Transitioning from the DJ booth to the boardroom might seem like a leap, but the skills I honed as a DJ have been instrumental in my professional career. Here are five transferable skills from my experience as a club DJ that have shaped my success.
Discovering Drum and Bass
One thing that generates a lot of discussion from my bio is my experience as a DJ. Most people find it intriguing and are curious to know what type of music I spun, where I played, and how I juggled a corporate job while spending nights in the club. The perception now, 21 years into my professional career, is far different from when I was getting started. Back then, I was seen as uncommitted to my day job. Senior leaders thought I was pursuing a professional DJ career and not focused on advancing in the company.
Fast forward to recent times, and you have David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, DJing at Lollapalooza.
What I didn’t have the experience and wherewithal to point out then, I do now. The skills that made me a successful DJ have also made me successful in my professional career. I’ll explain, but before I do, I think it’s important to shed some light on what music I was playing and where.
The music I discovered in the early 1990s was then called “Jungle” and later coined “drum and bass.” Jungle was invented in the UK and is the cousin to New York’s hip-hop, both sharing their origin in Jamaican Soundsystem culture imported by the Jamaican diaspora during the 70s and 80s. It is a mashup of soul, funk, rare groove, reggae, dub, and breakbeats. As the Soundsystems had selectors and toasters, so became the DJs and MCs in jungle and hip-hop.
The venues for this music, the same type of places I would eventually play, were dark clubs, warehouses, raves, and festivals. It was an underground culture that thrived on exclusivity, mystique, and freedom of expression. The crowds were not only filled with carefree dancers looking to escape for the night. It largely consisted of aspiring and established DJs all assessing one another’s ability and jockeying for a timeslot on the next club night. I found it as intense as any competitive business setting I’ve been a part of, with peers trying to climb the corporate ladder. One misstep or trainwreck and you were done. I studied the scene as closely as any subject in college. This is where the skills I mentioned earlier were developed.
Obsessive Studying & Research
Like any subject in business, whether it be finance, marketing, or HR, you must be a constant student. Starting out, the knowledge curve can be substantial, but reading the latest industry publications, listening to industry leaders, and modeling the masters are key to building your awareness and understanding of how things work, the norms, jargon, etc.
For me, that meant learning about the top producers and DJs on the local scene and, more importantly, the global scene. I studied their sets to learn which tunes they were playing and carefully observed how they controlled the records and equipment. I found record shops and clubs where I learned how the music was distributed and how to connect with promoters who booked the DJs. I had to learn an entire ecosystem, just like a new grad has to learn a business and a market.
Technical Skill Development
There is no substitute for hard work. You just have to put the time in. You might be building financial models or creating digital assets for a new marketing campaign. Nobody walks in on day one with all the knowledge and skills to attack a new challenge. Every day, month, and year, there is something new coming along that even the most experienced leader needs to incorporate into their technical skills. It’s AI today, and it will be something new before too long. Once new skills are learned, it then becomes a question of how you use them creatively to distinguish yourself from others.
My first DJ equipment was a subpar mishmash of a cheap mixer and mismatched turntables just good enough to teach myself on. It forced me to learn in less-than-ideal conditions and made me better. I did not know another DJ at the time to learn from, so my obsessive studying of DJ fundamentals and personal taste initially shaped my skillset. When I did find other DJs playing the same style of music, I would ask loads of questions and apply the tricks they showed me. Sometimes I would adopt them, and other times I would stick with my self-taught approach but always with a quality product in mind. In business, that comes in the form of a project or deliverable; for a DJ, it’s a mix, stringing one record to the next seamlessly for an hour or more.
Exclusive Content
Content has become king. It drives our LinkedIn feeds and can elevate its creator to become synonymous with their field or discipline. Content isn’t limited to posts on our socials, though. Content, to me, is the work product you deliver to your clients, customers, and internal stakeholders. It’s the work that only you can provide because it has your personal stamp on it, and it is valued for its quality.
In the DJ world, you better have fresh tunes or damn good technical skills if you want to land bookings. I had my hands on the latest tunes and early releases weeks before most of my local competition. Remember that record store buyer? Well, that relationship allowed me to secure promo copies of records that the store may only receive 1-3 copies of in advance of the official release. This meant that my DJ sets became known for having the most cutting-edge music in addition to my technically unique style. Content was king. I was able to drop new records in my set like an executive can drop nuggets of fresh perspective in a keynote or press interview.
Influence & Reading the Room
For executives, this is obviously an essential skill, but still, many people struggle with it. Many of the skills mentioned above can impact your ability to influence others in your organization or externally. Do you possess the technical skills? Can you leverage your network? Are you viewed as an expert because of the quality content/work product you deliver? Perhaps more importantly, can you read the room? When you start to lose your audience, you must rely on all your experience to pivot in a meaningful way, capture their attention, and raise the level of energy and engagement.
I think it’s obvious that a DJ has to have these same abilities. When a DJ is behind the turntables, they are setting the tone for everyone on the dance floor. Each new record leads the listener on a journey. Subtle adjustments on the mixer and chops with the crossfader tease new beats and impact the collective emotions of the crowd. It is the DJ’s job to read the audience and the types of tracks that keep them dancing or leaving the dance floor to the edge of the room. Once you lock in on their vibe, you can deliver a set that offers the music that moves them while incorporating new bits to expand their taste. Presenting a board presentation or strategy rollout is no different. Present the wrong facts or speak in the wrong tone, and you’ll lose your audience, potentially their necessary buy-in. Set the tone early, see where the head nods are coming from, and then present data points that resonate, and you become a captivating presenter.
Conclusion
DJing in clubs and opening for international headliners as they toured through Baltimore and DC seemed like a lofty goal when I bought my first few pieces of vinyl and stared at my janky setup. My last official gig was performing at Michael Phelps’s house for a VIP showing before it hit the market. The 15 years in between allowed me to open for some of the world’s top DJs and are a reminder of what is possible when you put in hard work, determination, curiosity, and fun into any goal you pursue. It is these skills and many more that I apply at Unlock and the reason I know we will achieve our vision to expand and fulfill human potential through the power of connection.
