The Healthier Home Studio Podcast

Building a Better Business Model in 2024 - with Joshua Frerichs

• Chris Graham • Season 1 • Episode 6

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HypeMiC:

What's up healthier home studio, family. Uh, it has been just so fun, getting DMS and text messages and emails and just hearing from so many people. That are excited about this vision of a healthier home studio. And so today I have a good friend on the show. Um, somebody that I've been working with I've been as business coach. Uh, he recently joined. My mastermind group. if you want to learn more about that, there's a link in the show description. But this show, this episode, plays into a bigger idea. And the bigger idea is that I think a healthier home studio has a good balance of active income income that you get from selling a combination of your talent and your time. And passive income income that you get that doesn't necessarily require your time to complete the sale or to fulfill your end of the deal. Does that make sense? my interview with Joshua today, I think is going to be so important because it illustrates the necessity. Uh, for this business model that I hope you steal from me. And so here is the business model. It's six steps. First of all, grow active income. That means sell your talent and time and try to get a business off the ground that works. Step two. Optimize your active income so that you can win back. Your time. Time is the only scarce thing here on earth. I'm fascinated. By investing time in the systems pieces of your business, the automation piece of your business. So that you can win back time for your business for step three. Okay. Here we go.. Invest time and active income. In building a passive. Income source. something where you don't have to sell your time to complete your end of the deal. Something that's automatic, that could be, you bought a house, in the hood and you fixed it up on your weekends and now you rent it out and you make. 1500 bucks a month. Great, cool. That's that's what I'm talking about. Take money out of your active business and invest it. In passive businesses. The reason that you need to invest in a passive business is this guys let's have a hard conversation. Who cares about a six figure home studio. If all that means is that you provide services to other people, but you don't get a chance to make your own art. Isn't that why you're working in this business in the first place you wanted to record yourself, You wanted to make music in a studio? And maybe now you do that, but for money and you feel trapped in it and it's lost. You've lost that love and feeling. Good God, that was terrible. So anyways, The reason that it is so important to invest in a passive business is so that you can eventually get to step four, which is replace your minimum. Income. With passive income. you know, what's the amount of money that you need each month to keep the lights on, to not get foreclosed on. Figure out that number and try to find a way to generate that with passive income. It might take you years to get there. It will be worth it. If you can replace your active income with baseline passive income. Buddy.

HypeMiC-1:

step five.

HypeMiC:

That's when you the creative side quest privileges, creative side quest privileges. Great. Uh, Chris privilege, what's the creative side quest privilege. Uh, creative side quest privilege. Is the ability to invest your time in dope shit that doesn't pay you It's art time. The purpose of getting good at business, in my opinion. Any of the money. It's the time. If you can create enough passive money. Then you will have enough time. To invest in making dope shit. And if you're lucky, Maybe the dope shit blows up and it becomes your biggest income. Guys, this is how I got into podcasting. Podcasting was a, it was like a, a, a side questing privilege. Like I knew I was at a point in my career when I started doing it where I was like, ah, I'm all right. I can afford to waste some time and experiment on a new thing. Absolutely no idea where that was taking me, but whew. What our ad. So Joshua. And I are going to have a, an interview here in just a second. Joshua had a crazy thing happened in his life recently. And,-it affected his studio in a big way and helped him, I think, have some breakthroughs in the way that he values his time. So thank you guys for listening. Welcome to the next episode. Of the healthier home studio.

Chris Graham:

You've worked on Emmy, Grammy, Juno, and Dove winning projects. You have personally won an Emmy and

Joshua Frerichs:

a Juno. I would love for you two have finished with Grammy and been correct, but it is not right, right now.

Chris Graham:

We're working on that. We're working on that. you had this situation tell me if I'm wrong. You're in the studio, you're Working. it's clear that something is wrong

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah, a couple of weeks ago. I was, in a recording session with an artist and I felt like I was gonna pass out and I actually started to blank out a little bit, and I had to like, hold the desk and I tried to hide it from my client just because, I've had Lyme disease. the whole time my career's been great. it's not fun, but it's okay. You find a way to persevere. If you've got goals and dreams you gotta push, right?

Chris Graham:

Yeah.

Joshua Frerichs:

I knew something was seriously wrong. And then I started feeling heat in the back of my legs and weird stuff that I hadn't experienced. And I was like, okay, as soon as he leaves, I'm gonna go to the urgent care clinic. And it was getting worse So I'm like, something is really wrong. It was in the middle of working

Chris Graham:

you ended the session and went to urgent care

Joshua Frerichs:

I actually, I probably grind too hard. I finished the session and then I. went to urgent care. But, in my head, what do you say? I'm not gonna die, so it's okay. But then I get there and they're like, actually, you might. And I'm like, okay. Crazy situation. They told me I was gonna die, So my wife came to pick me up'cause we only lived a mile from the urgent care and, I'm holding my kids in the car crying on the way to the hospital. My wife is like blowing through like stoplights, like just trying to make sure I don't die in the car. And it turns out that the urgent care said it was the wrong thing. It was a type of heart block because of Lyme disease. that they said was fatal. And when I got to the emergency room, they said, I'm so sorry. They shouldn't have told you that. you're not gonna die. But I didn't find that out until I was already at the emergency room for about an hour and a half. So I accepted the fact that I was gonna die that day. It's just, it's been a weird couple weeks, bro I'm still dealing with anxiety at night and like last night I woke up twice in panic attacks, which is so unusual for me. But during the day it's not like I'm freaking out, but my heart still hurts'cause I'm going through it, but I'm not gonna die. It's just, it's been a weird couple weeks, bro. I've never shared this publicly, ever. for one second, I was like, okay, what about the people that I'm like mixing for producing for right now? I gave my friend the passwords to my computer and instructions and asked him to take care of it if that was gonna happen. Listen, I still care about those people. The clients are not like my family. But, I really care, that was one of the first things that, after I had come down and seen my wife and my kids, I was like, all right, I need to make sure people are taken care of. So I told'em what I was working on and gave him my passwords and said, Hey, I need you to fly here and come take care of stuff if that happens, right? after that, it's been a different couple of weeks. I've been treating my body a little bit differently. I've been more rigorous about my schedule and having time with my family, it's not like I'm losing money. It's not I'm gonna regret not being at the desk for that hour. I'm finding that I'm probably gonna do better from giving myself more space and still be able to have a greater capacity. So I'm learning lessons here because you don't really know how to deal with a health problem until you have to deal with a health problem. Sorry if I'm rambling, by the way. Feel free to edit

