We had the good fortune of connecting with Damon Zen Drummer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Damon, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I view my created career as The Zen Drummer as a huge risk. I am intentionally taking the risk of doing a passion based business based on the massive upside of a fulfilling life expressing my art, creativity. The fact that I have chosen the transformational yoga meditation realm makes it even more fulfilling. But also, spiritual value based businesses are even more difficult to monetize. Add to that, the music based businesses are difficult to monetize and you have a huge amount of risk when you invest time and money into this.

At the beginning of Covid, March of 2020 I had a decision to make. Towards the end of 2019 my business had been languishing somewhat from lack of attendance at events that I did set up as well as my own enthusiasm for continuing down this path of presenting myself as The Zen Drummer. Covid hit and I saw an opportunity. Many musicians and performers and yoga teachers, were lamenting the loss of live performance venues and turning to the virtual world. I saw that maybe my business could actually be sustainable. I see what I do as niche oriented to the max. A musician who specializes in transformational immersive experiences in the yoga meditation world. The beautiful thing about social marketing is that one can appeal to exactly the demographic they want. As one YouTuber said, the advertising tools for the entrepreneur are more powerful than they have ever been. I saw the virtual world as an opportunity to access a consumer in the world community at large.

Rather than arriving in a given city and hoping for the 20 people in that city who are interested in my niche, I could broadcast an event on the world “stage” and access even 5 of these people in each city all over the world for a given event, well, now, we are talking real numbers!

So, I took my a good chunk of my life savings and invested heavily in a studio quality Universal Audio Thunderbolt audio interface. I have bought the latest in iPad Pro and m1 Macbook computing. Manfrotto Tripods and the list goes on to 20,000 dollars or so in unleveling my vision both audio and video. I bought Sound Off Headphones to create live in person virtual experiences.

Though I prefer not to do things on credit, I took out a $5000 Covid Relief Small Business loan.

All of this during the pandemic, while I was only making unemployment money. I didn’t even know how to create these high quality experiences online. I watched as my fellow peers used their iPhones and what I perceived to be less than ideal quality videos while I spent my time buying gear software that I didn’t know how to use. I had future hopes of monetization while many of them were posting things that though less quality at least they were making money.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’ve learned that pursing a passion based career is so much more joyous AND painful than I ever imagined. That even the simplest up level or pivot is difficult. One thing I learned from my time as a monk in the ashrams of Self-Realization Fellowship is,”Every project will fight you.”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Red Rocks Amphitheater-

I had some musician friends in town and we went to Red Rocks during the day. It is open for hiking even the stage and amphitheater. We did a guerrilla performance on the Red Rocks stage!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Universal Audio The creator of the musical software and hardware that makes it possible for me to make the sounds that I hear in my head.

Website: www.zendrummer.com

Instagram: zendrummer8

Linkedin: Damon Grossman

Facebook: Damon Zen Drummer

Youtube: Damon The Zen Drummer

Other: https://vimeo.com/686844697 a link to a marketing video www.rhythmceremony.com the landing page to purchase tickets to my events.

Image Credits
by Drewlio Photo

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