Everybody likes it when things are easy. But it’s the challenges in our work and creativity (and pretty much everything else) that help us step into the extraordinary.

When I started writing songs and recording music in the basement during my high school years in the 80s, it was tough going. A crap tape recorder. A drum machine that cost a fortune and could barely keep a beat. A bunch of lame guitar pedals and an out of tune K Mart guitar. 

After pretending to do my homework, I’d fire up the gear and write and record until I couldn’t keep my eyes open or my mom yelled at me (whichever came first). I eventually slogged through nearly a hundred songs. The recording was always shit. You could kind of hear the washing machine in the background half the time. And the tape would eventually snap from rewinding so much.

Today you can make a recording a thousand times better on your phone. For real.

Back in the day, it was very difficult or expensive to record music. Fewer people did it. You had to press forward to make it happen. It was harder and it cost real money. But because I spent so much time banging my head against a lo-fi tape deck, when computer recording came around, I was ready to step it up and really rock into it.

The early days were still very difficult and expensive compared to today, but I was prepared. So when I upgraded my gear and really dove it, I soon won a major music award and had thousands of placements on film and tv. Win!

These days it is so easy to make music that everyone is doing it. Including people who would never have even gotten started back in the 80’s. And that’s great. Except when something is so easy, and everyone is doing it, the marketplace gets very crowded very fast. 

That’s why difficulties and challenges are your friends. These things set you apart from your peers. The challenges make you stand out. Why? Because most people will never take the difficult path. They’ll never push through the discomfort. They won’t take the time to do it right. Or well. But that’s where the magic is.

So next time you run into some friction in your writing or music or business or whatever, instead of freaking out and cursing the gods, thank them for giving you an opportunity to stand out. Because these kinds of things will thin out the playing field. And allow you to shine.