Chris Graham:

You're fine. I'll take care of it. You'll sound like a fucking genius when I'm done with you. that's the beauty of podcasting compared to music production is that in podcasting, you just delete all the stupid stuff and There's no click, there's

Joshua Frerichs:

Sure.

Chris Graham:

And then you just leave all the smart stuff and then when you're left with a conversation, that's only smart stuff. Everybody sounds like a genius. It's amazing. One of the things that, that you are talking about, you had this mortality human experience You really came in touch with the idea that you have limited time here you thought other people might have to finish your projects after you died and you took the steps to make sure that some people will be able to access your session files and get your clients, the work that they needed after the fact. As you're processing that and you're reevaluating the value of your time, I think one of the, one of the pieces to ponder there, is this wonderful idea called Parkinson's law Parkinson's law is the idea that however much time you have to do a thing is as much time as it will take you to do the thing.

Joshua Frerichs:

I can say as a pro procrastinator that is 100% true. And when I say procrastinator, I get everything done. I get my deadlines met. It sounds great. People don't need to know the process, but there is a part of the process where sometimes there's not as much time as you want and you kill it because you're under

Chris Graham:

exactly. there's this story about Eminem and how he had to turn in songs to his label and he had something like 15 minutes left in his deadline So he whips out a pad of paper and he writes Slim Shady.

Joshua Frerichs:

like My name is

Chris Graham:

Yeah, he his signature song. He wrote at the last minute because he only had 15 minutes,

Joshua Frerichs:

15 minutes. he didn't have a lot of time, so he just had to do it. Yeah.

Chris Graham:

And it's funny because in creative worlds, sometimes okay, you've got an hour to finish cleaning the car, so you'll figure out a way to make that work. Some, it's not like the car is gonna get more clean as a result of that pressure. It's not like you're gonna do a suddenly, wildly better job. But In music, that is not always the case. The song might be a thousand times better because it was written in 15 minutes because it had to be written in 15 minutes.

Joshua Frerichs:

for sure.

Chris Graham:

And I am fascinated by that.

Joshua Frerichs:

gosh, I love that

Chris Graham:

Parkinson's laws. However much time you have to do a task is how much time it will take you. Let's take this one step further, we'll call it the healthier home studio law. often limiting the amount of time that you have on a project might not only mean that you'll finish the project faster it might mean that you'll do a much better job at it, and it will definitely mean that you're gonna end up making more per hour. This dovetails into what I want to talk about because, having gone through Helen back with my health issues, being hospitalized and also thinking I was gonna die,

Joshua Frerichs:

I remember you told me this.

Chris Graham:

man, dude, Yeah. there were two big occasions where I thought, this is it. I'm like, 15 seconds.

Joshua Frerichs:

I understand. It's very scary feeling.

Chris Graham:

scary. so I share all that because I had a really wild moment. I'll never forget this. COVID had hit, My ex had kicked me out. I'm living with my brother. I'm having flashbacks Panic attacks, seizures. It got bad.

Joshua Frerichs:

I remember you telling

Chris Graham:

Whew, dude. It was so crazy. as I'm, going through these health issues, I had a realization. I remember thinking I can't work right now. I can't record the podcast with my buddy. Doing coaching sessions with people is Challenging. doing mastering sessions is I isn't working

Joshua Frerichs:

You just didn't have, you didn't have the sort of wellness to feel like you could do

Chris Graham:

right. Be, before everything was about get to flow state kick

Joshua Frerichs:

Sure, yeah.

Chris Graham:

That was it. That, that, that was my, how I made a living before And when I had these a, I didn't realize how close of a brush with death I had until quite some time later. That's the story for another time.

Joshua Frerichs:

good thing you lived, man. You've done a lot for people. Way more than just for yourself.

Chris Graham:

thanks man.

Joshua Frerichs:

With the Boy Scout law. pretty amazing

Chris Graham:

It's cool. It's like I'm hearing back from these guys that this law has helped and they're getting they're beginning to get their settlements from the Boy Scouts and the number that they're getting, the number, the size of that check. I'm still, I'm like, just at the very beginning of starting to learn about what did the law do? How much was the difference between before the law and after the law in regards to the amount of justice? But so I'm, I'm stoked about that. And there's sort of two pieces to this for me, of over the past couple years, I had two big realizations and your story about what happened last week really sparks me remembering what

Joshua Frerichs:

Okay. Yeah.

Chris Graham:

Essentially, my time is how I make a living, And if I can't work, I don't make money. And I remember thinking to myself, oh my God, I've been trying to convince all of these people that. The dream is to build a six figure business that is completely dependent on their time and

Joshua Frerichs:

help. It's a losing battle. At some point, no matter what, you will run out of time. If you do not find a way At some point, to be able to delegate and automate you cannot grow.

Chris Graham:

Right. for me, when I had those health issues, I started to think really differently

Joshua Frerichs:

Gosh, I hate that you went through that.

Chris Graham:

I appreciate that, but I am also in many ways, grateful that I, went through

Joshua Frerichs:

I Understand.

