My philosophy is that we are all DJs. No matter whether you’re a schoolteacher or a neuroscientist or a VC, a genius or even a piano player, we're all DJs. I think that the club that we exist in is called “Club Reality,” and the choices that we make are the tracks that we drop, and the perceptual entity that we identify with that is us. We are the DJs. Now every day, we approach with some sort of plan, some sort of gentle idea that we're going to execute. But then of course, “Club Reality” comes along and oftentimes, like with the flights, like with all other kinds of things, sets everything on fire. No matter what happens, no matter how improbable or absurd the load, we have to bear it like the mythical Atlas. We have to keep those tracks spinning our life choices. We have to keep everything going on -- and it’s not like we have much of a choice in the matter. I mean, you can't stop feeding your dog or you can't stop closing that million-dollar deal. We just have to keep pushing forward and remember that we are the DJs. So I want to share with you how I came to this kind of concept. I want to share with you my journey into the world of DJing, and how it affected my piano playing from a technical perspective, as well as my thoughts, my life. When I was about two years old, my great-grandmother put me at the piano and said, "OK, it's time for you to become a fourth-generation piano player in our family." And so there I am. Eventually, my mother introduced me to jazz music, and I fell in love with it, but I was always a little bit out of sync with the jazz industry. This led to panic attacks, which led to me creating my own cathartic rock-jazz style.

But it wasn't until I started hanging out at "1 Oak" and "Finale," these New York City nightclubs, that I became aware of the DJs and their art and their science. At “1 Oak,” there would be these hip-hop DJ virtuosos. And I mean, it seemed like they had like, multiple arms. But then the EDM DJs over at "Finale," these were like mythical, eldritch-energy gods. They’d be immersing the room in these amazing sounds. I was like, is there a mammoth in the room? Either way, I was so fascinated with this stuff that I had to become a DJ. And I began to think that these guys were logical extensions of Franz Liszt and Fats Waller. Or -- I had to become a DJ. I said, “I’ve got to learn how to do this stuff。” I thought it would be easy, given my piano background, and of course I was dead wrong. Reality had much different plans. After a pretty embarrassing learning curve, I began to feel a little more comfortable with DJing, and I began to notice that it's so much about empathy and sensitivity and rigorous preparation. Ultimately, it enhanced my common sense. I learned stuff like, don’t play a huge Avicii EDM rager at a lunchtime cafe, and don’t play [an] obscure, amazing B-side in the middle of bottle service at the peak hours of a nightclub. I actually studied the neuroscience of it all, and I noticed that even our brain is set up like a mixer. There's the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere, and the corpus callosum, that strip between the two of them, [that] keeps them in sync. So we're DJs organically. I even came up with an idea I call “piano turntablism,” this kind of thing here: Playing two different tunes. Sting heard that -- that’s how I got the gig. I opened for him. Pretty funny. So ultimately, this all has helped me get in control of those panic attacks that I touched on, the depressions, all that stuff. My mantra is: my mind is the club, I am the DJ [and] my choices affect the atmosphere -- so let’s keep that atmosphere groovy. I hope that you find this idea useful, applicable, because no matter what life throws at us, I believe we can always be enhanced by thinking of it as if we were a DJ, because in the end, we are all DJs. Having said that, I'm going to play a quick tune for you. This is an original I call "The Inspirer." I find you all so very inspirational and so very groovy. Please enjoy.