my dad tells the story that when I was
about 40 years old one night after
dinner past my bedtime I went to him and
asked daddy can you make me a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich with it being
that late and the fact that we’d already
eaten he said no so I asked again daddy
can you make me a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich and again he said no so I
asked over and over and over and over
again and over and over and over again
he said no until finally he became so
frustrated and so aggravated that he did
what some parents would do in that case
especially in those days and he gave me
a little spanking so I cried and I cried
and I cried and I swiped the last tear
for my I walked back in the room daddy
can make me a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich he was shocked he never seen
anything like that from a kid and he got
up and he made me the sandwich and he
told himself from that day he knew that
whatever challenges were in my life I
will follow through one step at a time
to accomplish whatever I had my mind set
on I stand before you today as a
musician composer international touring
performer bandleader and I really wanted
to talk about music today I really did
but then I thought a lot of you out
there have ideas that you haven’t
started on yet or projects that you’re
working on now or even projects that you
feel like you finished already but I
like to think about what happens when we
push ourselves beyond the point that we
think that we’ve already pushed
ourselves and that’s something I like to
call following through the follow
through just like I did with the
sandwich so whether you’re learning
Chinese or planting a garden or wanting
a start of business or wanting to become
a touring musician I imagine the concept
of following through as a hallway an
imaginary hallway with doors all along
the sides and these doors represent
chances and opportunities career
highlights and project landmarks
just like any hallway how do you get
from one door to the next well it’s all
the expressions ago one foot in front of
the other one step at a time for those
of us that are fortunate to be able to
walk there might be a seemingly
insignificant concept right but as those
doors represent chances and
opportunities each of those steps as
small as they might seem are really the
foundation and the building blocks of
what it means to follow through so steps
like taking the time to educate yourself
about the latest innovations in your
field or reaching out to the Masters of
your craft to pick their brains and see
how they do things or even finding the
courage within yourself to go to those
auditions and take those classes this
imaginary hallway of following through
has his way of teaching us things about
life in 2004 I met the great saxophone
player Jeff coffin who was touring with
bailiff Fleck and now towards with Dave
Matthews Band he’s an inspiration to me
in a musical hero to a lot of us and I
got to meet him and become friends with
them around the same time I was working
on my debut album how cool would it be
to get jeff coffin to be on my album so
I reached out to him and he was
interested so I got my friends together
I wrote some new music we went to the
studio we recorded the tracks and then
we sent everything to Jeff for him to at
his part man it’s gonna be so awesome to
have Jeff coffin playing my music so now
we wait one day goes by no response
another day goes by no response and
finally I get an email back from Jeff he
says Jonathan I believe you can do
better than this
you always have to make sure you put
your best foot forward and I’m sorry to
say but I cannot put my name on this as
you can imagine right now I was
devastated I thought my career was over
I thought I’d never be good enough to
work with those musicians that I admired
so much I went to sleep that night
deflate it and defeated and I woke up
the next morning and read that email
again
johnathan he always have to put your
best foot forward so I gave it a shot I
worked on my writing skills I practiced
my instrument more I surrounded myself
with the top musicians and the best
recording engineers I tried it again
happy to say it worked
Jeff Kaufman played on my second album
he played in my third album and from
time to time he even comes in to be a
special guest with my band even till
this day I don’t know that’s a pretty
cool name drop we got to hang out in
Amsterdam with Dave Matthews you know
fun times but just like the opening
story with the peanut butter and jelly
sandwich I took the beating I got myself
up I took those steps one by one to
follow through with what I had in my
head this imaginary hallway following
through has a way of taking us to places
that we never thought we’d be of course
I never thought I’d be doing concerts in
China and the Czech Republic but I don’t
mean geographically earlier this year I
was scheduled to do a performance at a
special-needs school in Taiwan and I’d
never done a concert in that setting
before so to be honest I was kind of
nervous just hoping that my music would
connect with this new audience here we
are halfway across the world still
having to push ourselves further and so
we started the concert and you know what
the kids loved it
they really did there was even
percussion and other drums in the front
of the room for the kids to join in and
they felt inspired but in that room
there was a seven-year-old kid in a
wheelchair and he was in this wheelchair
because he never had the desire within
himself to even try to walk and as our
concert continued and there’s all the
kids were having a good time this kid
turns to his mother true story and says