Chris Graham:

I wouldn't have been changing any laws If I didn't have that brush with death. and I gotta confess this to any of you guys that are listening to this podcast and were fans of my last show. I felt guilt, when I had my health issue because I realized that building a business that is completely dependent upon your ability to work and your ability to invest time in completing the projects that you have won is not a very good business model unless you've diversified unless you have another more passive business piece that can sustain you. And for me, I was Really lucky to have a little cashflow from Bounce butler.

Joshua Frerichs:

bro. I use that program a million times a month. I just bounced probably 250, 280 stems over the last maybe 30 days. because I'm bouncing from large scale mix sessions with, a your kicks are going in your kick bus, your snares are going into your snare bus, then the, Toms and everything, then you've got verbs and all that. Then it all goes to the drum bus. Imagine that for an entire mix. It's a slow bouncing process. Even when you're offline, it takes forever. So these songs are, five minutes long. A lot of them were worship songs, so a lot of'em are eight minutes long and there's, around 20 stems each. I'm really bad at math, but what's 20 times eight? It's a lot of time.

Chris Graham:

it's a lot of time.

Joshua Frerichs:

A lot And that's just one song. And, I had to do that for many songs. And I just, dude, I set up the sessions in about 10 minutes each and, maybe cost me an hour of time and then I slept and it did the work. I would say this to anybody, that program is the. Most important part of what I own software wise in my studio because like I can use stock compressors and Logic Pro tools or I can use, vibe UAD stuff or baby audio stuff or whatever it is. But I don't have something that gives me my time back And Bounce Butler does that. And it's amazing. Even when I'm mixing for capital CMG, I do a lot of stuff for Warner Chapel, doing a ton of trailer music and queue mixing for them. Man, when I am bouncing those queues, there's so many files and occasionally there's two or 300 or 400 files for a project or two and I have to QC all of them after Bounce Butler and dude, it is 99.9% done and finished. I maybe have to do a couple of small edits and again, maybe it would take me. 30 to bounce out all that material. And then I get all that time back. So for me, bounce Butler is no joke, king. I've tried other things. I know there's a factory thing and a couple other things that are out there, nothing has compared and I just love it. So I'm very grateful that you created that program and you better not you it, you better have support for the entire time that I'm alive. Please. Because if you get rid of it, I'm gonna have problems.

Chris Graham:

Bounce Butler for me, I've told this story a million times, but I built him so that I would have more free time to hang out with my family because I was skipping dinner as a mastering engineer all of the time.

Joshua Frerichs:

You innovated out of necessity for yourself and it ended up

Chris Graham:

I did. But here's what's crazy Bounce Butler at this point is the primary driver that funds my activism work at the State House.

Joshua Frerichs:

Work. Because it's providing while you're not working,

Chris Graham:

it's providing while I'm not working. So there's a little bit of income that makes sure that my minimum amount of money that I'm gonna make each month is not zero.

Joshua Frerichs:

Sure. something no matter what.

Chris Graham:

My,

Joshua Frerichs:

on your face, on the floor, eating Cheetos, watching shows all day, you're still making money, but you're not doing that. You're creating laws, but I understand.

Chris Graham:

right. And it's been wild to me. I'm only just beginning to wrap my mind around this of okay. Bounce Butler is a tool designed to save audio engineers time by allowing them to batch, bounce their bounces for all their stems and whatever else they need while their studio is closed at night while they're sleeping. You can have bounce putler run all night exporting files from your doll

Joshua Frerichs:

your, and it's way better than it used to be too, because it used to crash a lot. It doesn't crash anymore.

Chris Graham:

yes. I'm so glad to hear you hit. You say that the latest update was the most challenging update. Getting Sonoma compatibility was absolutely the hardest update I've had since it came out. It was so challenging.

Joshua Frerichs:

like any, working audio engineer, I'm still on Mac Os Monterey. I am like always two or three back because I've got so many projects going that I don't want to have compatibility issues With other softwares.

Chris Graham:

So all of the stuff that I had to do to get compatible with Sonoma tightened up Bounce Butler in previous versions

Joshua Frerichs:

sick. That's So, great.

Chris Graham:

So it was like, I would go through and be like, oh God, all right, let me make this a little bit easier on Sonoma.

Joshua Frerichs:

You couldn't know though until there are problems that arise and then you just keep making a little bit better. A little

Chris Graham:

right. Yeah. So bounce Butler's IQ had to, I had to make his IQ higher to work with Sonoma, but now he has a higher IQ for everybody, so he's much more dependable than he was, even two months ago. And but what's been crazy about that is I built him to save me time. If I could go back in time and talk to younger me, I would've told younger me. Stop spending all of your time working on your business, trying to grow your mastering business instead, spend at least half of the time that you are investing in growing your business into growing something that can make you money while you sleep.

Joshua Frerichs:

It's that working for your business and working on your business. It's like those two things are so different.

Chris Graham:

they're so different and at this point, I regret teaching people to spend time working on their business instead of for it if their business is completely dependent on them. If your business is completely dependent on you, then the path forward is this, Grow your service. related business so that it can support the bare minimum and begin to systemize and begin to adjust your pricing and the way that you're marketing and who you're marketing to so that your business is as sustainable as possible and so that you've won back some of your free time.

Joshua Frerichs:

Sure.

Chris Graham:

that free time to invest in something that will pay you whether you can work or not. Now, that for me was Bounce Butler. That could be digital courses. That could be property. You buy a bunch of duplexes in the hood and you rent'em out. I don't give a shit what it is. Find something where you are taking money out of your service company, got, you've got Joshua, active businesses, llc and you've got Joshua, passive businesses, LLCA, completely separate LLC. Start two of them.

