Follow your heart’s true melody and transform your life! Dive into an inspiring conversation that unravels the harmonies between music and self-development. In this episode, Bree Noble welcomes Angela Ferrari, a musician turned self-development guru, who shares her journey from the corporate world to a life filled with passion and purpose. Angela takes us into how she defied the conventional “starving artist” narrative by intertwining her love for music with profound personal growth. Discover how Angela’s unique “shift process” can help you realign with your true calling and create a fulfilling life beyond societal expectations. Whether you’re a budding artist or a seasoned professional, this episode will resonate with anyone looking to harmonize their career with their deepest passions. Tune in to learn how you, too, can step out of the box and follow the rhythm of your heart to find true abundance.

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Harmonies Between Music And Self-Development With Angela Ferrari

I am happy to be here with Angela Ferrari. We’re going to be talking about the music industry and self-development and how you can find abundance in the music industry and not give in to that starving artist mentality. Before we get into that, I would love, Angela, for you to give them a background. Give them your story. What were you doing in music? How did that end up coinciding with what you were doing in self-development and psychology?

Music And Self-Development

It all just came together by following my heart, not to be cheesy, but there’s the path of what we’re told we’re supposed to do and even maybe convince ourselves that that’s what we’re supposed to do. I think maybe there was an aspect of me that was a little bit of a rebel. I feel a lot of musicians can relate to that. Inside of that, to be honest, I didn’t view it logically at all.

How is this going to make me survive? From a young age, I only followed fame because maybe it was the opposite of that. It wasn’t about fame. It was about the alignment of my heart. It was about I feel alive when I do this and I feel I’m supposed to follow that. When you speak to tell us about self-development and all that, it’s not that I was pointing to self-development.

It was just my growth of what happened naturally through following the love versus following the logic. Eventually, they meet but first, there comes just a time when I feel it’s a bit of a leap of faith because I’ll tell you this, maybe not everybody can relate to this, but if you pursue the music industry for the reasons of maybe fame or the accolades or to be accepted or to be enough. That’s a very difficult journey.

For sure. You may experience some of that, but it’s fleeting. Did you ever have people giving you pushback that you were pursuing music saying what a lot of people would say, “How are you going to make money doing that?” “You better find another career.” That kind of thing.

My parents loved me very much and this isn’t to knock them because I can’t pretend how I would respond either but it was like, “Angela, let us know when you’re done with this little hobby.” “401k type corporate is the safest route.” “Let’s real estate.” “What can we start getting you thinking of these other means?”

Truth be told, I did follow that because of fear and because I just didn’t align yet fully with just having my self-acceptance. I felt I needed to trust in others. This is why I can speak the way that I speak today because I did go the opposing path and I got to see what that felt like. I was quite successful when I dabbled in the corporate world but I remember the moment in time when I had this bird’s eye view on myself.

I just realized that life was being sucked out of my eyes. It didn’t matter what was next. It didn’t matter if there was going to be a new job or opportunity or new car from that or a new thing from that. It was to your point, just one thing after little quick highs that were never sustaining. That’s when I, despite people disagreeing, left it all and pursued what I did.

That’s gutsy. I’ve had that moment myself too. I’m climbing the ladder, etc but if I don’t have this thing in my life that is my deepest passion, none of that matters.

I relate to that. A lot of people say that they’re separate. Work is work. Passion is passion and you keep them separate because when you collide them, the love for your passion starts to get sucked out of you. I can see how that could happen to people, especially if once again, it’s wrapped inside of these other filters of this is going to make me enough. If it doesn’t look this way, then it’s not working.

To the point of diving into the creative aspect of life or following the passion, following the heart, it’s not as predictable as the corporate world or the cubicle might be.

I do wonder if maybe those who tried the music first didn’t do what we did and did the corporate path and then eventually felt, “My gosh, something’s missing.” Maybe for them, it could suck the passion out because it became just a job and they hadn’t seen what it would be to have their life without music.

That’s such a good point. I wouldn’t take back one aspect of my choices along the way because all of those choices caused me to deeply understand where I am and be grateful for it.

