Hello from the hospital

Welcome to the weekly newsletter, with a little different perspective

Put the Kleenex down, I’m not dying.

…. but yes, the tabloid rumors are true…. I am in the hospital as I write this.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve dealt with a bizarre case of pneumonia that has led to heart complication called something like:

• “pair-uh-car-dee-ul ee-few-shun” (fluid around my heart)

Which has led to another heart complication that sounds something like:

• “pair-ee-car-die-tus” (inflammation of my heart sack)

Translation: my chest hurts like an absolute b****.

Now, I know what you’re thinking….

“Michael, I subscribed to this newsletter for business tips, not for you to phonetically spell out heart conditions and tell your sob story."

And you’re absolutely right… which is why today I’m sharing:

THE MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS TIP I’VE LEARNED SO FAR.

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The Art of Letting Go.

Nearly everything we do in our lives is to try and create a sense of control over the world.

We want predictability. We want safety. We want assurances. We want stability. We want routine. We want control, control, control, and more control.

And there’s nowhere that the idolization of control is more obvious than in business. Every business guru you see online is teaching you how to manipulate emotions, make your ads more persuasive, create predictable systems, automate tasks, de-risk your revenue streams, etc… etc…

But what no one ever really talks about is what to do when a whole bunch of fluid surrounds your heart and threatens to stop it from beating.

I’ve spent the last two years doing everything I can to get my business, MAD Records, off the ground. I’ve brought on fantastic business partners (hello Rob Schustack), made horrible mistakes (hello overpriced office space I rented because I thought it was cool), built an amazing community (hello MAD fam), and a whole lot more.

And every night I’d pace around the house thinking……. thinking…… thinking about how I can exert more control and ensure that everything would work as intended. I’d wake up a 2am to change my son’s diaper and I’d be working out marketing funnels in my head. Or I’d be eating breakfast with my wife and puzzling out how to improve our onboarding sequence for our community.

…. and then I got sick, and suddenly none of it seemed to matter.

When you’re sick in a hospital bed and a nurse tells you that you have to sh** in a metal pan in a cabinet, you realize pretty quickly that whatever illusion of control you created is simply that…. an illusion.

Simply put, none of the stupid FUNNELS work if my effing heart doesn’t work… and that’s something that is pretty much out of control.

And more importantly, when you’re sick it’s hard to care about your FUNNELS when all you really want is to get back home and have breakfast with your wife and kid again.

So over the last few months, I’ve been a bit of a passenger in my own business. I’ve been able to do what I needed to ensure the business chugs along, but I’ve had to sideline myself in a lot of scenarios to deal with my heart.

I’ve had to rest, recover, and most importantly, let go.

And thankfully I was able to do it, because I’ve practiced letting go quite a bit in my business.

Letting go is something that few “business people” talk about… because it crosses over into a bit of the woo-woo, spiritual world…. but I’m not afraid of going there so….

…. here we go.

I’ve argued for years that building a business is a spiritual practice. To build a business is to literally pull an idea out the ether through sheer will and vision…. it’s beautiful.

But to pull an idea out of the ether and make it real means you must operate in a world you can’t fully see, with full conviction that it does, in fact, exist… and that you are capable of bringing something back from that realm.

And you’ll hear the business gurus tiptoe around this idea by talking about the importance of your “conviction”, or your “hustle”, or the “grind”…

But all of these words are just macho substitutes for the real word: belief.

If you’re building a business, an artist career, anything really… you need to have a fundamental belief that it will, at some point, exist. You must believe that you are capable of pulling that idea out from the ether and materializing it in the real world.

That belief needs to be the organizing principle for your actions, and every decision you make needs to be through the lens of belief in that project. And while that sounds obvious, you’d be surprised how difficult it is not to make decisions out of fear and doubt.

And when moments arise like this sickness, it becomes incredibly hard not to make decisions out of fear and doubt.

So how do you maintain belief when you have a fundamental obstacle that is truly out of your control?

You let go.

You have to trust that your belief, your intention, and your vision has already set in motion that which needs to be set in motion…. and that whatever it is you’re trying to pull from the ether is already moving towards you.

(Again, I know this is woo-woo… but someone needs to talk about this because it’s something every business person experiences and rarely shares.)

You need to accept that building anything requires belief even when the answers aren’t obvious… or even when things look incredibly bleak.

You need to trust that your desired reality is moving towards you as a result of that belief, even if you can’t actually see it happening with your human eyeballs.

You need to let go.

I started MAD Records when my wife was ~6 months pregnant. I never ran my own business, had no clue if it would work, and I almost immediately ran into existential problems with the business right from the start.

There were many moments where the path forward seemed invisible… where I had to practice letting go and taking the next step through sheer belief that the path would emerge before my foot hit the ground.

And at every turn, it has.

And so now, in this stuffy hospital bed that makes me sweat, with a belly fully of watery jell-o… I’m letting go once again.

I’m gonna be fine…. the business is going to be fine too. Thankfully I’ve been through enough moments like this that I’ve managed to get pretty good at letting go.

But to you, dear reader, I ask….

What do you believe in? And have you stopped building that thing because the road isn’t obvious right now? Or because the fear and doubt has gotten so intense that it seems prudent to stop altogether?

If so, I totally get it.

But that battle between fear and belief, the visible and invisible, is the determining factor in achieving what you want.

And you can call me crazy (I am), or you can say I’m over-medicated (I am)….

But at a certain point you need to let go, trust that the path will rise to meet you, and move forward with belief no matter how scared you are.

I certainly will be…

…. as soon as they stop making me pee in little jars.

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Thanks to everyone who has reached out with kind words, prayers, good vibes, or whatever metaphysical well wishes you believe in.

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Long live good music 🫡⚔️

Michael from MAD Records