Joshua Frerichs:

for sure. Yeah. Got

Chris Graham:

and begin to invest in things that make the Joshua passive, LLC eventually get to the point

Joshua Frerichs:

the point

Chris Graham:

where you can afford to live on just Joshua passive LLC. And here's what's weird about that. If you can do that, the decisions that you will make in your active businesses into what you're charging, who your customers are and what you're doing for them will radically change overnight

Joshua Frerichs:

I completely understand. Yeah. Even in my own business that is very active, I've got passivity in my business with sink licensing.

Chris Graham:

one of the things that I think Is challenging about building a business in or around a recording studio is that, you look at all the different types of work that you can do from a business standpoint, let's just look at'em just through a business lens. Each one of these services that you can provide has benefits and drawbacks. So where I've spent the most time in our industry, is in a mastering studio. And for me, one of the things I loved about mastering was I charged upfront. I got paid upfront, and I got good enough at it that, I could get paid. And the project was

Joshua Frerichs:

project.

Chris Graham:

in less than a week so to get paid upfront and to know I'm not gonna get forgotten. I'm not gonna get left behind on this'cause I've already been paid. So that is a dynamic that's really interesting and exciting, so you would describe this in business terms, as cashflow positive or cashflow negative. Cashflow positive is a business where you get paid upfront. Cashflow. Negative means you need to give yourself a loan to pay for whatever labor is required, and then you'll get paid 60, 90 days later. that's one of the things that makes label work challenging is label work is very rarely cashflow positive. It's almost always cashflow negative. But then, and this is another thing that I regret that I have not spoken about this more as I've, been public on podcasts and stuff about, my thoughts on business in the recording industry, and especially now that we're in the age of AI and that everything is changing a million miles an hour.

Joshua Frerichs:

engaged. Everything is, my goodness. yeah, Even music, that's a whole different conversation.

Chris Graham:

there are those of us in our industry that are making backend money. You put front end work and then you keep getting paid based on the success of what you did. And so that the big two are sync licensing and making points, getting royalties. It's, but even that is tricky because you are trying to figure out their cash flow how successful they think the project's gonna be, how fast you think you're

Joshua Frerichs:

successful and you have to be realistic too. You gotta be realistic about it too, because when it comes to music and let's just say the Christian music industry, for instance, let's say I charge 5,000 for production right now, out of that, I'm spending a couple of thousand on. People, contractors for whatever thing. There's drummers, there's guitarists, there's a bassist. I will play some of those things myself sometimes, but I'm after excellence. So if I don't have the budget to make it excellent, I can't be the guy who produces your music. But if they say, Hey, I only have$3,000, can you produce it? And, I'll take 25 or 35 points or whatever it is on the album. Sometimes it's a yes, but sometimes it's a no because. I need income for now as well because I'm still building my passive right to be, like you're saying, you've got Bounce Butler, which is taking care of your expenses. I don't have that much taken care of. I've got some taken care of and it's a blessing, but that's part of the thing that keeps pushing me towards passive.'cause I feel it in those moments. I'm like, as you said, your decisions will massively change when you are in a place where you're not trying to get your basic income for whatever your life is. And that's an example where I would take an artist that was more of a risk that I wouldn't necessarily have the time for now in a year or two, which I can see coming down the pipeline. But you're right man. You can choose more honestly what you want to chase if you're not trying to cover your

Chris Graham:

totally. And so it becomes this balancing act of short game and long game. And I feel like, this dream a six figure home studio The six figure on studio needs to be a stop along the way I think at about six figures it starts to get really easy to start to move your time around and to figure out other ways to invest. And this was what I did, right? I built this six figure mastering studio and I started to have free time as a result of really focusing on automation. And one of the things we need to really, break down what is

Joshua Frerichs:

you know, break

Chris Graham:

dream, uh, for people that work in re recording studios. What are you here to do? Why, why did you show up here in the first place? The goal wasn't a six figure home studio, and if it was, the goal wasn't a six figure home studio by providing services. In your studio, the goal was to have a six figure home studio that got you paid based on things that you made.

Joshua Frerichs:

my dream it would've probably been like, travel the world, work with people constantly that I've always dreamed about working with. And while I would wanna do that in some degree, I'm thinking more now as a holistic business owner as. Not just a creative, right? I want to make enough money in a shorter window of time, right? To have freedom, to be engaged with my family, and also to have those projects be highly impactful to the people that I work with. Highly impactful and enjoyable for myself, and ultimately as a Christian. Again, I work in sync and Christian music. I love both of them, and I feel a calling to both of them, but from a Christian perspective, like I wanna do work that's gonna matter to somebody. I want somebody to hear the song that we wrote and produced, and I was able to put the energy into it, right? I didn't have to skip past anything, which I don't now, but more freedom and more time. It gives you the ability to do work that really matters and can impact people far outside of your sphere and having a family. That's the goal for me, I have to be with my kids. I've got to be with my wife, and we have got to have time for ourselves.

Chris Graham:

So therapists, people whose job in part is to teach other people how to have boundaries, have healthy boundaries in their business. And let's think about how similar a therapist business is to an audio business. I. People are coming into your facility with feelings, you're helping them process them, you're helping them turn those feelings into something else. It you're transmuting that those challenges that they're facing into something,

Joshua Frerichs:

You're a coach. You're a coach. you need to coach people into feeling encouraged. And if they don't need to be encouraged in an area, and too many people have given'em an attaboy and they really shouldn't be there, you have to find a way to lovingly hint in that direction and that it's a subtle game. And it can shift with, it can shift with an eyebrow raise. You need to be able to read how people are in a room to see if you're hurting them or you're helping them. And the goal is always to help.

Chris Graham:

exactly. And that, man, that's a whole challenge in itself. But I think it's, it is worth taking the time to think about your boundary game.

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah.

Chris Graham:

how on

Joshua Frerichs:

on,

Chris Graham:

is your boundary game?

Joshua Frerichs:

don't use that word.

