Today we’d like to introduce you to Will Brooks.
Hi Will, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I believe I got my first guitar for a 9th birthday gift. I remember seeing my uncle play guitar and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world, so for a while, I wanted to be a rockstar. I switched to bass in middle school though, and stopped playing guitar altogether until 2020 when quarantine started.
At this time, I had just finished a wilderness therapy program in Utah, an opportunity for which I don’t have sufficient words to express my gratitude. I had been struggling socially and emotionally for a while, but at the time, I didn’t have the self-awareness to recognize how I was struggling. I simply believed there was something wrong with me, and out of fear, I did my best to act like I fit in. In doing so, I became disconnected from my true self, and I learned unhealthy ways of coping with life, including (but not limited to) substance abuse and cynicism.
In wilderness therapy, I was introduced to several tools that eventually helped me reconnect with myself: particularly journaling, meditation, and yoga. I left the program feeling inspired to take better care of myself and to make a positive impact on other lives. I had been enrolled at Virginia Tech as a business major, and after leaving Utah, I changed my major to human nutrition, foods, and exercise.
When I got back to school, I continued to struggle socially. Taking the “path of least resistance”, I joined a frat, which I would not do again. I’m still unpacking various traumas related to that whole experience. Music became a form of escape for me, and I often spent several hours each day practicing the guitar.
In my last year of school, I was lucky enough to participate in an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, which provided significant nervous system healing not seen through traditional therapy. Through that experience, I was able to release years of repressed anger and resentment, and since then I’ve found significant healing through intentional work with other plant medicines, including cacao and cannabis.
These experiences inspired me to pursue service-oriented work, newly valuing positive impacts over profit. Still though, I was struggling emotionally.
After a painful heartbreak, I became committed to personal growth and emotional healing. During this time, I worked as a behavior technician, before quitting due to feeling ethically misaligned with the company. Being lucky enough to live with my parents, I began to seriously consider pursuing music as a full-time career.
Music had been a passion project for me till this point. I didn’t believe I could build a career playing music though, because I hadn’t gone to music school, and I didn’t feel like I was skilled enough. Around this time, I was learning about limiting beliefs, or the stories we tell ourselves to keep ourselves in our comfort zones, and I decided to do something scary: to follow my dream.
My first paying gigs were playing cover songs in local retirement homes. I quickly burned myself out from these gigs though, not having developed the resilience to face tough crowds so regularly. I also realized that I hadn’t learned many of the necessary skills for building and running a music business. So I accepted these uncomfortable truths and decided to work as a dishwasher while learning and developing these skills.
In my time as a dishwasher, I learned a lot about the struggles that working class people face. I’ve been lucky enough to have supportive parents who have had the financial resources to support me through my own struggles. But many of my coworkers were living alone, completely reliant on their cafe job to pay their bills. This bothered me, because our boss often seemed to take her stress out on employees, and she rarely seemed open to constructive feedback. I was lucky enough to leave that job without fearing the consequences that others would face if they left without a backup plan.
This experience opened my eyes to the systemic injustice that workers face around the country. I felt that the most ethical use of my privilege would be to use my support system to pursue a career that empowers working people and feeds my soul enough to feel sustainable.
After leaving Cafe Stella, I began planning a 13 week busk and open mic tour as a way to gain skills, experience, and perspective. I completed that tour in July 2026, and it proved itself to be the reality check I needed. After re-evaluating my expectations for how I could eventually support myself as a touring artist, I decided to combine my knowledge and experience of overcoming limiting beliefs to empower others to pursue goals and follow their dreams.
As of now, I am finishing up a second tour which has consisted of a cover gig, opening for a puppet show, leading a workshop on journaling through limiting beliefs, a songwriter round, and some open mics. This fall, I will complete a couple more short tours and release a second live EP. My goal is to release an album sometime next year, though I’m no longer pressuring myself to release anything before it feels ready. While I did that on several previous releases and stand by those songs, I want to be more intentional about giving future recordings the love they deserve.
My hope is that music I share will help us to connect with ourselves and with our shared humanity. Where it counts, we are all the same. For long enough, I kept my heart and mind closed due to fear. I believe that by choosing love over fear, we can all change for the better–if we choose to do so.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Until recently, the road to here has felt quite bumpy. While there are still bumps in the road, learning to keep an open mind has helped me get out of my own way more and more often. And accepting that I’m really only in control of my own responses to things has helped the bumps feel more comfortable.
