20 years of failures pointed to the same 2 things
Looking at the last 20 years — the entire history of my double bass, my social media growth and... my bank account.
The failures always pointed towards these 2 things.
1. I NEVER REALIZED WHAT MY BOTTLENECK WAS
I was such a hard worker, and I worked but I still failed. But I was working at the wrong things. I practiced double bass hard using the pedals. But I never realized till more than a decade later that I was just getting better at playing double bass with bad technique. Only 8 years ago did I realize my true bottleneck and started doing floor exercises to stop my upper legs from getting more practice, and my lower legs to finally start practicing. That's when I finally saw some results that didn't melt away randomly.
Same for YouTube. 14 years ago I started Art of Drumming HQ. And in 3 years after 23 videos, I was at 51 subscribers. In my 4th year, I uploaded my first Animals as Leaders tutorial and that video alone did 15k views and added 1000 subscribers in 1 month. That's when I understood what my bottleneck was. All my previous videos didn't make me stand out at all in a crowded drumming space. This AAL video was the first of its kind on the internet. Everyone was doing AAL covers, but no one was doing videos on how to play the songs.
2. EVEN AFTER REALIZING WHAT MY BOTTLENECK WAS, I DIDN'T COMMIT ENOUGH VOLUME
I said I was a hard worker, but there's another way that made me waste my hours. I didn't commit long enough. Even after understanding the exercises that could unlock my lower legs. I didn't do them consistently long enough. I did one exercise for 2-3 months, then decided to go to a different exercise for 2-3 months. That kept going for a whole year, and then my growth started stalling. Which made me find even "better" exercises to do for the next 3 months... again.
It was actually only 5 years ago that I experienced the power of committing to one exercise. That one exercise I did for a whole year. And then I saw a dramatic change, and kept doing that for the next year, and that was when I hit 200bpm on the pedals, and was able to hold it for 2 minutes with ankle technique, for the first time in my life. 2 years sticking to this one exercise paid off tremendously.
Same for YouTube. In 3 years, I did AAL video after AAL video, and expanded to just Prog Metal tutorials. I achieved my first 10k subscribers. That's how I was first known online. Not for double bass, but for prog metal education.
WHAT I RUN NOW
Fast forward to today. I've run this 2-part framework on everything that I wanna succeed at. I rigorously test to find out what my true bottleneck is. Next, I either pay for a mentor/course to teach me the fix for the bottleneck. Or I design 1 actionable fix for it. Usually paying someone to teach me has worked out the fastest (although I only seek people with undeniable proof) And then I run the fix for a full year before judging on the outcome.
And it's really like magic. Every time I've run this, I always surprise myself with how much I grow in a year. That's how I went from 10k to 110k on YouTube. I did the same on TikTok and got to 59.3k in 3 years on the platform. My double bass peaked at 240bpm this year but it wasn't sustainable because I've discovered yet another bottleneck which I'm working to fix :D And even this online business that I started last year in March, "Art of Double Bass", has gone through rapid growth because of the same framework. I've sold out every Dojo launch, despite being the newest contender in the double bass education market.
I apologize because this is a little off topic. But I swear to always provide you guys with full transparency and free value. And I hope you can learn from my mistakes, how I approach everything in life. So that whatever you do, you'll be successful.
That's the thing that makes me the happiest.
Cheers to your success. You can do this!!!
FINDING YOUR BOTTLENECK
If you don't know what your double bass bottleneck is yet, that's the part you can fix today.
The free AODB Speed Audit takes two minutes. I designed this so you'll get your current level and true BPM on screen, and a full diagnosis in your inbox — including which part of your technique is holding you back, and the exercises to work on.
Take the Speed Audit: https://bit.ly/doublebass-speed-audit
Practice + Patience = Progress
Wei Lung