Chris Graham:

I'm sorry. I'm

Joshua Frerichs:

I'm just, I'm messing with you. For me it's new. I would say that again, since becoming a father, my time has become more valuable. It's not that it wasn't valuable with my wife before we had kids. But I think that. When we didn't have kids, the time that we would have together during the day where I'd pop in for a little bit was higher quality. Right Now, when I pop in, I'm changing a diaper I'm, giving somebody a food pouch. And then I'm back at it and I get to kiss my wife and I say, okay, goodbye. And now that the boundaries have to create health for your studio, like you're calling this the, what is it? The Healthier home or Healthier Studio podcast. So exactly for me, my wife and I have been operating in a place that we didn't feel was healthy, but it took time for us to figure that out. I would work however long I had to,'cause I was trying to make sure that we got things done and then all of a sudden we realized that we are missing each other too much. So what did I do? We created a boundary at 8:00 AM. Even if my kids are going nuts and it's really hard for my wife, unless she, and obviously look, if she's having a tough time, I'm not gonna not be there for her. But in general, on a daily basis from eight to five, I'm almost non-contact able or I'm not to be contacted unless there's really something they need me for. And after five o'clock I close down the studio. If I've got a vocal session in here, maybe we'll push to five 30. But that my wife and I have both agreed on that boundary too. If we need to push 30 minutes on either side is totally fine. But ever since we've started doing that, my productivity has not gone down. Matter of fact, it's gone up. I've got more mental space. I think my clients have, I have, I had almost like a fear that my clients would be, frustrated with me. No total respect. Total respect. And yes, you gotta work with good people that are respectful. But I've only had people say, Hey, that's great man. You gotta make time for your family. Do it right. So in that I've been validated by my clients, which wasn't even something I was looking for, but was an awesome gift. Just as somebody who's trying to make sure you're helping with their needs, and I've got more time with my wife every night. And then, look, my other boundary is if I need to go back to work, which is not very often, it's at about 9:00 PM so from five to nine, we're hanging out. Then my kids go to bed. I still have time with my wife one on one, and then she's tired anyway, and she goes to bed and I will go back down here and tune some vocals because that's what I like to do. It relaxes me, right? If I'm gonna, play a video game or watch a TV show maybe some people will say it's crazy, but I would rather tune some vocals and tick things down the line on a project I'm doing. So that's what I do.

Chris Graham:

That's

Joshua Frerichs:

That's awesome. Anyway, sorry if I'm rambling, but yes,

Chris Graham:

no.

Joshua Frerichs:

It's been very big.

Chris Graham:

that was actually really fun for me

Joshua Frerichs:

for me because

Chris Graham:

because I remember when I first started coaching you and you were describing these 14 hour a day, seven day a week, this lifestyle. And I remember it was one of the challenging bits of just thinking through like. How can I convince Joshua to try having a boundary and ending at a certain time so that he'll see that

Joshua Frerichs:

yep. It's not gonna be less productive. And I was resistant. I was like, you don't understand Chris. You

Chris Graham:

you're right. We're resistant. So hearing that you guys have done it that you have grown in that way and that you've established that boundary is really exciting for me. Because I know that it's going to inevitably lead to considerably bigger growth. You've got more room there, and I've told this story a million times to a million people, but the turning point for me in my business when I went from doing what you used to be doing, what you used to do, working 70 hours a week, borderline health issues, constantly trying to figure out how to burn the candle at both ends at all

Joshua Frerichs:

ends at all times. Sure.

Chris Graham:

At all times. It wasn't until I started scheduling time to work on my business instead of for my business, that things really started to change. And I started to really come to these hard realizations about, ah, crap, there's this, I'm, I am not working smarter. I am just working harder. And as I've been chewing on that, this is one of the fundamental, core concepts in the Healthier Home Studio podcast is that if you want to have the healthiest home studio, if you wanna have the best business that you possibly can and achieve your potential, which is not just make the most money that you can, but also have the most fulfillment and satisfaction and creative joy, and be collaborating with the very coolest people that you can possibly imagine that you're aware of, if you want to do all those things.

Joshua Frerichs:

things

Chris Graham:

You have to have the personal boundary of scheduling time to work on your business instead of for it. And if you do that each week, that will be unbelievable for you and your business journey. Start there.

Joshua Frerichs:

there. That's where I am actually now

Chris Graham:

the,

Joshua Frerichs:

to learn how to do that.

Chris Graham:

I love that man. And I think there's a second piece I want to add to it. I think that scheduling time to work on your business instead of for it is great, but you also have to schedule time to work on yourself instead of for yourself.

Joshua Frerichs:

I believe that working on yourself is working on your business, right?

Chris Graham:

It is.

Joshua Frerichs:

Your business is a reflection of who you are, right? So if I'm scatterbrained and I'm going crazy and I'm trying to manage a million things and I'm eating pizza for every meal and I'm sleeping six hours a night, and I'm just not doing things that are life giving to me, my clients, my business I'll forget emails, I'll forget important, like all of that. If I don't have some of those routines that are built in just for personal me, that's got nothing to do with my actual studio, quote unquote. Like including time with my family, my kids, like I don't feel right if I don't have time with those people. All of that is going to inform the type of business owner and type of person I am to serve other artists and other producers that have me mix and labels that have me mix a master. if I want to level up, I cannot operate on empty. It's just not gonna work. And I used to operate on empty all the time. So now as you're saying, getting an intentionality about automating things that can be automated, that's where I am right now, but again, this is inception. because I'm thinking, how can I automate? Things that are flooding me. Now I'm trying to learn how to be a better business owner, come up with ideas that create this freedom that we're talking about.

Chris Graham:

I love that

Joshua Frerichs:

this will be the same.