Many of the earlier struggles were mental health-related, often rooted in lack of self-awareness. Others seem to have been rooted in lack of specific knowledge or skills.
A major struggle I faced was struggling to overcome the “inner critic”, as some say. I learned early in life that I had to behave in particular ways and achieve particular outcomes to be accepted by others, whether friends, family, teachers, etc. Eventually, I started to reject myself, often telling myself I couldn’t do things because I wasn’t “good enough”. Over time, I became highly judgmental of not only myself, but those around me. I was also a highly reactive/volatile person until I decided to change that behavior. This reactivity often got me into trouble in social settings, because I would speak without even considering the impact the words might have or how they might be received.
Practicing mindfulness and radical self-acceptance, along with other important “inner work”, helped me to find peace with myself, reducing reactivity and attachment to perfection (which is really an illusion, I’ve come to find).
For many years, I also was limited by a “victim mindset”. When things happened in my life that did not align with my desires, I often felt powerless to change my circumstances, keeping me stuck feeling like a victim. Keeping a “growth mindset” and “beginner mindset” have helped me to meet obstacles with a sense of agency and hopefulness, believing that by learning the necessary knowledge and skills, I can overcome any obstacle.
My current focus area is embodying balance and self-acceptance, even in the face of potential judgement, which I am working through by allowing myself to embrace potential awkwardness and “weirdness” in social settings and public spaces.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As an independent artist/creative, I wear many hats and do many things. My passion lies in writing, playing music, education and skill-building, spiritual seeking, and participating in community.
I often write to process an experience I’ve had, and sometimes to process my understanding of an experience someone else has had. When it comes to public performances, I play original music and cover songs, depending on the opportunity. I am also passionate about sharing knowledge and wisdom through social media and in-person interactions.
Much of the information that helped me overcome various mental health challenges was learned through social media, so I see that tool as a way to keep the karmic cycle going. I also teach private guitar lessons and am in the early stages of developing a songwriting workshop. Songwriting has been an effective therapeutic practice for me, and I would love to help more people learn to become their own therapists by writing songs and poetry.
I specialize in articulating authentic perspectives, a skill which has proven helpful in virtually all endeavors involving communication. I imagine I might be known for being unapologetically myself and for doing my best to be a light in the darkness. At least, I hope that those intentions shine through in my actions.
I am most proud of the progress I’ve made as a human. At one point in time, I probably could have been clinically diagnosed as a sociopath, and at another time, I probably could have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I’m proud and grateful to have not accepted those descriptors as fixed conditions of my personality, and to have kept moving forward to a place where I now don’t feel that I would meet diagnostic criteria for those conditions.
I believe what sets me apart from others are my commitments to growth and openness. I don’t claim to be perfect, though I do my best to view myself as objectively as possible and face uncomfortable truths in the interest of personal growth. And I do my best to remain open to all possibilities, including ones where I’m wrong or incorrect.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
The Waking Up app from Sam Harris has been a staple in my morning routine since reading his book with the same title (which I also highly recommend to anyone interested in learning about a scientific view of spirituality). The beginner meditation series helped me understand consciousness in a way that I had never considered it or heard described by other meditation teachers. The app also includes hours and hours of lecture audio from speakers like Alan Watts, Robin Carhart-Harris, and many more.
Another book I would recommend to everyone who breathes is The Four Agreements. It’s a short read (only took me a couple hours if I’m remembering correctly), and it changed my life more than I can put into words.
I often listen to an eight hour loop of affirmations (Be Your Most Powerful Self by Jason Stephenson on YouTube) while sleeping, which seemed to make a world of difference when working to reprogram my subconscious mind to overcome limiting beliefs. During this time, I was also experiencing significant brainfog and fatigue, plus other symptoms often associated with depression, and when feeling overwhelmed or overly fatigued during the day, guided meditations from the brand “Septasync” helped me find balance and seemed to help my brain heal in some way.
I enjoy Tap With Brad’s EFT tapping videos on YouTube, particularly the “Have an amazing day” video and the one for confidence.
I also enjoy Lavendaire’s five-minute guided meditation for focus before starting a computer work session, and during work sessions, I listen to binaural beats intended to support focus.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wilbrmusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wilbrmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wilbrmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wilbrmusic
- Other: https://wilbr.bandcamp.com/