I want to try to walk today the mother
had never been able to get a response
from him like that ever and so with the
tears streaming down her face and the
middle of our concert she assisted her
kid making his first steps at the age of
7 when I started this path
I never imagined that I’d be part of
something so incredible as that and I
walked away feeling really fortunate to
see firsthand that if I push myself it
can impact someone else to push
themselves further than they ever
thought they would be able to but this
imaginary hallway of following through
that I have in my head it’s not really a
comfortable place just like a hallways
in your house it’s not meant to be a
place to settle we just use it to get
from one door to the next right and
believe me to get here today it’s been a
pretty uncomfortable flat uncomfortable
path right out of college I had a lot of
random jobs I was a dishwasher
landscaping I cleaned vacation homes and
one time I got this random job on the
internet cleaning gutters on houses just
to make a little extra money but the
whole time I knew that those were just
step by step
progression on my path so my last real
job that I had was the five-year stents
at a factory that may affect her CDs and
DVDs they wanted to offer me a full-time
position with arrays’ and benefits
sounds comfortable but I knew that it
was gonna stop me from taking those
steps for it on my path and when the
time came for me to put in my two weeks
notice to quit
finally they offered me a position where
I could make my own schedule and work
whenever I wanted to sounds comfortable
yeah I know it would have been awesome
to have that job with those benefits and
not go through the struggles and the
beatings of trying to pursue a career as
a touring musician but just like the
opening story I knew that there could be
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on
the other side of that spanking so now
that I’ve painted this picture now that
I painted this picture in your head of
this imaginary hallway of following
through I want you all to think about
that with whatever ideas and projects
you have right now I want you to think
about all those people that inspire you
the most they all know that this hallway
is infinite and they all push the
selves as much as they can even still as
successful as we see them they’re still
putting themselves I’ve seen what
happens when I push myself and that’s
enough for me to get up every morning
and work on my projects and even work
late into the night often times so
whether you’re learning to play the
piano or learning Russian or have the
next great business idea I want you all
to imagine that hallway take those steps
one after the other endure those
spankings that life has for you and get
your peanut butter and jelly sandwich
further down the path thank you
[Applause]
you
about 40 years old one night after
dinner past my bedtime I went to him and
asked daddy can you make me a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich with it being
that late and the fact that we’d already
eaten he said no so I asked again daddy
can you make me a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich and again he said no so I
asked over and over and over and over
again and over and over and over again
he said no until finally he became so
frustrated and so aggravated that he did
what some parents would do in that case
especially in those days and he gave me
a little spanking so I cried and I cried
and I cried and I swiped the last tear
for my I walked back in the room daddy
can make me a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich he was shocked he never seen
anything like that from a kid and he got
up and he made me the sandwich and he
told himself from that day he knew that
whatever challenges were in my life I
will follow through one step at a time
to accomplish whatever I had my mind set
on I stand before you today as a
musician composer international touring
performer bandleader and I really wanted
to talk about music today I really did
but then I thought a lot of you out
there have ideas that you haven’t
started on yet or projects that you’re
working on now or even projects that you
feel like you finished already but I
like to think about what happens when we
push ourselves beyond the point that we
think that we’ve already pushed
ourselves and that’s something I like to
call following through the follow
through just like I did with the
sandwich so whether you’re learning
Chinese or planting a garden or wanting
a start of business or wanting to become
a touring musician I imagine the concept
of following through as a hallway an
imaginary hallway with doors all along
the sides and these doors represent
chances and opportunities career
highlights and project landmarks
just like any hallway how do you get
from one door to the next well it’s all
the expressions ago one foot in front of
the other one step at a time for those
of us that are fortunate to be able to
walk there might be a seemingly
insignificant concept right but as those
doors represent chances and
opportunities each of those steps as
small as they might seem are really the
foundation and the building blocks of
what it means to follow through so steps
like taking the time to educate yourself
about the latest innovations in your
field or reaching out to the Masters of
your craft to pick their brains and see
how they do things or even finding the
courage within yourself to go to those
auditions and take those classes this
imaginary hallway of following through
has his way of teaching us things about
life in 2004 I met the great saxophone
player Jeff coffin who was touring with
bailiff Fleck and now towards with Dave
