CL030: Nik West on playing with Prince and finding your USP as a creative

Nik West is a Los Angeles based bass player and vocalist. Her credits include work with Dave Stewart, Prince, John Mayer and recently as a special guest on American Idol. She's also the brainchild behind the "Queen of Strings" competition. In this episode, Nik West tells us her experiences performing with different drummers, and the importance of having chemistry between the bass player and the drummer. She shares with us how she started singing with her sisters and how her dad taught them harmony singing. Nik also talks about her wonderful experiences playing alongside Prince and John Mayer. "The people that are the most successful are the ones that have failed many times, but they just keep getting up again." - Nik West Nik West Show Notes: Uploading her first video (7:00) Moving to LA with Dave Stewart (8:35) Sexism in the music industry (9:57) Discipline as her biggest weakness (12:28) Musicians and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) (14:16) Confidence with people (15:34) Touring with John Blackwell (18:25) Building Nik West the brand (23:22) Changing her hairstyle (25:56) The best advice she got from Prince (30:12) Favorite Tools: Rhymer's Block Rhythm Sight Reading Trainer Favorite Book: Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy Favorite Record: Sly and The Family Stone Prince and The Revolution Black and White America by Lenny Kravitz Let's Work by Prince Join James's Facebook fans: https://www.facebook.com/jamestaylordotme LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jameskirktaylor This is The Creative Life, James Taylor's weekly YouTube show. -------------------- ABOUT JAMES -------------------- As a creativity expert Taylor is a frequent guest speaker at universities and international conferences. He has given keynotes and talks at Apple, Subscription Site Summit in San Francisco, the British Music Show in the UK and at several universities across Europe including University of Dundee in Scotland and University of Macerata in Italy. He is often called upon by media outlets to give his views on trends in creativity and innovation. He has been quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, Columbus Dispatch, STV, Business Insider and San Jose Mercury News as well as featured on BBC TV and being the subject of a 30minute program on his life for BBC Radio Scotland. As a host on shows about creativity and innovation he has interviewed legendary investor Maynard Webb (Yahoo.com, eBay.com & Salesforce.com board member) and New York Times best-selling writers Chris Guillebeau ($100 Startup), Rolf Potts (Vagabonding), Brand Cooper (The Lean Entrepreneur) and Ryan Holiday (Trust Me I'm Lying). James is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA). Meet James at http://www.JamesTaylor.me -------------------- ABOUT THE CREATIVE LIFE -------------------- The Creative Life is a weekly self-improvement show full of #motivation, #inspiration, and #creativity strategies with creativity speaker and author James Taylor. The Creative Life blog can be read at: http://www.jamestaylor.me -------------------- SUBSCRIBE -------------------- Never miss a video, and join the Youtube self-help community living the fully creative life: http://www.youtube.com/jamestaylorme