In this video Brooke Richey addresses the burnout and toxic, emotionally addictive relationship many musicians have with their art. She argues that the root cause is subconscious wiring formed by one’s origin story in music. Richey shares her own journey—from discovering a love for trumpet in elementary school, transitioning to singing, studying composition and worship arts, and leading the Blackbird Collective Band—to illustrate how early experiences embed limiting beliefs. She stresses the importance of consciously knowing the whos, whats, whys, wheres, and hows of that origin story to re‑align one’s relationship with music. Using Buddy Guy’s positive origin story as a contrast, she shows how a freely given, supportive beginning can foster a thriving career, whereas a story laden with hidden constraints fuels burnout. Richey then outlines three practical pillars: (1) uncover and rewrite the subconscious patterns tied to your origin story, (2) separate income from artistic worth, viewing money as a reflection of choices rather than value, and (3) get hyper‑specific about goals, using voice work as both a filtration and generative tool to release limiting narratives and program desired outcomes. She promotes her coaching programs—Amplify Your Voice and the Embodied Voice Cohort—as structured ways to apply voice work and achieve these shifts, and invites viewers to engage one‑on‑one or join the cohort. The video concludes with a call to action to like, subscribe, and share.
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If you were to pick up your instrument, sit down to write or rehearse, practice right now, or schedule even a show for your band, write an email, and you're being met with an overwhelming looming darkness of, I don't want to do it. If you're feeling this sense of overwhelm and that you're just flat out burnt out, then there's probably I'm gonna say there is a subconscious wiring going on in your mind about what your relationship of music is to you in your life, about its purpose, about how it serves you, and how there's a misalignment there that needs to be addressed and adjusted. So here's how in this video you can repair this emotionally addictive and toxic relationship with your musicianship, with your career, And actually have the career you want, one that's full of freedom, full of flexibility built into structure, one that doesn't overwhelm you. So you can learn from my experience. Here's a bit of my backstory in music. I started playing trumpet when I was about 10 years old, but the desire to play that instrument and be like the 5th grade band kids carrying their instruments first thing When they got to school and I would see them down the hallway was when I was 8 in 3rd grade. And I would see them every morning that there was band for them. I think it was about 3 or 4 days a week. They'd be walking in with their cases and I'm like, ah, they're so cool! I want to be one of them! I'm going to be one of them one day. And I was when I got to 5th grade and I got to start playing trumpet. I chose trumpet because I was taking after what I knew, and one of my parents played this instrument, so I followed in their footsteps and played this instrument as well. What you don't know when you're a kid though is that when you follow what you know, you're going to mimic everything that comes with it, even the subconscious, under-the-radar stuff. Any dynamics that are hidden and interwoven into that relationship mirrored themselves onto my relationship with music. So what this meant was that I actually developed a lot of negative self-limiting beliefs in my musicianship just because of the origin of my music story. That's it. And maybe you You know, because we are very, as humans, it's very easy for us to focus on the negative and it's hard for us to reject it. That's also something where it's a matter of, where it's a matter of mindset strengthening and building really strong resilience and cognitive behaviors to reject these kinds of things that will, you know, take over our, our trajectories. So I started off playing trumpet and had a lot of fun with that up till about high school, and I've, I've actually played it professionally over the years. But really what I ended up taking up was singing. I started singing in middle school and that developed over the years. Then eventually getting to college, I decided to study composition, got a minor in worship arts. So I've done worship leadership as well as band leadership now. with Blackbird Collective Band, and my whole career has just continued to develop and blossom over time just from those days in the hallway of that first spark of seeing kids walk with their instrument cases into their classrooms down the hallway. So the thing about development— and here is point one for you to break any toxic patterning that you have in your relationship with your music, with your artistry and your craft, your career. You have to know your origin story. And based off of what I just shared, you have to know the whos, the whats, the wheres, the whys. Other things that were built into this origin story— I chose trumpet, right? I was able to go get my own trumpet after I borrowed my parents' trumpet for like the first week of band. I got my own trumpet. So this was my first instrument I believe. Was it my first instrument? I did get a drum set, I think maybe the year prior for Christmas, but I didn't do that seriously. It was just kind of for fun, and I didn't know what I was doing with the drum set. I still want to get another one one day, a Pearl. So with my trumpet and with this side of my artistry, it's where I began to learn music, which is actually what a college professor told me. When he asked me, when did you— what— how did you get started in music? And I said the trumpet. I was like, well, first technically recorder club, which is also a B-flat instrument, I'm pretty sure, um, if I'm remembering that correctly. But the fact of the matter is I've learned music from— in, in a transposed instrument. I've learned music in a transposed instrument. Likewise, when this comes to development This tends to pour over into other areas of your life. So I've learned a lot of life in a transposed, behind-the-radar sense of things, not very direct. It's an indirect approach is what I'm getting at. And this is very important for you to know your origin story, because when you know the whos, the whats, the whys, the wheres, To err on this a little bit more, we lived in an area of town that wasn't the most spectacular, and I was able to get this trumpet and bring it home. And just the matter of getting to carry that around was such a prideful thing for