A few years ago I genuinely thought my career might be over. I'd spent years giving everything I had to DJing, but no matter what I released, nothing broke through. Every week it felt like I was watching another DJ level up while there was an invisible ceiling above me.
I had this one track sitting on my hard drive that I'd written a few years earlier. It was called Ferrari. I thought it was special, so I started sending it to record labels.
Every reply sounded the same. It's good, but it needs something. It doesn't quite feel finished. And no one could actually tell me what was missing — just that it wasn't there yet.
So I started doubting myself. I thought, maybe they're right.
Then I had one more idea: what if another producer could hear something I couldn't? I sent Ferrari to a few DJs. One of them had just made a massive record and our styles were similar — I honestly thought he'd be the perfect person to finish it with me.
He listened. And he passed. He just said, it's not really for me.
We've laughed about it since, because that record went on to do literally billions of streams. But this isn't a story about him getting it wrong.
It's about something bigger. The people around you — even the really talented ones — can't see what's in your head. They hear your work through their taste and their experience, not yours.
If I'd accepted every opinion I heard about Ferrari, that song would still be sitting on a hard drive somewhere. Sometimes the difference between failure and success is just not listening to other people's opinions, and trusting your own more.
No one is ever going to believe in your vision as much as you.
