Letter for Berklee

Steve Vai

Greetings enthusiastic music students, and congratulations. You have chosen the entertainment industry as your profession. I have been in it for the last forty-seven years, and I can tell you it’s truly a fantastic industry. The number of options and fields to explore in the entertainment industry is vast, and the Arts are paramount to the mental health of any culture. We need your brilliance!

Your entire career experience in any industry is 100% joined at the hip with the quality of your attitude and your perspective on what you do. This great industry is here to serve you, and you to serve it. When you make a deliberate decision to see the best in everyone in it, you will have a supreme experience.

As you start to feel a pull towards a particular field in this industry, you will instinctually come to find your position in it, your joyous position. And as you strive to reach those creative goals that arise in you as inspired insights, you will come to realize the vital necessity of working in harmony with all others. We could never achieve anything without the contribution of others. As you fulfill your goals, you are helping others to fulfill theirs, and they are supporting you in fulling yours.

When your perspective of the entertainment industry is that of joyous co-creation with others, the sun the moon and the stars will bow for you to help you achieve your goals through your brilliant creativity and your support of those you are co-creating with. But this is an attitude one must cultivate at all times through their career, and it’s the only attitude worth cultivating because from it comes everything you are looking for.

Let no thought of despair go unchallenged. Always look to improve your positive perspective and expectations from wherever you are at any given moment. If you can make that a habit, then you will be a formidable solution-oriented person and effective resolutions will be effortlessly within your reach and as easily plucked as low hanging fruit.

As you navigate through your career, you will inevitably be faced with various challenges. Always remember that challenges are necessary for your growth. You would not be happy if everything was easy although you might think you would be. A solution-based person sees challenges as opportunities to find the answers for their expansion and the creative expansion of those they co-create with, which is virtually everybody. When this happens, there are no more “problems,” only opportunities for growth.

The question is, can you find your positive solution-based attitude in the face of any of the myriad challenges you will confront in your career? This is where your true strength lies, and I can assure you that once you make that powerful inner decision to be the best positive solution based person you can be, then any step along your path that may seem to be met with a challenge will be seen by you as an opportunity for growth and expansion for all.

Do you see our recent world challenge as an occasion to find new and powerful ways to co-create with others? Can you see where the opportunities lie in this challenge? There are countless ways to find growth during this current world situation, and your positive expectations of finding these are the key. Try it now!

You are a powerful creator and within you is uniquely inspired creativity that wants to manifest through you into the world. This is your birthright and your function in this world and the potential to discovering your inimitable brilliance is unequivocally there for all. The only way to honor this gift is with your powerful positive attitude and appreciation of yourself and of those you are co-creating with, which is everybody. Never underestimate the power of your own positive attitude and appreciation. It’s the most transformative idea you will ever engage in.

It’s also important to understand that where you are at any given time is the right place for you. This too is a mental attitude that becomes your reality when you believe it. And the fact that it’s actually true, whether you believe it or not, is good to know.

There is no shortage of success. There is enough to go around for everybody, and one person’s success does not take it away or create a shortage of it for anyone else. On the contrary, your success contributes to the success of the whole, but your real success will be gauged by the amount of appreciation and joy you feel in yourself and your creative work with others.

I’m excited for you because I know that as a vibrant artistic collective, you will raise the bar for all of us and your collaborative creative extravaganzas will be a marvel to behold. Enjoy this honor. It’s here for you to embrace and you are fully deserving of it.

Steve Vai
May 6, 2020
Los Angeles
9:41am
vai.com

Featured Artwork: Courtesy of Steve Vai at vai.com