Matthews Band he’s an inspiration to me
in a musical hero to a lot of us and I
got to meet him and become friends with
them around the same time I was working
on my debut album how cool would it be
to get jeff coffin to be on my album so
I reached out to him and he was
interested so I got my friends together
I wrote some new music we went to the
studio we recorded the tracks and then
we sent everything to Jeff for him to at
his part man it’s gonna be so awesome to
have Jeff coffin playing my music so now
we wait one day goes by no response
another day goes by no response and
finally I get an email back from Jeff he
says Jonathan I believe you can do
better than this
you always have to make sure you put
your best foot forward and I’m sorry to
say but I cannot put my name on this as
you can imagine right now I was
devastated I thought my career was over
I thought I’d never be good enough to
work with those musicians that I admired
so much I went to sleep that night
deflate it and defeated and I woke up
the next morning and read that email
again
johnathan he always have to put your
best foot forward so I gave it a shot I
worked on my writing skills I practiced
my instrument more I surrounded myself
with the top musicians and the best
recording engineers I tried it again
happy to say it worked
Jeff Kaufman played on my second album
he played in my third album and from
time to time he even comes in to be a
special guest with my band even till
this day I don’t know that’s a pretty
cool name drop we got to hang out in
Amsterdam with Dave Matthews you know
fun times but just like the opening
story with the peanut butter and jelly
sandwich I took the beating I got myself
up I took those steps one by one to
follow through with what I had in my
head this imaginary hallway following
through has a way of taking us to places
that we never thought we’d be of course
I never thought I’d be doing concerts in
China and the Czech Republic but I don’t
mean geographically earlier this year I
was scheduled to do a performance at a
special-needs school in Taiwan and I’d
never done a concert in that setting
before so to be honest I was kind of
nervous just hoping that my music would
connect with this new audience here we
are halfway across the world still
having to push ourselves further and so
we started the concert and you know what
the kids loved it
they really did there was even
percussion and other drums in the front
of the room for the kids to join in and
they felt inspired but in that room
there was a seven-year-old kid in a
wheelchair and he was in this wheelchair
because he never had the desire within
himself to even try to walk and as our
concert continued and there’s all the
kids were having a good time this kid
turns to his mother true story and says
I want to try to walk today the mother
had never been able to get a response
from him like that ever and so with the
tears streaming down her face and the
middle of our concert she assisted her
kid making his first steps at the age of
7 when I started this path
I never imagined that I’d be part of
something so incredible as that and I
walked away feeling really fortunate to
see firsthand that if I push myself it
can impact someone else to push
themselves further than they ever
thought they would be able to but this
imaginary hallway of following through
that I have in my head it’s not really a
comfortable place just like a hallways
in your house it’s not meant to be a
place to settle we just use it to get
from one door to the next right and
believe me to get here today it’s been a
pretty uncomfortable flat uncomfortable
path right out of college I had a lot of
random jobs I was a dishwasher
landscaping I cleaned vacation homes and
one time I got this random job on the
internet cleaning gutters on houses just
to make a little extra money but the
whole time I knew that those were just
step by step
progression on my path so my last real
job that I had was the five-year stents
at a factory that may affect her CDs and
DVDs they wanted to offer me a full-time
position with arrays’ and benefits
sounds comfortable but I knew that it
was gonna stop me from taking those
steps for it on my path and when the
time came for me to put in my two weeks
notice to quit
finally they offered me a position where
I could make my own schedule and work
whenever I wanted to sounds comfortable
yeah I know it would have been awesome
to have that job with those benefits and
not go through the struggles and the
beatings of trying to pursue a career as
a touring musician but just like the
opening story I knew that there could be
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on
the other side of that spanking so now
that I’ve painted this picture now that
I painted this picture in your head of
this imaginary hallway of following
through I want you all to think about
that with whatever ideas and projects
you have right now I want you to think
about all those people that inspire you
the most they all know that this hallway
is infinite and they all push the
selves as much as they can even still as
successful as we see them they’re still
putting themselves I’ve seen what
happens when I push myself and that’s
enough for me to get up every morning
and work on my projects and even work
late into the night often times so
whether you’re learning to play the
piano or learning Russian or have the
next great business idea I want you all
to imagine that hallway take those steps
one after the other endure those
spankings that life has for you and get
your peanut butter and jelly sandwich
further down the path thank you
[Applause]
you
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