Episode Details

July 5 A Universe made of music
Hello, I'm George Caylor, TeaWithGeorge.com, and today's session of Get Real, is a special treat for me today, maybe for you as well.  I'm visiting with a fellow musician (that's almost like a mouse calling a lion my fellow hunter." I'm just an old rock and roller. A lot of you remember me from the 60s, but I'm talking to a true musician today. His name is Adam Smith. Adam, you're with Masterworks. You earned music degrees from two of America's most respective conservatories. You became a business owner like I did and an entrepreneur. We have a lot of background that's the same, except you're young and good looking and I'm old. You're actually a classical musician. I was a Motown rock and roller. Was that a detour from God's plan or did you eventually realize it was His plan? It's a great question. George, it's a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you for having me. I would say that that question does get asked a lot because when people find out my business background, they might put me in a bucket of, well, is he a business guy or a music guy? But a lot of times, I don't play that card. There's certain tact in how you just relate to people and what you're talking about. I don't tell everybody that I've got seven years of conservatory music training. Some people would expect that I've got MBAs and various business degrees or whatever. So I went to school at a prominent conservatory in Cleveland where I met my wife and that was a music theory degree that I got there. And then my wife and I got married and thankfully I got a full scholarship and stipend and all to a prominent conservatory in Rochester, New York and did that for three years.  I got out of there, I had underestimated the job market as a music theory professor. So it was like, okay, you can make 30 grand a year. I was like, wow. And I was I was making good money on side work during school, doing multimedia, doing some sound design, some custom audio work. And I ended up working for a friend of mine who bought us an auto repair and body shop. And it was a little bit of a proving ground for me to reset my expectations of what I had just gone through with school. But I, you know, I loved doing that. And after that, I worked for an Internet company for a year. And that sort of dot bust around 2000 was what I experienced there.And it was at that moment in around 2000, I just said, Lord, what am I supposed to do? And I knew that what we do for a living as our vocation was important. Some of you all might realize that when Jesus called his disciples, none of them were rabbis. They're all business guys. They're all just working guys. You got fishermen, tax collectors, doctors, lawyers. You got you got just working people. That says something, right? Principle of God honoring your vocation and your vocation being important to him. I knew that, but I wasn't sure which realm to pursue. I actually ended up just praying and worshiping and reading scriptures and singing the scriptures because that's a talent I have as an ear trained. I can improvise and play for hours and play anything that I hear on the radio. And now I can tell you what all the chords are because I have music theory background. But I just spent time in prayer and worship. And that ended up turning into an album that I produced called Worship at Work. And I toured around the country and I've led worship in prominent venues. And through that, I was presented with the opportunity. To go be a Christian artist with management and all that. And I was going to be like the workplace ministry worship leader guy. And I'm praying over the contracts and the Lord says, you can do this if you want to, but I'd rather give you a business. And I said, okay, obviously, Lord, the way you're saying that, I think I know what I'm supposed to do. And I pushed the contracts to the side, told my wife what the Lord said. She said, okay. I called the management. I said, listen, I know this