You’re in the Middle
What Moving to California Taught Me About Pursuing Your Dreams
…October 2017.
I packed up my little black 2004 Hyundai Elantra—which was absolutely a lemon 😂—shipped it across the country, got on a plane with my sister, and moved to California.
I had a job waiting for me. I didn’t quite have a permanent place to live yet. My entire family was on the other side of the country.
But somehow, I wasn’t afraid.
I just knew God had my back.
And if you had asked me then why I was moving to Los Angeles, I could have told you exactly what my future was supposed to look like.
I was going to become a songwriter.
I wanted to write for major artists, break into the music industry as a songwriter, and eventually pursue my own career as a recording artist.
That was the dream.
Nine years later, I’m a vocal coach. 😂
And strangely enough, I don’t look at that sentence and think, Wow, things really didn’t go according to plan.
I look at it and think:
Wow. I had no idea how much bigger the journey was than the plan.
The Dream Before the Move
The story actually starts a few months earlier.
Around July 2017, I woke up from a dream that I immediately knew was spiritual. I remember seeing what looked like a super blue moon, and somehow, when I woke up, I understood what the dream meant.
I was supposed to move to California.
There wasn’t a long period of debating it or trying to figure out whether I should do it.
That morning, I started applying for jobs.
I remember telling my brother, “I am taking the steps to move to California.”
And almost immediately, doors started opening.
By the next day, I had around four job interviews lined up in admissions.
Eventually, I was offered a position at a film school.
Then other pieces started falling into place. Financial provision came when I needed it. Opportunities opened up. Things that could have been roadblocks somehow worked themselves out.
To me, every open door felt like another confirmation:
Keep going.
So I did..
October 2017
At the beginning of October, I shipped my car to California and got on a plane with my sister.
My dad was in New York. My mom and siblings were in Florida. My entire family was on the East Coast, and I was about to be the one person who moved all the way across the country.
I had secured the job, but I still hadn’t completely figured out where I was going to live long-term.
That probably should have made me more nervous than it did. 😂
But I had gotten this far by taking one step at a time, and I trusted that the next step would appear too.
My sister stayed with me for about a week and helped me transition into this completely new life.
And eventually, I ended up in a house with probably one of the most random roommate combinations imaginable: a Korean roommate, a Filipino roommate, a white roommate, and me—a Black girl from New York City who was raised in Atlanta.
All of us. In one house.
Welcome to LA. 😂
Everything felt new.
Exciting.
A little nerve-racking.
But mostly, I remember feeling like my life was finally starting.
I Hit the Ground Running
Once I got settled, I didn’t waste much time.
I started taking songwriting lessons in Los Angeles. I was working at a film school surrounded by people who had moved to California to pursue their own dreams in entertainment.
I started going to BMI writing mixers, ASCAP events and industry mixers.
I met other songwriters, producers and people working in music. I made friends in the industry. I offered myself as a songwriter and collaborator whenever I could.
I remember attending Lyrica Anderson’s album release and looking around at writers and producers whose names I recognized.
And I remember thinking:
Oh yeah. I’m in the right spaces.
This was what I had moved across the country for.
At least, I thought it was.
And Then Life Happened
At some point, the story stopped following the outline I had written for it.
I was laid off from the film school.
I went on unemployment.
Money got tight.
And suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about industry mixers and becoming a songwriter nearly as much as I was thinking about how I was going to make money.
During that season, something popped up on my phone about a masterclass on teaching music—guitar, piano, vocal coaching.
And I felt led to watch it.
Vocal coaching wasn’t a completely foreign idea to me.
People had told me before that I was nurturing. I had always been the kind of person who wanted to help people see the best in themselves.
And I had the musical background.
I’d been singing practically my entire life. I started music lessons around nine years old. I attended a performing arts high school. I studied music theory. I’d been accepted into Berklee College of Music. I had years of training and experience in church, performance and private vocal study.
But knowing all of that and believing I was qualified to teach someone else were two completely different things.
Hello, imposter syndrome. 😂
I kept thinking:
Who am I to call myself a vocal coach?
But sometimes necessity has a funny way of pushing you past the fear that comfort allows you to entertain.
I needed income.
So eventually, I decided to try.
The Thing I Almost Talked Myself Out Of
I still remember my first voice lesson.
Before I taught it, I recorded myself on Snapchat talking about how nervous I was.
I had my lesson plan.
I knew what I wanted to teach.
But internally?
I was questioning everything.
Then the student showed up.
I taught the lesson.
And…it went well.
Nothing exploded. 😂
I didn’t suddenly forget everything I had ever learned about singing.
I helped someone.
At the time, though, I still wasn’t completely sure what the student thought of the experience.
Much later, that very first student reached out to me.
She told me how much she had loved our session and that she wanted to take lessons with me again when she could afford to.
Eventually, we did another lesson.
That meant more to me than she probably realized.
Because by then I had enough distance from that nervous girl recording herself on Snapchat to recognize something:
I had been providing value from the very beginning.