Chris Graham:

another great story there's two lumberjacks, an old one and a young one. And the young guy's there every day, break a dawn to the end of the day, sweating his butt off, cutting down trees, and he's just barely making his quota every day. But the old guy shows up late every day, leaves early every day, exceeds his quota, every day gets more done. And so finally the kid says what the hell man, you? Where are you? You, if you showed up on time, you would be, you'd be cutting so much more. So he asked the old guy, what are you doing in the morning? What, why don't you show up at the same time as everybody else? Where are you when you should be working? And he says, son, I'm sharpening my ax. He is in the shed sharpening that ax to a razor blade, and he shows up and he cuts through those trees like butter. And the young gun is not he is just I'll make up for it. In brute strength and effort,

Joshua Frerichs:

and experience.

Chris Graham:

and experience. And I, this is the message that I'm trying to bring to our industry, to people that work in and around recording studios is that what we are talking about is not hippie dippy. It's not woo woo. We are talking about performance enhancement techniques. We're talking about biohacking. And the reason we're talking about it is because the number one thing that you should want in your studio is to achieve your potential.

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah.

Chris Graham:

if you can achieve your potential, then you can get the things that you want the most. These creative breakthroughs, these epiphanies, these moments in the studio where all of a sudden you listen back to the thing you just recorded and you realize, oh my God, that's the best I've ever played. That's the most, that's what I was trying to say this whole time. God, what a payday to have that moment. Those moments come at significantly higher frequencies

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah.

Chris Graham:

when you've done the work to operate at peak potential. And so There was a book that I was a really big fan of called Peak Performance. And I read it and it just really, it had a big impact on me. And one of the things that this book shared was that There's an equation for growth if you want to experience growth, it's really simple. It's stress plus rest.

Joshua Frerichs:

rest.

Chris Graham:

Stress plus rest equals growth. If you're experiencing stress, if you're practicing and you're doing hard things and then you rest afterwards, the stress will turn into growth.

Joshua Frerichs:

into Sure.

Chris Graham:

What I have learned over the past couple years and seeing just like the things I've done balloon and the impact I've made balloon far beyond where I ever dreamed I'd be able to help people. I'm gogi the shit outta my life right now of trying to figure out how can I help the most people I can, the most I can. And What I have learned is that stress plus rest does not equal growth. It's actually stress times rest. Rest is a multiplier

Joshua Frerichs:

For sure. Yeah.

Chris Graham:

and

Joshua Frerichs:

Even if you think of physical exercises, a perfect example.

Chris Graham:

absolutely.

Joshua Frerichs:

practicing your instrument. Yeah.

Chris Graham:

This has been a really big piece for me as I've started to just find that the skills that I've been cultivating for years are far more valuable and far more effective in far more areas than I ever dreamed they were. we've done a a meditation session together right before. I think we did it like one time, right? Or,

Joshua Frerichs:

we've done it like three times. It's really

Chris Graham:

okay. Awesome. So I wanna do one more to close this interview out with you today. And it's a really simple one for people. If you spend any time doing any research on breath work, you will find all of the world's highest performers at some point commenting

Joshua Frerichs:

somewhere publicly about.

Chris Graham:

of breath work.

Joshua Frerichs:

I've been doing that recently. I've been doing the four seconds in four seconds out four second hold. And I've been doing it because of my recent, brush book death, but last night I woke up, at two o'clock in the morning freaking out, out of a dream. My heart rate was like 170, 180. I was through the top and I knew that I was having a residual impact from what I went through that day. And I just started doing the breathing thing. And my heart rate did not come down at first, but it works.

Chris Graham:

Mm.

Joshua Frerichs:

me down enough to go back to sleep.

Chris Graham:

That's amazing,

Joshua Frerichs:

That's why I do it, that's why I do it, because there are certain things you just can't tell your mind enough for it to listen. So you have to tell your body

Chris Graham:

You have to tell your body exactly. And so breath work is so important because I'll say this like 50 more times on this podcast, but between your eyes and on the back of your forehead is a piece of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex. Its job is to help you balance between subconscious activity and conscious activity. And the number one human activity that can be both subconscious or can be manual, we're doing it on command, is breath. And so when you do breath work, you're working out your medial prefrontal cortex. And as your medial prefrontal cortex gets stronger, it makes it easier to manage anxiety. It makes it easier to manage a panic attack. It makes it easier to find a place of peace where you're less ruled By your anger and your emotions. And I. And so for me I've been doing a lot of breath work over just the past couple days using a new technique that I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach to you. I call this the racetrack technique. so what we're gonna do is we're gonna close our eyes, we're gonna relax. I'm gonna walk you through a breathing technique that is very simple. There's no spiritual aspect of this. There's no hippy dippy, woowoo vibrational crystals.

Joshua Frerichs:

No. Crystals in Jesus name, bro. I'm not doing that.

Chris Graham:

Okay? So let's get started here. So let's go ahead and sit up, find a place that's comfortable that when you lean forward or back that it's easy for you to balance your body and your head on your shoulders.

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah, I got it.

Chris Graham:

And we're gonna breathe in through our nose and out through our mouth. And when we breathe out through our mouth, we're gonna make a little bit of an H sound. So like that. I am a really big fan of doing visualizations while I meditate, and what I find is that as I'm doing these visualizations, I'm creating a language in my own mind that my subconscious understands. And sometimes when I find a new visualization, I'll have a massive breakthrough in my meditation practice. And when that happens, I'll find I have a massive breakthroughs in every other area of my life.

Joshua Frerichs:

yeah. Makes sense. Right? it's all connected.

Chris Graham:

all connected, even in my heart of hearts, I'm a guitar player. And as I get better at this, I see a. Noticeable difference in my improvement as a guitar player. It's awesome. It's like easier to stay in the pocket when I'm in a good spot with meditation.

Joshua Frerichs:

sure, bro. Pocketing is everything. Yeah.

