Following Your Passion and Learning to Promote Yourself With Roddy Chong

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

On today’s show we welcome Roddy Chong.

Roddy is an accomplished Asian American violinist and speaker known for his high energy performances with many of the music industry’s most recognized acts.

Roddy has toured with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Shania Twain and Celine Dion and he has performed for audiences all around the world.

He has performed for the President of the United States, the Queen of England, The Pope and Oprah.

We’ll get into why Roddy wanted to quit the violin after pressure from his parents and how he actually did quit the violin for a period of his life.

Roddy tells us about the importance of following a passion coupled with networking. He also goes into the steps that he took to land an audition and play with Shania Twain and Celine Dion.

For all this and more, tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Roddy’s early years playing the violin.
• Giving up the violin and the college years.
• Jobs that Roddy did out of college and the importance of MTV.
• How Roddy picked up the violin again and going on his first tour.
• Getting fired from The Jars of Clay touring band.
• The ‘failure vibe’ and what it felt like.
• Getting back up and finding more work.
• The power of the library and the books that Roddy loves.
• Auditioning and going on tour with Shania Twain.
• Reliability as one of Roddy’s biggest strengths.
• Starting a career as a speaker and mixing this with music performance.
• The principles of always promoting yourself and your work.
• Thinking rich and moving up to major league thinking.
• Roddy’s Fail On Challenge to our listeners.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I did want to quit, right around 11 years old, I think that’s very common with all kids and the difference with my parents and other parents is that my parents did not let me quit.” — @roddychong

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[0:05:28].2]

“Right after my junior year, I kind of stopped playing. I thought that I’m not going to do this professionally.” — @roddychong

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[0:09:50].1]

“I was naively positive. Anything that could possibly work, I was like all in, this is going to work. I still am like that a little bit.” — @roddychong

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[0:19:04].2]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Roddy Chong — http://www.roddychong.com/

Roody Chong on Twitter — https://twitter.com/roddychong?lang=en

Todd Herman — http://toddherman.me/

Jars of Clay — http://www.jarsofclay.com/

Boyd Tinsley — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Tinsley

Dave Matthews Band — http://www.davematthewsband.com/

Charlie Daniels — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Daniels

The Devil Went Down to Georgia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Went_Down_to_Georgia

Kansas — http://www.kansasband.com/

Payback — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payback_(1999_film)

Rebecca Saint James — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_St._James

DC Talk — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Talk

Shania Twain — http://www.shaniatwain.com/

Sylvester Stallone — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Stallone

What You Say When You Talk to Yourself — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321982.What_to_Say_When_You_Talk_to_Yourself

Think and Grow Rich — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30186948-think-and-grow-rich

Blink — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40102.Blink?from_search=true

Celine Dion —http://www.celinedion.com/

Trans-Siberian Orchestra — http://www.trans-siberian.com/index/home

Rob Kosberg — http://robkosberg.com/

Grant Cardone — https://grantcardone.com/

Kevin Harrington — http://kevinharrington.tv/

What They Don’t Teach You in Harvard Business School — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467754.What_They_Don_t_Teach_You_at_Harvard_Business_School

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 042

“RC: I did the best that I could which was I typed the whole thing out. So I had like six pages and I had rehearsed it, I did a lot of things wrong and that’s how I’m able to do what I do now very powerfully because I did so many things wrong the first time. Through that, kind of failing in that first one, a lot of good things happened.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:25.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:51.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that knows publicly sharing your failures is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and real entrepreneurs, not the overnight success stories we tend to hear about.

And this is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of Roddy Chong. Roddy is an accomplished Asian American violinist and speaker known for his high energy performances with many of the music industry’s most recognized acts.

Roddy has toured with The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Shania Twain and Celine Dion and he has performed for audiences all around the world including the President of the United States, the Queen of England, The Pope, Oprah and countless other notable figures and Rob Nunnery of course, actually he performed in San Diego and Todd Herman’s 90 Day Year event and he was amazing. We’ll be discussing why Roddy wanted to quit the violin at the age of 11 after pressure from his parents and how he didn’t see himself doing it professionally.

He discusses the importance of following a passion and networking in order to find opportunity and he also goes into the steps that he took to land an audition and play with Shania Twain and Celine Dion. Really cool stories and really powerful. But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:30.5] RN: There’s a lot I want to dig in to because your story’s incredibly inspiring but just to take it back and to give everybody some context, why the violin, what got you into playing the violin?

[0:02:41.6] RC: You know, I think that’s something that is very common in Asian families and my family growing up was Chinese American and you know, I think my dad was into a – really the pushing for the violin was from my mom. I’ve talked with her about it here and there, she says that I chose the instrument at age two.

