okay hello Zach but I am Greg Mahan I
graduated from here in 2014
and I study sound recording technology
at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell and I’m here to talk today about
the second workday or what I’ve come to
refer to as the artists workday for
myself so when we think about the thing
that’s most valuable to all of us in
2017 I think that you’ll find that the
thing that a lot of people hold dear
isn’t money or fame or power that’s
something that you can’t buy but it’s
something that governs every move that
we make and I think the thing that we
find most valuable to ourselves in 2017
is actually time it never seems like we
have enough time in the day it’s always
running around it’s waking up late
hopping in the shower
you know skipping breakfast racing down
to the high school you know slowing down
for the speed bumps and then coming in
rushing in you know you have never have
enough time your homework didn’t get
done the night before but I think that
when a lot of us think about time we
trap ourselves into this cycle that’s up
on the board right now and we
compartmentalize our life into two
categories which is work which a lot of
us see as you know the boring stuff and
then life which is everything after
extracurricular it’s the things that we
like to do whether it be you know sports
or even just sitting on the couch and
relaxing after a long day but when I got
to college I found that during my
freshman year I was pretty unsatisfied
with how I was using my time it seemed
like I would wake up I would take the
shuttle to classes I would go through
classes you know in between I would just
kind of sit around you know go to the
dining hall for like an hour and a half
and just do nothing
and then I would get off the shuttle and
I would come home and I would just hang
out and I would play video games with my
friends for about six hours I would go
sleep and then I would wake up the next
day and I would repeat it over and over
again
and this all seemed fine to me until a
point my sophomore year when I
approached one of my professors and I
said I really don’t feel like I’m
getting enough out of my time here I
said I feel like I come I’m putting all
the work into my classes but then at the
end of the day I just I don’t know I go
home and I I feel unfulfilled I feel
like I still have more that I can be
doing with my time here at the
University and he said well what do you
do when you go home and I said oh I
don’t know I just I just hang out I
don’t do anything and he said I go right
from UMass and I Drive into Boston and I
do a gig in a pit for an orchestra or I
go to dinner and I talk with someone
about the work that I’m doing for this
nonprofit or I do something as simple as
I I go out with my wife and I see a
movie but I try and make sure that I use
all of this time as effectively as I can
to better myself as an artist and as a
person and so the way that I started
thinking about things and something that
I realized is that I had the same
starting point as my professor as soon
as the clock hit midnight and every
night I still had all the same 24 hours
that my professor had in his day and it
seemed like he was doing so many
incredible things with his time and I
wanted to aspire to be like that
I wanted to aspire to squeeze every last
drop of inspiration and passion that I
could out of every second of every
minute of the 24 hours that we all get
each day so I developed the concept that
I’ve started to call the artists work
day and so basically at 5:00 p.m. every
day when the Sun Goes Down I walk
outside the front door of the Music
Building and the next 7 hours are mine
they’re mine to be
whatever I want to be in whatever I can
dream to be about a week after I talked
with my professor about this this
concept his time management I was
sitting on the shuttle going back and I
told myself that I would do at least you
know at least one creative thing that
day but I couldn’t figure out what to do
yet and I went on Facebook and I saw
that one of my friends was actually
selling his old camera and without
thinking about it something just clicked
right away and I shot him quick message
and I said I want your camera like I’ve
never taken a photograph in my life I’ve
always seen myself as just a musician
but I think I’m gonna try this out for
myself and then after I bought my camera
one of my friends came up to me and she
said hey I’m looking to do more gigs can
you take you know photos of me for
publicity and I took my first headshot
and then eventually that led to me
shooting my first concert and then I
took headshots for the music department
and then I started doing video
production for the university and all of
this is culminating into next month when
actually at a movie theater in downtown
Lowell a dream of mine is actually
coming true and I’m gonna premiere my
very first documentary that I
co-directed at an actual movie theater
in Lowell which is something that I
absolutely never would have dreamed of
freshman year when I was riding on a
shuttle to just go back and play video
games with all my friends we live in a
world with seven billion people and I
think as an artist that used to terrify
me I used to think how can I possibly
keep up with all of these people
stretched out across the globe connected
by the Internet every day it seems like
more incredible music passionate films
you know amazing photography is coming
out and I never thought that I could
keep up with it but as I’ve started to
maximize my time and as I take time at
night to really work on what drives me
and what