 

Musician’s Mental Health

I recently had somebody on here talking about mental health. I know that you have got some education in psychology. Do you feel musicians struggle with that a lot maybe because they’re scared, they’re unsure, or also they’re just putting themselves out there like you said and hoping that they’re going to feel they’re enough when people give them the kudos that they’re looking for? Then if they don’t get that, they just feel lost.

I used to bartend too. It was one of my first things and serve. I’m going to get to your point. I remember what I had to go through in the service industry and how the different types of personalities and my ego, would just be crushed over and over again. When I think at the time, I used to feel, “This is worse more than anything that could ever be worse. Maybe I’m just terrible at it.”

Then the same thing with the music industry, if you know, you know. People telling you, “Play free bird We don’t like that song. Turn it up, turn it down. You’re just constantly asked to be more or different or you’re how some people love you one night They’ll say, “Wow, you’re incredible.” Then the next night people are asking you to turn it down, “You’re annoying us.”

Inside of that to your question, can it cause a mental disturbance, yes, but in the best of all ways, because musicians tend to have, I’ll say, thicker skin. I mean that in a way where you’re able to handle all of that judgment. I’m not saying every musician, I’m saying it is an opportunity, though, for us, then in life, when you carry it out in life and you meet all these different personalities and some people are going to it and some people aren’t. I feel there’s a strengthening there that can have a deeper acceptance of what is.

I think that’s true. While I had music experience in college, maybe if I had gone through the highs and lows of what you do as a touring artist and all that, I wouldn’t have had some of the problems I had in corporate where I felt like someone saying one thing about something I did could crush me.

Yes. Can we all relate to that if we were honest? Thick skin, I don’t mean for us to put barriers on our hearts to protect ourselves. To get that it’s okay. I can keep my heart open to you. I don’t have to close it on you just because there might be a judgment you have upon me. That’s okay. I feel that’s where we start to get into these unconditional loving places. That’s the whole point of following your passion because it offers us the teachings in life that are best suited for our unique souls.

The whole point of following your passion is it offers us the teachings in life that are best suited for our unique soul. Share on X

Angela’s Journey

I’d love to hear a little bit more about your journey. When you got into music, what were you doing in the music industry and how did you then migrate toward even more self-development stuff?

When I left the corporate world, it was pretty abrupt to when I said earlier, I had this bird’s eye view. I won that moment. I just booked a trip to Bali. I took two weeks off. I went by myself, my mother and my father were like, “Are you crazy? You can’t just go to Bali by yourself.” I was young. My mom even sent me I don’t know if you guys have seen this movie, Taken.

The girl gets kidnapped or something and she says, “Look what could happen to you.” There was a lot of discouragement to just go do this journey. When I came back, I made this decision. I was going to leave it all and I’m not making that easy. Listen, it’s not for the faint of heart. Took a ton of courage to do that because I left a lot of the material world behind.

But the love that I had for what I was doing superseded that material, short-term feeling that I was getting. Here’s where all the self-development came into play. It was just an observation of my own experience that when I started pursuing and aligning with what I truly loved, many more things in my life came in that I couldn’t have conceived of that were also in alignment and made slightly random even but were still in alignment with that frequency of more passion in my life.

I wasn’t jaded, “I can’t believe I’m getting a check for something I would do for free.” I don’t care how little the check is, I was just happy. Even though several musicians would, you get a little jaded, I get it. They’d say, well, “You’re never going to get into that place.” “It’s hard to get over.” “You don’t even know what they’re like over there.” Then because I was in joy, especially when I was singing, I ended up getting into a lot of these places. I didn’t listen to that.

Here’s a goal. I’m going straight over there. I’m not going to let this interfere. It had started happening and before I knew it, I was even booking for a lot of these places because then I started connecting and I had an ear for good music. I was creating a lot of bundles, not only performing, but now I was booking others, helping others, and guiding others. When people would message me, “Can you guide me?” “Can you show me?” I would be honored to.

Also, be honest with everyone, there is that too, you have to be honest. From there, there were just formulas that I would go into my personal lab if you will. I realized that this wasn’t just fitting for a musician. Yes, it is fitting for a musician, but it’s anyone around what it is to begin to what that looks like when you defy logic and start to go into these areas of trusting where your heart’s pulling you.

Did you always know that music was that for you even when you were younger?