Chris Graham:

It is,

Joshua Frerichs:

it's it's the whole damn thing. It's pocket, it's,

Chris Graham:

the right notes.

Joshua Frerichs:

man, if people played in a pocket everywhere, I would have a lot less editing,

Chris Graham:

So let's, oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. So let's let's find that spot. We're leaning forward and backward. We're finding a spot where our head is balanced on our shoulders. We're gonna practice some performance enhancing meditation techniques. This is the simplest type of technique that we can do. It's just a breathing technique. And so we close our eyes and we just start breathing in our nose and out our mouth at whatever pace is comfortable. Let's just do that for a few seconds. And so part of the reason we do the in through the nose, out through the mouth with an H sound is it draws our attention to our breath. And as we draw our attention to our breath, one of the things that you can start to notice is the smoothness of the breath. Is it a smooth in like this and a smooth out, or is it a rough in and a rough out? And our goal here is just smoothness. And as we get a smoother breathing technique, meditation gets significantly easier. And it's a surprisingly hard thing to do. And so one of the things I like to do to make my breath smoother is I visualize a race track. this racetrack is in the dark. It's completely blacked out, so you can't even really see it. But what you can see is that there is a single car going in laps around this racetrack, and I can see nothing but headlights. So I can see this strange beam of light and nothing else running around in circles around this oval shaped racetrack. And so it's interesting that this light, these headlights, it's like I can see where the darkness gets slightly brighter and brighter and brighter to the point of peak light right in front of the car where the headlights are hitting the road in front of it. And as I'm watching this car go around the racetrack, what I do is the very top of that racetrack, 12 o'clock, that represents I'm at the very top. I've fully inhaled and I'm preparing to exhale. And as that race car comes around the racetrack to the next side

Joshua Frerichs:

side of that

Chris Graham:

I start to exhale

Joshua Frerichs:

So six o'clock.

Chris Graham:

until six o'clock. And then when that car comes around six o'clock, that's the bottom. I'm empty. I don't have any air left in my lungs, and I begin to breathe in again. And so what I want us to do is just to visualize that race car going around this oval racetrack. 12 o'clock is all the way in. Six o'clock is all the way out. And just visualize this car driving around this dark racetrack. All you can see is the light from the headlights. That's the only thing visible. And just let your breath be determined by the position of this car on the racetrack. Let's just do this for a few seconds. Let's visualize this race car and see if that helps us have a smoother, more even breathing technique where we're spending equal time on each part of the breath. Here we go. Now as we do this, we're coming to the very end of this exercise. I want you to shift your attention away from your breath. And I want you to focus on one thing, and that is simply this. Be right here, right now. Just be present. Just focus on being present right here, right now in this moment. As you continue to breathe, you are not thinking about the future. You're not thinking about the past. Just right now. So it usually takes me a minute, but I'll find this present moment and I'll just hang out there. And that's meditation. Find the present moment. Stay there. All right, Joshua, let's come back here. Let's start to bring ourselves back to a non meditative state and just talk to me, what was that like for you? What did you notice happening in you as you did that?

Joshua Frerichs:

I just got really sorry. I just got very relaxed. I'm still incredibly relaxed. I feel tired actually a little bit. My my body was probably like, thank you for closing your eyes for so long.

Chris Graham:

That's awesome. At what point did you start

Joshua Frerichs:

Great.

Chris Graham:

that kick in?

Joshua Frerichs:

I would say when I stopped focusing too much on the track, I felt like the track helped me get there. And then before you told me to stop thinking about the track, I started to stop thinking about the track and just settled into not necessarily presence, but I didn't have a lot of thought, if that makes sense. I had some thought but it wasn't like a absence of thought, but it wasn't, it was more like what you said, not worrying about the future, not worrying about the past, just being, and that's not a common place for me. Even though we are human beings, we are just existing in this current moment. We don't have the past or the future. It's typically what I'm always thinking about.

Chris Graham:

me too. it's hard.

Joshua Frerichs:

it's a nice break.

Chris Graham:

It's a really nice break and it's funny because I think. Business is a strategy game. You're making these decisions about, ah, am I gonna work with this client? What am I gonna quote them? Am I gonna offer this additional service to should I ask for money upfront? Should I charge a flat rate? All of these things that, that, that

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah, they do.

Chris Graham:

and good judgment requires presence

Joshua Frerichs:

And you can't undersell yourself. You can't, or else you're not gonna be actually as good for those people as you could be, because you'll be putting yourself in stress. It's so important to charge the right thing. People will say, Hey, that's expensive. And I'll say, yes it is, and you're gonna get my best. And it's gonna be great.

Chris Graham:

I love that, man. Let me ask you this. As you were doing that breathing exercise, did You have

Joshua Frerichs:

You have any trouble

Chris Graham:

part of the breath? Did you notice

Joshua Frerichs:

the beginning? In the beginning I would overfill. I would like breathe too much. And then I felt a little lightheaded, right? Because I would I would assume that I breathed all the way out at the bottom but then I still I would be going back through and I'd feel like I'd have to breathe too much to get up to the top. And as I started thinking about the vehicle it helped me, it did, it helped me to feel less focused on it and just smooth it out

Chris Graham:

It's funny a couple weeks ago. I recorded a record with my buddy lid Shaw at this guy's studio relay recording John Fatel here in, Columbus, Ohio. And we had this band of guys in and, we'd all play live in the room. And I intentionally showed up not knowing any of the songs, not having looked at any of the charts, and. When they start playing, I'm just gonna start playing two

Joshua Frerichs:

You just better hope they're not like earth, wind, and fire, because if so, you're freaking screwed.

Chris Graham:

Yeah. And I I was like, we're talking like 1, 4, 5, 6.