motivates me as an artist I found that
24 hours a day is all the time in the
world
you can stretch all of that time and you
can do so many things that you thought
that you could never do if you’ve never
picked up a paintbrush in your life you
can go buy a sketchbook and before you
know it you might be enrolled in an art
class and you might be moving forward in
an artistic passion that you never
thought that you would ever be able to
connect with and that would resonate
with you but if you take the time to
seek out what motivates you you can find
inspiration everywhere and so when I
introduced myself I introduced myself as
a student but I think that part of my
issue was coming from the fact that when
I talked about myself I only talked
about myself as a student we are all
human beings in this room here yet
whenever someone asks us you know what
do you do we just picked the one thing
that we do in our nine-to-five or
similar timetable and we say that’s what
we do so I would say I was a student you
know some of you in this room would say
that you were a teacher a lot of you
would also say that your students if
you’re enrolled in the high school here
but your potential as a human being goes
beyond that and if you allow yourself to
connect and put in time to really find
what motivates you not necessarily as an
artist or a creative type but as a
person in all of this extra time that we
have at the end of the day you can move
past these simple one word definitions
that are up on the screen here you don’t
have to be just a student you don’t have
to be just a teacher or a photographer
you can be so many things all at once if
you just take the time to find what
motivates you and you can become what
you really are which is a person so if
anyone in the audience here tonight
is thinking about themselves and
thinking about all the things that they
have school soccer practice work after
school take a look at your calendar and
see if there’s even one hour every week
that you can squeeze something in it
doesn’t have to be seven hours a day it
can be every Sunday afternoon I’m gonna
read a book about photography or every
Friday I’m gonna take up horseback
riding lessons but I urge everybody in
this room to try and carve out time for
you to be your own boss and find what
motivates you as an individual as an
artist and as a person ultimately if I
have to sum up my idea into one thing it
would be that I do what I have to do
during the day
to do what I want to do at night and
explore all of these artistic endeavors
and I think that if everyone takes a
closer look at their calendar I think
that they’ll be surprised by all the
time that they have to take a leap of
faith find what motivates you and work
towards being the most full person that
you can possibly be
graduated from here in 2014
and I study sound recording technology
at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell and I’m here to talk today about
the second workday or what I’ve come to
refer to as the artists workday for
myself so when we think about the thing
that’s most valuable to all of us in
2017 I think that you’ll find that the
thing that a lot of people hold dear
isn’t money or fame or power that’s
something that you can’t buy but it’s
something that governs every move that
we make and I think the thing that we
find most valuable to ourselves in 2017
is actually time it never seems like we
have enough time in the day it’s always
running around it’s waking up late
hopping in the shower
you know skipping breakfast racing down
to the high school you know slowing down
for the speed bumps and then coming in
rushing in you know you have never have
enough time your homework didn’t get
done the night before but I think that
when a lot of us think about time we
trap ourselves into this cycle that’s up
on the board right now and we
compartmentalize our life into two
categories which is work which a lot of
us see as you know the boring stuff and
then life which is everything after
extracurricular it’s the things that we
like to do whether it be you know sports
or even just sitting on the couch and
relaxing after a long day but when I got
to college I found that during my
freshman year I was pretty unsatisfied
with how I was using my time it seemed
like I would wake up I would take the
shuttle to classes I would go through
classes you know in between I would just
kind of sit around you know go to the
dining hall for like an hour and a half
and just do nothing
and then I would get off the shuttle and
I would come home and I would just hang
out and I would play video games with my
friends for about six hours I would go
sleep and then I would wake up the next
day and I would repeat it over and over
again
and this all seemed fine to me until a
point my sophomore year when I
approached one of my professors and I
said I really don’t feel like I’m
getting enough out of my time here I
said I feel like I come I’m putting all
the work into my classes but then at the
end of the day I just I don’t know I go
home and I I feel unfulfilled I feel
like I still have more that I can be
doing with my time here at the
University and he said well what do you
do when you go home and I said oh I
don’t know I just I just hang out I
don’t do anything and he said I go right
from UMass and I Drive into Boston and I
do a gig in a pit for an orchestra or I
go to dinner and I talk with someone
about the work that I’m doing for this
nonprofit or I do something as simple as
I I go out with my wife and I see a
movie but I try and make sure that I use
all of this time as effectively as I can