I always knew I couldn’t put it into a language but as a young girl, music was an acceptable way to scream. It was an outlet and it was also a source that connected me to something far beyond what I knew myself to be.

 

I think many who are reading could identify with that. For some it may not be music, it may be art, it may be writing, it may be any of those creative pursuits where you feel you’re truly burying yourself when you do it. You also do speaking. Do you combine that with your music?

Yes, what ended up happening was they were separate for quite some time and it was this underground process that I developed that had spread through word of mouth, but it wasn’t presented outwardly in the world. It was just this other business that took on its own life. What people still just knew me for was being a musician, which was fine. I didn’t know how to merge the worlds.

I thought if it was going to happen naturally it just would and now after the year of COVID, I had a little bit of we’ll say, a dark night of the soul. A dark night of the ego but an awakening of the soul where it became more and more clear to fine-tune. Not doing things for reasons of the ego. That can be a slippery slope. We have to be awake, alert, and humble to understand when we’re doing that.

What was born from that was combining the concerts with some frequencies. We can place intention inside of frequencies and we can prove that with science now. I understood how to begin to deepen intentionally placing this love or certain specific things inside of the music along with teachings. It started to pull on people’s sensors on every level. I was able to combine what I did in this other world of self-development into these concerts, which I call, the Soul Slappers.

I like it. How do you go about booking that? Do you say this is a music concert or do you say this is a self-development talk or is it something wholly other?

It’s a concert, but inside of the language within that, there’ll be maybe testimonials and that’s usually the best way people tell you their experience of it. I will just say it invites people into feeling the music more deeply by pulling on the sensory. We even have people, some hanging from the sky depending on the music and different interactions with the physical components of even dancers and things. As far as booking it, one day I looked around and I just said that I’m not going to wait. Why not just create this? If you build it, they will come and send it. Again, those are the things, I just went for it and it took a ripple effect of its own.

What type of venues are you booking this at?

This particular one, and we’re in more conversations now to book more here, but Scottsdale Center of Performing Arts, which is one of my favorite theaters, I remember being in there one time and I was looking around watching the performer, I said, “I want to be in here.” Sure enough, that was serendipitous, it just collided for that big show.

Income

That’s awesome. That’s one piece of what you do. Let’s just say you had to break your income into a pie. How would that come in right now as a musician and self-development person?

The self-development work would be just either, it’s a little more exclusive working one-on-one, but I also do retreats. Those retreats are designed to unveil the truth and show us inside of what is an illusion. They’re very intentionally designed in a very specific process where I can also utilize music. If you notice, when we go in with music, I feel this is a human connection. We can all relate.

There’s something that the music just taps into something deeply inside of us. When I utilize that component intentionally in the process of a retreat, an alignment with that journey of awakening can be very special. A landmark in time where people can then go back into their regular lives, and with these new seeds planted there are retreats. Concerts, we have a podcast now called Wild Courage because this takes wild courage. We’ll interview anyone from politicians to psychics, there’s nobody left out.

I think that’s helpful, a lot of our readers get into self-development stuff and they’re doing that thing on the side and trying to figure out how they can merge that with their music. I think retreats are a great option for that.

The seed to be taken and planted here is that the whole point of creativity is not living inside of the box. Even with music, even though it’s done, there are ways. You go do the gigs, you get booked for the gigs, you do the rounds. There’s a lot to be said about that because you have to understand the nuts and bolts. Then from there, just opening this space to allow something that people haven’t conceived of yet.

Just you being the vessel to something that can only be born through you. We have to just be open because it’s not given to us in these very linear logical ways. It’s just somehow along the path when we’re following our heart and we’re open, just out of nowhere, sometimes seemingly, we get an idea. If you can begin to trust in following those ideas versus staying inside of the patterns of comfort.

Even in creativity, we can stay inside of the patterns of comfort and then just move towards one little ping at a time and you don’t get to know the next five steps. It will show you the one step and then from there when you lean into those things, it’s the birth of something you can’t even conceive of and not to be grandiose. It’s not about always being grandiose. It’s simply about following the heart and then we find ourselves in alignment, which is to say, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Shift Process

It sounds like it does take a lot of following and shifting. I know you have a process called the Shift Process. Is that what you just described? Part of that?

