Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Fazel.
Hi Adam, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
The trajectory of my story is rooted in my early understanding that “Success”, especially in art, is primarily made up of a series of “Temporary Successes” that essentially never become permanent and is a forever work in progress. Whether you’re Martin Scorsese, or Tom Hanks, or Hans Zimmer, once you finish a project or movie or album, you’re technically unemployed again with no real guarantee of another project. And the “temporary success” essentially only lasts as long as your project or movie or album, before you have to start again on something else. Sometimes that could be immediately after, sometimes that could be years after, and sometimes that could be never again, but the cycle in art is always the same – you finish one thing, and then start over from scratch to start another, and hope for the same if not better compounding success. Grasping this very concept and psychological understanding that “success”, in the arts, isn’t a “position” or “title” or “promotion” or “office space” like other industries, and instead, understanding success in the arts as a compilation of mini achievements, is what allows you to not only navigate your sanity and the industry but also your happiness, health, well being and your life as a whole.
A life made up of a series of Temporary Successes no matter how successful you’ve been, has given me the valuable understanding that even when successful, especially in art, it’s important to reinvest, diversify, but most importantly, never lose sight or deter from the continued pursuit of your ultimate vision and dream. At the core of my passion is a love for storytelling, which originally manifested itself in the form of short films I would make with my cousins as a kid. Later, I got into composing and producing music during college as an extension of my film work and studies. Compelled to serve the story whilst directing my films in college, I realized just how integral music in film is to the story. Changing a tear to a laugh or a scream to a heartfelt moment, the mere resonance of the musical score can take us on that journey; Music can tell the story when the visuals can’t. It can act as a voiceless narration that talks to the audience and give them emotional cues. That’s how I naturally fell into doing music. With this holistic approach and drive to have full grasp over the storytelling, I taught myself how to compose, orchestrate and make music all from my college dorm room. Composing original scores and music for my own films soon turned into composing for my friends’ films, which then turned into people paying me to compose for their projects. This progression soon led to me being featured twice on the Cover of the Musician’s Friend Magazine and gratefully gained acclaim from and featured on the cover alongside Music Legend Alan Parsons.
Since then, I’ve worked with Britney Spears providing the music for several of her Lingerie Line Commercials’ Campaign, as well as Julia Roberts for a National Radio Commercial for Nationwide Insurance, in addition to the Worldwide Television Commercial for M. Night Shyamalan’s FOX Series, “Wayward Pines,” a Worldwide Television Commercial for American Express and numerous other Films and Commercials. You can see and hear more of my work at www.adamfazel.com Throughout my entire journey thus far, I’ve thankfully remained self-employed, but as I mentioned earlier, I’ve remained cognizant of the understanding that success in the arts is primarily made up of a series of Temporary Successes, and just because I was making money now didn’t necessarily guarantee I would make money later. So all the money I had been making with all my Film and Music jobs, I was compelled to reinvest it somewhere with something that can diversify my stream of income. Having been able to spend the majority of my professional career working from home, I’ve moved around to apartments all over LA, and through the process gained a love for interior design and just making things look better; With reinvestment on my mind, I realized Flipping Houses would be another perfect creative outlet that combines both design and investment that’ll generate an additional income stream on the side.
So in between my Film and Music projects, I did a ton of research and began reinvesting my Film and Music money into Flipping Houses on the side. And as of today, I have bought, designed, renovated and sold over a dozen homes. And now with the combined income earned from my Film, Music and House Flipping, I reinvest into more investments in order to continue this entrepreneurial cycle, whilst never losing sight of my vision and passion for storytelling, and never measuring success with a finish line, but instead by the compilation of achievements along the way.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve been self-employed since the beginning of my entire journey, which is in and of itself probably the biggest obstacle/challenge along the way. The anxiety and insecurity of not knowing when the next project will come or what your next paycheck will look like is daunting. Especially when compared to your friends who have corporate 9 to 5 jobs, where they have security and stability in both job and salary which allows you to plan your entire year out because you know exactly how and where everything will be coming from.
In contrast, when you are self-employed, it’s not so straight forward; just because you make a lot of money one month doesn’t necessarily mean you should spend like you do, because you may not know how long that money will have to last you until the next project. This can be disorienting at times because you may see one project in one month pay you the same amount as the last six months combined, while another month could bring virtually nothing at all. And when self-employed, you never really know, and that’s probably the biggest struggle, “the unknown”. But at the same time, that is one of the blessings of being self-employed in comparison to the stability and security of your corporate job friends, because when you’re self-employed, the opportunity can literally be endless and exponential overnight, simply because you are not tied to any payroll or corporate structure or ladder.
As self-employed, each project will be different in both workload and budget, which means at any given time one of those projects could potentially pay you exponentially more money than a corporate job salary. And the wild thing about the arts is that literally for the same amount of work, one project may pay you practically nothing, while another project pays you astronomical amounts, and all for the same exact amount of work, which to this day blows my mind how that works, and is something I don’t think ever goes away even at the highest level of the industry. And so self-employment isn’t all doom and gloom; there is a tremendous opportunity for greatness, also the fact that you don’t ever have to set an alarm clock again which is a huge perk, but of course it comes with the obstacle, challenge and struggle of psychologically and financially navigating this type of lifestyle. This is another reason why I feel it’s so important to reinvest and diversify to help mitigate some of these inherent obstacles that come with being a self-employed artist.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
In regards to how the Covid-19 crisis has affected the economical side of things, and I don’t mean to sound like a broken record here, but the reinvestment and diversification that I did and thankfully had an early understanding to do in my journey has become the biggest validation during this economic turmoil. When Hollywood completely shut down and the future was unknown, my other side investments thankfully boomed. So while one thing slowed down, another thing picked up and this is a prime example and lesson, even for myself, of how important this entrepreneurial mindset has been and is now, more than ever. As Hollywood picks back up, so do the film and music projects, and perhaps the other side investments may soften; but the beauty of this balancing act, especially for an artist’s lifestyle, is that it allows some relief from the burden of the unknown and instead gives the peace of mind to truly let the creative mindset free and flow, and most importantly, never lose sight or be deterred from the continued pursuit of your ultimate vision and dream.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.adamfazel.com
- SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/adamfazel/sets
Image Credits
Musician’s Friend Magazine, Connie Kurtew