to better myself as an artist and as a
person and so the way that I started
thinking about things and something that
I realized is that I had the same
starting point as my professor as soon
as the clock hit midnight and every
night I still had all the same 24 hours
that my professor had in his day and it
seemed like he was doing so many
incredible things with his time and I
wanted to aspire to be like that
I wanted to aspire to squeeze every last
drop of inspiration and passion that I
could out of every second of every
minute of the 24 hours that we all get
each day so I developed the concept that
I’ve started to call the artists work
day and so basically at 5:00 p.m. every
day when the Sun Goes Down I walk
outside the front door of the Music
Building and the next 7 hours are mine
they’re mine to be
whatever I want to be in whatever I can
dream to be about a week after I talked
with my professor about this this
concept his time management I was
sitting on the shuttle going back and I
told myself that I would do at least you
know at least one creative thing that
day but I couldn’t figure out what to do
yet and I went on Facebook and I saw
that one of my friends was actually
selling his old camera and without
thinking about it something just clicked
right away and I shot him quick message
and I said I want your camera like I’ve
never taken a photograph in my life I’ve
always seen myself as just a musician
but I think I’m gonna try this out for
myself and then after I bought my camera
one of my friends came up to me and she
said hey I’m looking to do more gigs can
you take you know photos of me for
publicity and I took my first headshot
and then eventually that led to me
shooting my first concert and then I
took headshots for the music department
and then I started doing video
production for the university and all of
this is culminating into next month when
actually at a movie theater in downtown
Lowell a dream of mine is actually
coming true and I’m gonna premiere my
very first documentary that I
co-directed at an actual movie theater
in Lowell which is something that I
absolutely never would have dreamed of
freshman year when I was riding on a
shuttle to just go back and play video
games with all my friends we live in a
world with seven billion people and I
think as an artist that used to terrify
me I used to think how can I possibly
keep up with all of these people
stretched out across the globe connected
by the Internet every day it seems like
more incredible music passionate films
you know amazing photography is coming
out and I never thought that I could
keep up with it but as I’ve started to
maximize my time and as I take time at
night to really work on what drives me
and what
motivates me as an artist I found that
24 hours a day is all the time in the
world
you can stretch all of that time and you
can do so many things that you thought
that you could never do if you’ve never
picked up a paintbrush in your life you
can go buy a sketchbook and before you
know it you might be enrolled in an art
class and you might be moving forward in
an artistic passion that you never
thought that you would ever be able to
connect with and that would resonate
with you but if you take the time to
seek out what motivates you you can find
inspiration everywhere and so when I
introduced myself I introduced myself as
a student but I think that part of my
issue was coming from the fact that when
I talked about myself I only talked
about myself as a student we are all
human beings in this room here yet
whenever someone asks us you know what
do you do we just picked the one thing
that we do in our nine-to-five or
similar timetable and we say that’s what
we do so I would say I was a student you
know some of you in this room would say
that you were a teacher a lot of you
would also say that your students if
you’re enrolled in the high school here
but your potential as a human being goes
beyond that and if you allow yourself to
connect and put in time to really find
what motivates you not necessarily as an
artist or a creative type but as a
person in all of this extra time that we
have at the end of the day you can move
past these simple one word definitions
that are up on the screen here you don’t
have to be just a student you don’t have
to be just a teacher or a photographer
you can be so many things all at once if
you just take the time to find what
motivates you and you can become what
you really are which is a person so if
anyone in the audience here tonight
is thinking about themselves and
thinking about all the things that they
have school soccer practice work after
school take a look at your calendar and
see if there’s even one hour every week
that you can squeeze something in it
doesn’t have to be seven hours a day it
can be every Sunday afternoon I’m gonna
read a book about photography or every
Friday I’m gonna take up horseback
riding lessons but I urge everybody in
this room to try and carve out time for
you to be your own boss and find what
motivates you as an individual as an
artist and as a person ultimately if I
have to sum up my idea into one thing it
would be that I do what I have to do
during the day
to do what I want to do at night and
explore all of these artistic endeavors
and I think that if everyone takes a
closer look at their calendar I think
that they’ll be surprised by all the
time that they have to take a leap of
faith find what motivates you and work
towards being the most full person that
you can possibly be
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