me. I was so proud of it, to be able to carry this to and from school, and it was just, you You know, it's kind of like your baby you're taking care of. It's really important to know these things, what your origin story is and the interwoven things with the dynamics of that relationship. A great example of this, seeing a very positive relationship of origin with music, is Buddy Guy, one of the best blues guitar players in the world. I think probably the best. He, when he first heard a guitar and saw a guitar, wanted one so bad he, he made one. He took out screen wires from the screens that his parents had bought. And this is living in a very rural area with— I'm not sure if they had electricity at this point, but he took out these wires of a screen for the window, which meant mosquitoes could get in. But he took these wires out so that he could make a guitar. This was his desire. Right, this was the origin of his desire to play this instrument, to do this, this career. And then when he moved and he was in the right place, right time, someone saw him playing on a guitar or holding a guitar at a store. The guy just ups and offers it to him and says, hey, I'm gonna buy you this guitar. And that being just given to him, it was just given to him freely. There was no Strings attached, no pun intended there. So it's really important that you know this origin story. And so if we look at Buddy Guy now, right, he has his club in Chicago and he still performs into his 80s. Um, and if you haven't met him, he's a really sweet guy. If you ever make it to the club, he is a very sweet guy. But back to the origin story. If you don't have that— and Buddy Guy's story is a perfect example of it was just freely given to him, he was able to just run and go with it, right? And if you don't have that as your origin story, that's where the alignment and the realignment needs to happen for you. Because if you don't feel like you can just go and just run and fly and do the thing, then there's something going on in the background that is going to keep weighing down on you until you take the time to work through it. And this is something I do in voice work in a few of my programs: Amplify Your Voice, the Embodied Voice Cohort, and then you can also work with me one-on-one in voice coaching. Voice coaching isn't particular to singers. It is from the philosophy of I Am, and in the beginning God created. You don't have to believe in God, you don't have to be spiritual to work with me. That is just my own philosophy of the instrument that was built in your body was designed for you to regulate, communicate, and navigate. And if you know how to use the instrument, you are going to generate and filter out anything that's not meant for you. You're going to generate what you want in life— your outcomes, your desires, your dreams. So more info with the links below for that. And remember, just know the whos, hows, whats, wheres, whys about your origin story so that you can get really dialed in on who you are as an artist. Because being an artist, it's not a reflection of your worth. You can't, you can't make your artistry, your identity as an artist reflective of your worth. And if that's going on, Then it's just gonna keep holding you back. Okay, so on that note, your income does not define your musicianship, your artistry. It does not define how good you are. Your income is a reflection of choice, decisions, and how much and how many people you've helped. That's it. That's it. You can put whatever price you want On the services you offer, on your performances that you give, on what you sell your merch at, whatever it is that you decide to monetize in your career, it is a reflection of decisions. That's it. So to not get it conflated and contribute to the burnout and to break this toxic relationship that you have going on with your musicianship, with your artistry, is to not put the pressure on yourself that you have to make a dollar with your music, that you have to earn income, because that is really just a transactive relationship, and that's not a thriving place to build a career. This is also something we work on in the Amplify Your Voice, Embodied Voice programs, and what I will— can work on with you in one-on-one coaching. So make sure to click the links below if you'd like to get involved there and make these shifts in your life. Okay, point 3, you have to get really serious about what's required for you to achieve your goals. You have to get focused. And this is where voice work really does come into play, because your voice is both what— a filtration device, it's a tool, and it's also a generative device. So there's a balance, right, of what you need to say and speak and label and release, process out of your system, and also generate The outcomes and the direction that you're going and what you want. You have to get so specific on these because if you're not hyper-specific, you're going to keep tolerating and entertaining options. And over time, the toleration and entertainment of options that doesn't align with your trajectory is going to wear you down. And coming back to it, right, the foundation of your music career— so going back to that origin story, looking at Buddy Guy in comparison to mine, which I would say mine is pretty positive, but given the nuances and the things of the dynamic of mirroring that I had interwoven to my origin story, I've had a lot to to work through myself. Going back to that origin story, you want an origin, you want a foundation that is just, here it is, go run, go build, go fly, go create the thing. There are no constraints. You define the structure, you define how good it's going to be, what how wonderful it's going to be. You get to define all of that. But if that origin story, right, going back to the origin story, if that origin story has any of these negative toxic emotional nuances and hidden frameworks and subconscious wiring attached to it, you're going to keep generating a career that is dependent on that. Again, this is where voice work comes into play, and I can help you work through that subconscious wiring so that you get off of this transactive relationship in your music career because it's exhausting. You don't have to do it. There's a better way to build. Think of the Buddy Guy example of an origin story of what can I do to make this result in my life as opposed to what do I have to sacrifice in order to keep it. In my life. There's a difference. Make sure to hit the like, subscribe, and share this with a friend who would benefit. And I hope to see you in Amplify Your Voice Embodied Cohort or work with you one-on-one. Thanks again, and I'll see you in my next video.