I just didn’t have the confidence yet to recognize it.
The Confirmation
Then there was Keisha.
Keisha was one of my early students, and there is one lesson with her that I’ll probably always remember.
I was having a terrible day.
My car—yes, the same little black Hyundai I shipped across the country—was having problems.
I had to spend more than $100 getting the alternator fixed, money was already tight, and I tried to cancel Keisha’s lesson.
Keisha basically wasn’t having it. 😂
She really wanted me to come.
So I got the car fixed and went to the lesson.
And during that session, something happened.
We could hear an immediate change in her voice.
She could hear it.
I could hear it.
She was getting the hang of her mixed voice. We were exploring chest-dominant, balanced and head-dominant variations, working on breath support and learning how to navigate her instrument differently.
And she was excited.
So excited, in fact, that she extended the lesson by about another hour and a half.
Later, she sent me a message talking about the breakthrough she was experiencing. Songs that had previously challenged her were becoming easier. Notes were opening up. Her understanding of her voice was changing.
She called mixed voice “the key I’ve been missing.”
At the time, I looked at that day and thought:
God provided.
I needed the money. My car broke down. I almost canceled. I went anyway, and the student extended her lesson.
Provision.
And I still believe that.
But looking back now, I see something else.
It was confirmation.
There I was, wondering whether vocal coaching was something I should really be doing, while sitting across from someone whose voice was changing because of what I was teaching her.
Sometimes the answer is happening right in front of you before you have language for what it means.
The Dream Wasn’t Wrong
Here’s one of the most interesting things about looking back at my original dream.
I wanted to be a songwriter because I loved helping artists.
I wanted to help someone take an idea and turn it into a song.
I wanted to help bring out what was already inside of them.
And somehow, without realizing it, I ended up doing exactly that kind of work—just differently than I imagined.
Now I help singers discover what their voices can actually do.
We work on technique.
Breath.
Pitch.
Mix.
Dynamics.
Diction.
Performance.
Delivery.
Confidence.
Artistry.
But underneath all of those things, I think I’m still doing what I wanted to do from the beginning:
Helping artists uncover something that was already inside of them.
Even the harder parts of my journey have affected the way I coach.
Losing friendships.
Changing churches and communities.
Financial struggles.
Career changes.
Disappointments.
Starting over.
All of those experiences gave me a different kind of compassion.
They taught me grace.
And that grace follows me into the studio.
Because sometimes a singer doesn’t need someone standing in front of them saying, Why can’t you do this yet?
Sometimes they need someone who can hear where they’re trying to go and say:
Okay. We’re not there yet.
But I hear it.
Let’s keep going.
The Lesson Is in the Journey
Looking at who I am today, I think this may be the biggest lesson I’ve learned:
The lesson is in the journey.
The experience you’ll gain, the skills you’ll learn, the lessons you’ll carry, the people you’ll meet, the things you’ll lose, the doors that will close and the ones that will unexpectedly swing wide open—all of it happens after you cross the starting line.
That’s what I couldn’t see in October 2017.
I thought I was starting a journey toward a destination.
I didn’t realize the journey itself was going to shape me into the person I needed to become.
And I think sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to know exactly where everything is going.
What if I make the wrong decision?
What if this doesn’t work?
What if I fail?
What if the plan changes?
But what if it does?
What if the detour teaches you something you couldn’t have learned on the original route?
What if an opportunity you never planned for introduces you to something you love?
What if the thing you almost talked yourself out of becomes one of the best decisions you ever make?
What if you’re so busy thinking about what could go wrong that you never give yourself permission to imagine what could go right?
You’re in the Middle
Nine years later, there’s one more thing I know:
I’m still in the middle too.
Becoming a vocal coach wasn’t the ending.
Building my business isn’t the ending.
There are dreams I haven’t seen fulfilled yet.
There are doors I haven’t walked through yet.
There are probably opportunities coming that I don’t even know to ask for yet.
And yes, there are probably more detours ahead too.
But nine years ago, the girl packing up that little black Hyundai couldn’t have predicted the life I’m living today.
She didn’t know about the accomplishments.
Or the disappointments.
The friendships.
The lost friendships.
The financial struggles.
The career changes.
The different churches and communities.
The opportunities.
The closed doors.
The open ones.
She just knew she was supposed to take the next step.
And she did.
So why would I assume I already know everything God can do with the next nine years?
I don’t.
And I’m actually okay with that.
Have the vision.
Take it one step at a time.
Expect some detours.
Pay attention to the unexpected doors.
Trust God.
Listen to that voice inside you that is leading you toward where you’re supposed to go.
And when it’s time, take the leap of faith.
Don’t spend so much time thinking about what could go wrong that you forget to think about what could go right.
Cross the starting line.
And when you look around and realize you haven’t arrived yet, don’t mistake that for failure.
You’re not at the end.
You’re in the middle.
And there is still so much story left to be written.
♡ Christiana Grace
Your Vocal Coach