do with your God given gifts and how you are meant to do it. Some call this The Dark Night of the soul, but this where the light shines on everything that must be shed in order to grow into the soulful warrior who not only realizes the dream is the map worth fighting for, but the journey itself, the treasure.

While rebuilding yourself from what seems like 6 feet under, creation is cathartic, so you write and play the shows that you are offered and accept the challenges and opportunities as they come and you grow and you learn. My first paid gig was $50 and all the sushi I could eat at a little place called Kirin Sushi in Point Loma, California. I was 25 years old when I could officially say I was making money as a musician, therefore I was now a professional musician. Granted, these types of gigs continued for years, until I realized that I would eventually have to turn down opportunities to play for less, to open the door for the opportunities that paid more.

This is yet, another crossroads where you must determine what you stand for, what you will and will not accept in exchange for your gifts and truly become aware of your worth as someone who has quite literally been through hell and back to get to where you are. This is a beautifully powerful realization.

The insane amount of courage it takes to turn down opportunities, while offering a solid counter offer, speaks volumes to the Universe as it in turn responds with your favored price range of opportunities. This step is something I find most people have to grow into. Learning to base your rates off of what and how you value your time, including the time that you have put into everything you’ve learned, to be the craftsman that you are to this day.

My journey has consisted of many pitfalls, side steps, oversteps, missteps, mistakes, downright failures and ultimate sacrifices.
In the midst of all the chaos, my soul’s purpose included becoming a mother and as beautifully perfect and wonderful it is, even that path came with the most excruciatingly delicate of challenges, I was meant to overcome, in order to be the independent woman I am today. Being a mother taught me what is most important of all. Unconditional love is sacrifice. In order to give my son what he needs, I had to give more than I thought I had to give, while learning to love myself again, through his unconditional love, while making sacrifices to ensure he has everything he needs to grow into someone he can be proud of. To accept the paths of failures as lessons learned and utilize them towards the successes of my future. To show him what it means to truly live your dream and love what you do, while doing what you must in order to give him a legacy worth receiving. It is the ultimate balance as a single mother. He is the priority, the dream is still the journey. Learning how to do both effectively and purposefully is a whole other story.
While our son was created in love, his father and I made music better than we could manage a family, so I was called home to enlist the help of my mom and started over with my 2-year-old son, in my home state of Utah.
Most musicians would not be anywhere if they did not have a solid support system and mine has been my mom and my son. Small, yet strong and effective.
I started from the rock bottom again, over-utilizing the kindness of my mother, financing babysitters, seeking opportunities, creating posters, promoting, networking and working up the ladder, as I did when I began my music career in San Diego. Regaining confidence takes time and experience, but I quickly set my sights towards abundance and networked and made my way as a solo artist, playing for the elite, in venues such as resorts and the finest dining establishments in the state and elsewhere.
This is where you will still find me, taking requests and continuously seeking opportunities that benefit my soul’s growth and purpose, while financially supporting my son and I.
While I have found a feeling of success, my dreams are still set to take my son on fabulous adventures and perform my cathartic catalog of songs in beautiful old theater houses, entertaining appreciative audiences around the world.

Apparently it’s time for another crossroads.

The dream, the map, the journey are all aligned, all I have to do now is follow the hopeful breadcrumbs and enjoy the ride.

Thank you for your time.
www.brookemackintosh.com

Brooke, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

What do I do and what sets me apart…
From a very young age, I learned that songs were a way of expressing and keeping my deepest feelings and secrets without actually telling them. I learned to write in a Universal language where every word means something to me, but also contains multiple meanings. So I will always remember what it was that sparked my creativity by the words, the music and the memory itself, while others can enjoy the results and take those words and use them in any way that they see fit. In other words, I write to relate, to relay a message and to remember.
My songs are my diary and my only key.

One of the other things that I believe sets me apart from others is having the courage, or some might call it audacity, to perform covers in a natural flow from my imperfect memory to the audience. I take requests and enjoy performing songs that I know enough by memory to look at the chords and the lyrics and relay it to the audience in a brand new way. The melody will almost always be the same, but the rhythm and technique at which I am capable of performing it for the first time ever, might be the way that I end up playing that particular cover for the rest of my career.
There’s just something really magical about performing something for the first time that only happens the first time. It’s a synchronicity, a divinely guided source that connects you to the song in an authentic way, but you have to be willing to try, to sometimes fail humbly and know that the crowd loves a great train wreck, if it really crashes and burns. And you’ve got to be able to laugh at your mistakes, while silently learning from them.

I am a one-woman band, who plays the guitar, sings with harmonies, plays percussion and takes requests between my Mountain Soul originals and I love what I do.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I guess the resilience part is that I’m still going. The single mother who’s still growing, learning, creating and working hard to continue living the dream, while honoring, protecting and fully enjoying the presence of my son and fostering his dreams as well.
I don’t think one interview can sum up the amount of resilience I’ve had to muster in this lifetime that feels like many.
However, I can tell you that no matter what step you take in whatever direction you decide to take it, you’re not alone in your desire to succeed. Your dream is a seed planted in you by the Universe to give you a sense of purpose and it too, wants to see you live the life you have dreamed.
My resilience is really just stubbornness and the tenacity to go after what I want, because for me, there is no other life worth living than the one that I was born to dream.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

What I wish is that society would focus on Arts and creativity in the school system as a serious subject and teach young creators how not only to be creative, but also how to make a living doing something they love to do.
Society could be more helpful by remembering how to fully appreciate and honor the art that so often brings them together.

Contact Info:

• Website: Http://www.brookemackintosh.com
• Instagram: @Themadamemackintosh, @brookemackintosh

Image Credits

I own the rights to these images.
Thanks to Thad Stott, Tim Flack, Dennis Anderson and Pearl Preis