Yes, the shift process. It’s pretty interesting. I’ll tell you because being a musician when I was on my path, I had conquered a lot of these goals. Again, I was always just into self-development. I studied it. I took every class, and read every book. From a young age. That was another personal desire that I had as a maybe philosophy and lover of wisdom. One day I’m kicking back and I’m thinking, “You’ve done a lot of these things that you didn’t even think were possible and here you are.”

I want to make sure we don’t stay in a comfort zone. I remember thinking, “What is that gap for you that would make you feel separate from these people on these bigger stages? I’m down here and you’re on this big stage.” What is that gap for you? As I began to investigate the gap, long story short, what I discovered was that the brain, as we know, loves patterns. We can do all of this growth. Sometimes it is designed to keep you where it knows it’s familiar.

I discovered that styling the person based on what these higher frequencies are, then when the brain starts to physically see you differently as you’re doing all this inner work, it looks and goes, “You are different. Okay, you can pass.” From there in my journey, I saw it to be factually true. I studied the science behind all that. That’s when I designed the Shift Process. We all have goals, and we all have things we aspire to touch on. It’s designed for that.

I had a boss say to me once, “After somebody turns 50, it’s hard for them to change.” I’m curious what you think about that. Do you think the shift process can work for people of any age?

A hundred percent. It defies that logic because logically, he’s right. There’s a lot of evidence you can get, but we’re not working with logic. As we know, there are a lot of things in science. It is not logical, but it’s still proven. We just don’t live our lives as if that’s the case. Once we can walk into a world where there’s clarity there, then the brain starts to get on board. Age is insignificant, truly.

That’s good to hear, especially because a lot of people who are reading, I try, attract an older audience. There are a lot of people that are wanting to potentially pursue music in later life. They’re done with their corporate career or they’re raising their kids but they don’t see themselves as a musician yet. It’s hard for them to do things as a musician because they don’t see themselves as a musician. I’m assuming the shift process could help with something like that.

A hundred percent. I will give this little nugget, I tell this to everyone, including myself. I check in every day. There’s one thing that will block everything, and that is the “I already know” syndrome. By the way, youngsters get caught in the I already know syndrome just as much. You know exactly what I’m talking about because we can identify it in ourselves. “I already know.” “I saw I read a book like that.” “I took a class like that.” I already know. You’re done. You’re fixed. You’re boxed in. You have to not know every day.

There's one thing that will block everything, and that is the “I already know syndrome.” Share on X

Women Entrepreneurs

That’s very anecdotal for me because my daughter’s learning how to drive and she’s always saying, “I already know that.” If we tell her to do something or not do something, “I already know that.” “Then why did you do that?” If you want to pass your test, you’ve got to listen to us. I’m curious, with all the stuff that you’ve done, do you have any opinions about women and entrepreneurship? Do you find that doors are more open to women now? Do you find that there’s just a lot more community for women in entrepreneurship and even musicians who are entrepreneurs?

There are certainly a lot of communities in entrepreneurship for women, for sure. What I say though is we have to check in with ourselves to see what is best suited for our alignment, because you can find yourselves in places where it’s all designed to feed the “Not enough.” I need to do this to be more than what I am and will never arrive there ever because once you get to these grandiose places, the next thought will be, I need this now to be enough.

 

I always check in with that because if you get that, sometimes there are these places that attract a lot of people and you just want to trust yourself if you’re inside of it and you say, “This isn’t a judgment. This is honesty and discernment for myself. This isn’t a fit for me.” Yes, I promise there’s everything out there for everyone.

I just did a retreat for men. I hosted it, and just men, because there’s an opening for men too, to get outside of the programming. We’re both programmed on both sides, whether men or women. We get boxed into these thought processes. They’re just life lies. That saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” We’re all students of life, all of us. It’s not a hierarchy. It’s just when you’re truly open and ready, I assure you that thing’s going to show up. There are probably a couple of decoys or lures first.

That’s good because you can realize, “This is not for me.” It helps you narrow the search of what is for you.

And trust that.

Creativity And Business

Also curious about the balance between creativity and business for musicians or even anybody who’s in the creative world. Did you find it hard, or did it come naturally to embrace the business side while not squashing your creativity?

