In this episode I interview Wes Grove, a multi-hyphenate creative entrepreneur who is both a trained audio engineer and social worker. He combined his two career streams to create the Mobile Arts Program with his business partner, which brings a music recording studio into different types of assistance facilities all over Toronto.
And it all started more than 15 years ago.
Wes tells me how his passion for helping others through music was always part of his life. In his teens, he volunteered at a bereavement centre, helping other youth manage loss. He brought his guitar in one day to help them find another way to express what they were feeling, and the rest is history.
As the Mobile Arts Program grew, Wes and his partner decided to start telling the stories of the front-line social workers who manage the clients that take part in their recording program. Their podcast, Bittersweet Stories was born.
Wes explains that the podcast developed out of a desire to tell the stories of the social workers, and it ultimately ended up being a great marketing tool for the Mobile Arts Program. Not only is this guy super creative, he’s got some fantastic business savvy to make his ideas a reality!
Of course, Wes has more than one creative passion!
Wes also talks about the value of having multiple creative passions and how they can be an influence on one another. One of his “hobbies” is woodworking, which he gets a lot of creative fulfillment from. Working with organic material is a challenge that really gets his creative juices flowing!
He also plays music with others and for others both for work and for fun – AND, he’s an avid baseball fan, which led him to develop a second podcast called Jays Jam (for those of you who are especially missing sport right now!)
It’s all about flexibility.
In order to do everything he does, Wes says that he has balanced his creative career along with part time work as a bartender and server. He says that it has afforded him the ability to actually pursue his creative career to the point that he’s now able to do more on the creative side than ever before.
Wes’ advice? Be patient, it takes time but it will happen if you keep going.
Links mentioned in this episode:
https://mobileartsprogramming.com/
https://www.instagram.com/mobileartsprogramming/
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/jays-jam/id1499291163
