Mike Hall
Blue Man Group
Las Vegas, NV USA
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You have to be willing to put yourself out there because if you never ask, you’ll never know."
Career Roadmap
Mike's work combines: Music, Entrepreneurship, and Accomplishing Goals
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
Be conscious of how you represent yourself and always live up to what you say you are going to do. Your reputation definitely proceeds you. If you build good relationships, that opens doors and they continue to open as you move along your path.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life took a while to figure out
1.
Born and raised in Las Vegas, NV.
2.
His father was a musician, so he grew up surrounded by musical instruments and bands practicing.
3.
As a teenager, he became more serious about pursuing a career in music—even though his father supported him, he encouraged him to gain other skills so he would have a back-up plan.
4.
While trying to get his band started, he struggled financially and admits that he worked a lot of odd jobs trying to make enough money to afford guitar strings and gas to get himself to gigs.
5.
Since he didn’t have any money, whenever he needed an instrument fixed, he would offer to clean the repair shops as payment.
6.
Over time, he was offered an opportunity to apprentice and learn how to repair instruments—became a professional luthier for almost a decade.
7.
When the Blue Man Group first came to Las Vegas, their guitar tech started bringing instruments to him to fix—this led to his current position as the Head of the Musical Instrument Tech Department.
8.
Says that even though his dream of becoming a rock star didn’t work out, where he ended up is better than he could have ever imagined.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Parents:
Are you really sure you want to pursue music?
How I responded:
When my father realized I was getting more and more serious about pursuing music as a career, he sat me down and told me that he would support me, but I needed to have another set of skills because music is a challenging career. I focused on learning and gaining as many experiences as I could.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
The term "starving artist" exists for a reason. It's generally true. I certainly ate my share of ramen and worked many jobs to follow my career path.