That’s such a great question, especially applying to the world of musicians and creatives. That’s a slippery slope that balances and is important. What’s important is for us to clarify what our goals are. Sometimes the goal might be, “I just love this chill life.” I have what I need.” “I don’t need to just fight to be grandiose. I don’t need that and be clear about that.

If there are gaps for us, we must look at your present goal that has a glitch around it, that’s not aligning you because there’s some block there. The business aspect for musicians is usually that, especially if we’ve known to be creative most of our lives. For me, my dad’s an entrepreneur, and sometimes you’re just given concoctions within yourself that work, and there’s a balance that’s more natural there.

I can say that sure, there were disciplines I’d have to put in place because I can’t tell you how many times I didn’t feel it. If we boil it down, that’s the only thing that has to be overcome. It’s not about whether you feel like it. Whether you feel it is quite irrelevant. It’s just being in integrity with our goals. Inside of that, everybody’s a business person. If this is your goal, there’s an integral process to stay with your goal. Otherwise, it’s just your goal.

I like that because you can even think about it on the music side. We don’t always feel like stepping on stage, but it’s part of my goal to do great performances, to deliver what I promised, and keep performing. Maybe today I don’t feel it, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Totally. Then don’t take our word for it, but let’s track our lives. How many times in life do we overcome the “I don’t feel like it” and we’re like, “I’m so glad I did that.” Many times. We could go into our personal labs. We don’t need to take anyone’s word for it. It’s the truth.

Advice For Musicians

That’s some great advice. Do you have any other advice before we wrap up that you want to give to musicians as far as how they can shift and move toward that thing that is their passion?

I would say it can be important sometimes to just empty ourselves. Empty everything that you think and you think you are, and just start from space. From that empty space, there’s stillness, and from the stillness, that’s usually where our deepest truths emerge. From that, we can choose to begin to follow one little thing from that place and it leads to everything we need, but I would say we complicate things.

We stress ourselves with unnecessary complications, overly complicating things. I find that it’s important to just listen. Start from scratch, remove, “I know you know,” I know you got it. You could have it back. Just empty yourself and let’s just see what the truth is because you might find that some of the things you’ve been drawn to for so long, you’re just addicted to being drawn to it and you might not be anymore. It might be adjusting what you’re even drawn to and if we never get quiet enough, we never know that. Sometimes we’re just grinding away on a path and it’s hard because it’s not fully aligned right now.

I think COVID did that for a lot of people in an unnatural way, but it caused them to have to stop. That’s why many people made drastic changes after COVID. They moved to another state, they quit a job, they did all kinds of things because they had time to think through where they were at. I’m curious, are you a fan of meditation then?

I’m such a big fan of meditation. I say the biggest gift you could ever give to yourself is meditation because what you’re showing the mind is like, “I know you don’t want to do this, but I’m bringing you back.” If you think about it, our one superpower in life is to redirect the mind because all suffering comes from it.

The mind is sending you in a direction, and you’re following it down that rabbit hole, causing suffering. If we can get ourselves back to the center, over and over, meditation allows the space for that centering and stillness. Yes, I can say that I got my evidence though and now have data of many people around me and in my work. They have now tracked their life and got their evidence. I have the data around it, I know for sure, and that’s why I speak with such confidence. If you can even get yourself doing five minutes here and there, it is valuable.

That’s good, how can they connect with you online? Are you on social media? Do you have a website?

I have two websites, TheShiftProcess.com and AngelaFerrari.com. For social media, AngelaFerrariOfficial.

Guys, go out and connect with her. She speaks a lot of truth here. This might be even worth reading again, just to let sink in some of the things that she said, they were super valuable. Thank you so much, Angela, for sharing with us all of your knowledge and experience.

Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

 

Important Links

• Angela Ferrari – Instagram
• TheShiftProcess.com
• AngelaFerrari.com

 

About Angela Ferrari

Angela Ferrari is a professional singer, speaker, and the Founder of “The Shift Process” consisting of concerts known as “The Deep Feels”, speaking engagements, workshops, retreats, and online courses around the deeper meaning of life. Angela has been singing and practicing energy healing since she was a young girl and went on to study music, psychological self-development, energetic healing, and channeling.