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah,

Chris Graham:

Yeah. We're talking like pretty simple transitions, right? And he is yeah. And I was like, there's no twos or threes or, crap like that. And there, and he's no.

Joshua Frerichs:

no. no. So I I knew, I I'll

Chris Graham:

my way, uh, through this. Yeah. Every once in a while. But

Joshua Frerichs:

But

Chris Graham:

it was amazing. I had this moment where in, in order to deal with that level of stress of what if I, what if it's garbage? And now the thing I play is awful. You have to be able to get yourself in a fairly calm position to take the risk of I am going to play with these guys. it ain't gonna be mediocre, it is either gonna be trash or it's gonna be

Joshua Frerichs:

it's gonna be absolute hot trash or great.

Chris Graham:

Yeah. No. Yeah, exactly. And I remember I had this moment in John's studio, he has this awesome Yamaha baby Grand, and I'm sitting at the Yamaha and we're tracking this song, and I had breathed into it. I had gotten relaxed, I had dealt with all the nerves, and I was calm, I was present, and I was enjoying the moment. And all of a sudden I started playing something and I was like, I don't have any idea what I'm playing. And I could never play this a second time. I don't even, I don't even know what these notes are, but this is the best

Joshua Frerichs:

the best I

Chris Graham:

played the piano, thank God and they're recording it right now. And it was this really cool Moment. of just presence

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah.

Chris Graham:

of just okay, I'm just reacting. And as

Joshua Frerichs:

as I.

Chris Graham:

that, it was like my subconscious was like, Chris, thank you. You're letting me do my thing. You've brought me to the show. And so for me, meditation, breathing, exercise, all of these things, I do when I'm at the State House, I'll be in a position where I'm like, all right, I am going to testify in front of some really powerful people about a thing that's really uncomfortable for me to talk about.

Joshua Frerichs:

About,

Chris Graham:

Let me breathe my way into this and man, I tell you this stuff works. And I think my experience over the past couple years a final thought to end this on here, is that potential, reaching your potential often means that there is 10 seconds that you have to show up for, and you have to be in the right place at the right time, with the right people, with the right vibe. And, I haven't shown this to you and you guys in the podcast, can't see it. But behind me is. It's my framed, it's the scouts honor law. My mom framed it for me, and you can see one of the pens that the governor used to sign it in the law is in that frame. It's pretty rad. But that bill, it really came down to 20, 30 seconds

Joshua Frerichs:

for sure.

Chris Graham:

the beginning of my pitch to the right legislator at the right time I was completely present for it, and I am so thankful for what I learned about breath work and about meditation to

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah. To be able to manage the fact that I was so nervous.

Chris Graham:

shaking,

Joshua Frerichs:

I mean, Dude, it's an incredibly nerve wracking and also there's personal connection to all of this, which just heightens it

Chris Graham:

yeah. and this is, I think what I'm so grateful for all the experiences. Producing legislation. That's what I, I I'm a producer. I'm not the artist that, that's, that, that's the legislators. I'm a producer. I go in and I'm like, Hey, I think this song would redefine your legacy. This legislation would redefine your legacy. when I am showing up and doing that the stakes are often ridiculous. And for me, learning how to show up in those environments and dig into the deepest part of who I am and push through and frankly do the next scary thing, right? When you do that, you unlock new parts of yourself

Joshua Frerichs:

sure.

Chris Graham:

that become very useful

Joshua Frerichs:

Yeah.

Chris Graham:

trying to express yourself in the studio.

Joshua Frerichs:

Yes, yeah. feel that. I feel that

Chris Graham:

Well, Joshua, thank you. Thank you for hanging out with me today, and thank you for sharing with everybody that's listening. I'm really excited for people to listen to your story and to start to have this realization of look, dude, if you are trying to only make money by providing services to people, you have a single point of failure in your business and that single point of failure, it's your health.

Joshua Frerichs:

Your health is your wealth. When you start to have things that show you that your health is wealth, you'll really understand. dude, it was an honor to be here today, honor to hang with you and to talk through this stuff. I don't think that I've ever had a platform or an opportunity that would've made sense for me to share this stuff.'cause I'm not gonna go out and. Tell people about Lyme disease and things like that. I've always wanted to be really careful because I don't want people to work with me'cause they think, oh, he's got a lot going on. Or I don't want people to, I don't want to gain merit through anything except for the way I treat people and the way that I do good work for them and my integrity and honesty and chasing excellence. Yes, Lyme disease is part of my story, but it is not uh, a definer of, what's gonna stop me. It just made me wake up to really taking care of my health and that's why I haven't shared it. I think that this is probably the, I feel the most comfortable sharing that I ever have because it's coming out in a context that's real.

Chris Graham:

Well, Joshua, I am positive that at some point. Somebody will listen to this podcast episode, who is also working through Lyme disease. And your openness, I'm sure will inspire them to understand that they're not alone, they're having a human experience, and that it doesn't even have to hold you back. It might be the thing that, that causes you to take this seriously enough and to be cautious and to be caring enough to Get all the other pieces right. And

Joshua Frerichs:

that is Yeah.

Chris Graham:

issue it doesn't have to be limiting it,

Joshua Frerichs:

No, just be gentle with yourself. Don't judge yourself, right? Dude, I've spent days crying in bed because my neuropathy is so bad and I just don't know what to do with it. And that has happened, I would say at least 10 times over the last five years. And it's okay to go through and if you wanna work that day, then cool. There are many times that I did. But give yourself the space to work with yourself where you are. Health is a hard thing, and we're all gonna die. We're all gonna die someday, and we're probably gonna die of something. And there will be a process. So whether it's when you're in your thirties or when you're in your seventies or your eighties the chances are you're gonna have to figure this out to some degree. There's a level of learning how to persevere through the non-ideal. And it's just, it's required for life.

Chris Graham:

Mic drop moment right there, man. Thank you, brother.