In this video I share my story on how I pivoted from a life full of sports to a life full of music with my artist project Sonj Marina. I hope my story inspires you to go after what your heart wants and do more of what you love, even when your mind tells you that it isn’t possible.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been living life with music inside my head. But for thirty years of my life, I went down a different path: With my athletic background, I became a personal trainer and nutrition coach and went on to start an online community in which I taught handbalance and flexibility classes to people around the globe. Though my life looked pretty cool from the outside, it drained me from the inside and something big was missing.
After about thirty years of not making music, I got to a point where I felt like I was at emotional rock bottom, even though everything in my life seemed to be going great: My handstand community was thriving, we were hosting retreats and were living in a gorgeous apartment, surrounded by nature in my hometown. But deep down I felt like I didn’t want to be on this planet, if this all there was to life. After a few years of struggling to get out of bed and keeping up my spirits for my community, I finally decided to ask for help and started therapy.
Back on the up and up
It didn’t take long for me to begin to slowly allow more music into my life. First I joined a choir, then I looked for someone to form a band with, and when that still wasn’t enough, I looked to expand my music skills online and found a vocal coach named Gemma Sugrue. She herself had a community of singers and artists who were on their journey to becoming successful with their music. I joined and my music started rolling like a snowball from there. Only six months into my joining the community, Sonj Marina was born.
I made artist friends for life and met Ra, Allie and Thomas who all contributed massively to where I am today with my music, through their mentoring. And when Gemma decided to pivot in her own career, the four of us teamed up to build on what Gemma had started, and we founded Artist Springboard! It’s been a wild ride and I’m so happy about how things turned out for me. I handed over my handstand community to two of my coaches and decided to fully give myself to music. Shortly after, I won my first award for my song Let It Rain at Sound@V and I got paid 5000€ for it.
I’m so curious what the future will bring and I’m so happy to be surrounded by such wonderful people within the Artist Springboard community. If you’re feeling a call to music yourself, I hope that this space will make you feel less alone and will help you do more of what you love!
Happy songwriting,
Sonj