I have a hard time believing that, I don’t remember choosing it, I have a hard time believing it, I think that I did choose it somehow and I did see my two year old niece also choose the instrument at age two but I think that’s because she saw me playing it.

It was kind of something that as a family, an Asian family, that’s something that is very typical, that’s why in my speaking event where we met, people laugh when I say that you have two choices, piano or violin and people laugh, either they knew that nerdy Asian guy in school that had to carry around the violin or even Cello or something.

Or Asians in the audience are laughing because either they had that torture done to them or they’re doing it to their kids. I don’t have any kids but if I ever have kids, they are also going to play piano or violin and the idea that my mom said was, if I can get the right side of your brain going, hopefully the left side of your brain will also kind of grow.

I think it was good, I think the best thing that happened was just discipline, just the constant practice and having to do it because I know a lot of kids grow up having to go to the piano lesson or having to go to the violin lesson.

[0:04:14.9] RN: Back then, it’s like, as a kid, you’re like, for most kids, I want to go outside and play, I want to hang out with my friends.

[0:04:19.4] RC: Exactly.

[0:04:20.3] RN: is that how you felt as well?

[0:04:21.4] RC: Exactly, yeah. They let me do that. But before I could catch fireflies or go fishing or those things, play freebie with my friends, I had to practice and it was about 20 minutes. Any ideas of a tiger mom or six hours or you can’t eat until you’re done practicing, that was not what was going on in my family.

I thought it was very good, actually pretty healthy when I was a kid, I thought I was totally wrong because I could see my kids could just play ball right away. I had to practice first and sometimes they were waiting for me to play. Of course now I am thankful for that and my mom did – I talked to her, these are her words. She said, “I did push you but I didn’t force you.”

I didn’t like it growing up, there was just more something I had to do, kind of like take out the garbage or brush my teeth. These are things that you do, I did notice the other kids in my neighborhood, didn’t have to do that. But at the same time, there was a feeling, I don’t know if we actually had a conversation but there’s a feeling that they kind of envied that, that I could play an instrument, I still thought it was dorky.

That was my lot and life as a two year old, seven year old, 11 year old and I did want to quit, right around 11 years old, I think that’s very common with all kids and the difference with my parents and other parents is that my parents did not let me quit, they never said it but the vibe was you kind of don’t have a choice, maybe later but for now, as any 11 year old, you’re going to keep playing this violin.

[0:05:44.9] RN: What did your parents hope to – did they just want you to have that skill because they knew it would serve you? They probably didn’t know you’d go on to be like a rock star, you know what I mean?

[0:05:52.2] RC: Correct, they didn’t know I’d go on in either, did I. I think that they were good parent in exposing me to a lot of things. They allowed me to get involved with sports and things with friends, things with photography, stuff with the park district. I liked animals so things with animals, they exposed me to a lot of things and the violin and music, they knew that it was something that would be important for the development of my brain and especially that character quality of discipline.

Again, it’s just something that’s very culturally normal for Asian cultures and it’s a developmental thing and then also just that character quality of discipline. I think that’s why they did it, we weren’t really into sports, we watched it but it wasn’t like okay, you’re going to play soccer, I remember most of the kids in my area played soccer and it wasn’t something that was going to be for me.

It was more music that was going to be my way and it wasn’t like I had a huge passion for it, it was just something that I did. I’m kind of repeating myself now but that’s how it was.

[0:06:59.7] RN: In terms of – in your childhood, skill wise, were you just heads and shoulders above other kids or were you just kind of average but you just kept going, kept getting better and better?

[0:07:13.9] RC: Well, I was part of a violin academy so this violin academy was in the suburbs of Chicago and it was called The Haigh Levitan Academy of Performing Arts. This woman Betty Haigh is actually still alive. She taught me and she taught my niece and nephew and she just is instilling fear into these kids to play well and she’s really good actually at making kids play advanced pieces at a very young age.

In that school, there were a lot of us that were doing really well, that were playing well. I wasn’t at the top, I was probably right in the middle. My sister and my parents say that I was actually pretty good but I didn’t know that. I could see Carissa or these different people that could play better than me, they could play pieces that were more difficult than me.

I did practice and I felt like I couldn’t do what they were doing. I was not the best, I didn’t feel. I could definitely play better than most people at my public school though, I did not go through the public orchestra program, I did go through the band program though in junior high and high school. Played trumpet and that was great and I was – I’m glad I was put in that academy though because it made me work harder and it was normal to be a little bit better at this instrument and not just an average training, it was an above average kind of training.

[0:08:38.4] RN: Did you have a competitive nature like in that advanced school? You saw people doing better than you, did that drive you to –

[0:08:44.1] RC: That’s a good point. I think that it got instilled into me and I wasn’t the most competitive but yes, in classical music, there is a competitive element placed in there where there’s kind of two types of...