Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of 2026! In this deeply personal episode, I share a story that really drove home why charging premium rates matters—not just for your business, but for your entire life.

This holiday season, while visiting family in Arizona, our cat Nori suddenly got very sick. She had swallowed something she shouldn't have and needed emergency surgery on Christmas Day. The estimate came in at $7,000.

Here's the thing: I've been in this exact situation before. Years ago, when our first cat Ozzy had kidney cancer, we couldn't afford the treatment. We had just moved to Colorado, I was charging $500 per gig, and the math simply didn't work. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to put her down.

But this time was different. Because I had tripled my rates over the past couple of years—going from $500 to $1,500 minimum to leave my house—I could say yes to that life-saving surgery without hesitation. Five or six gigs covers $7,000. That's worth it. That's the power of charging what you're worth.

Listen on Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1719163/18452135

If you want to learn how to market and sell yourself to high-end gigs, check out my book Gigging Secrets at giggingsecrets.com.

What's up renegade musicians? It's Jared Judge and Happy New Year. Welcome to our first episode of 2026. And I know it's been quite a while since I've recorded an episode. It is just kind of hard to keep up with this with all the other stuff I'm doing. But I wanted to share something because I'm incredibly grateful that I have been doing high end gigs and that I've been able to charge what I consider to be a fair rate for myself as a soloist, which at these days, you know, I don't leave my house for less than 1500 bucks for an hour.

And the reason why I'm so grateful for that, well, many, many things, but particularly a. This was a very challenging holiday season for me. Definitely one of my least favorites. And it was not because of any thing with like families or things like that, you know, but we as, as you may know, you know, my wife Emily and I are big cat owners, cat parents. And we have had three cats in our lives so far.

Our first was Ozzy, which we got I guess during COVID And then she unfortunately passed due to kitty cancer only a couple years after we had her, which was really sad. And then took me about a year or so to come to terms and be willing to get another cat when we actually adopted two cats, a bonded pair, Milo and Nori. Milo is this very fun orange kitty and Nori is such an adorable tabby to the gray tabby. And you know, we, we've had them now for about a year or a year and a half to two years.

I'm not entirely sure now but you know, these cats really become a huge part of your life. And when we had Ozzy and she was, she had kidney cancer, we literally like just moved to Colorado. So I guess my timeline was pretty, pretty off, but we just moved to Colorado and then after a year of being in Colorado, she, she developed this cancer and we still like first, first year or so of being in Colorado was, was pretty tough because the cost of living is so much higher here.

And so when I moved here, I didn't have any job per se. You know, I was just like, I'm a freelance musician, I'll make it work because, because that's what I've been doing in Milwaukee. So moved to Colorado, launched an electric violin act as a soloist. And you know, I'd gotten some mentorship that said, hey, you could charge 500 bucks an hour. And at that time that was more than I had been making at these other like gigs where I was playing in a quartet, and so 500 felt higher end compared to the other ones.

But, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a lot because if I wanted to make a six figure a year salary on that, that meant I'd have to play 200 gigs in a year to make that happen. That's just how the math works on that. And so that obviously wouldn't, wouldn't work, especially if I was new, nobody knew who I was, things like that.

And so by the time Ozzy had her kitty cancer, you know, the vet gave us estimates. Like, if you've ever had to take a near dog or cat or gerbil or whatever to the vet before they do anything, they bring you out a sheet of paper with an estimate on it, and you have to basically make that decision right then and there. Are you able to afford keeping your, your pet alive?

And when we had Ozzy and the estimates for like, kitty radiation, like chemotherapy came, we, to be honest, we couldn't afford it. And it felt awful. I was like, devastated. I was crying, Emily was crying. And we, you know, even with kidney cancer, like, even with the radiation treatment, it still would have been a painful life. And there was no guarantee that she would have, you know, stayed alive much longer after the radiation. And so we made a hard decision to put her down, which was awful. And I'm still kind of getting choked up just thinking about that.

But anyway, you know, a couple years later, we decided, okay, I'm ready to have cats again. We adopted Milo and Nori. And so this holiday season, we went down to Arizona to visit family for Christmas and New Year's. And we hired a sitter on Rover. And the sitter would come every other day and just give us some pictures of the cats, scoop their litter, make sure that they're getting fed and their water was fresh and everything like that, and play with the cats.

And she mentioned that Nori was throwing up quite a lot. And I asked, well, what does quite a lot mean? And she's like, well, today seven times. And then I asked, well, is she eating? She showed me her food bowl, which usually Nori is the one that like, scarfs down her food first, and then she'll kind of kick Milo away from his food bowl so that she could get seconds. But there was food left in Nori's bowl, which meant she wasn't eating. And so I knew something was wrong.

Our cat sitter very thankfully was willing to take her to the cat hospital on Christmas Eve, actually. And they took X rays Couldn't see anything. But they said, hey, come back tomorrow, see if it gets any better or worse. And so our sitter brought Nori back on Christmas day. And I'm so grateful for our sitter Amber. She did such a great job. And she said she'd already done all of her family Christmas stuff before Christmas. Like you know, she was all done with Christmas so that's why she was willing to do it.

Brought Nori back on Christmas day. They took more X rays, sent those out and saw that there was an obstruction because she had swallowed something that she shouldn't have. And so the animal hospital recommended surgery and Amber received the estimate and we got a by email too. And it was like $7,000 which you know, it's same, same dilemma as with Ozzy.

But there was something different about this time. You know, the. Because a couple years had passed since I'd moved to Colorado and I'd tripled my rates from 500 to 1500 minimum to leave the door. This was I, I could afford it this time. And my cats mean so much to me, which I know sounds crazy, you probably think I'm a crazy cat guy. But those of you with pets and possibly those of you with children will get it.

And so to me it was a no brainer I could do. Basically takes five, maybe six gigs to do that, which to me that's worth it. I'm willing to and able to do that. And I had been doing that. That was the big difference. Like I had been playing these gigs for a year or two now at that rate and I continually raised my rate.

And so I was able to say yes to that life saving surgery to get the obstruction out of Nori's upper intestine. And I flew home Christmas day, got a frontier flight. I used points, which was nice. Flew home, got there and Nori had her surgery and then she recovered, picked her up and then I was just taking care of her over the holidays and spent Christmas and New Year's alone, which is okay because my cat is okay and it is now like January 4th and she's doing so good. Like we're just so grateful for this and what high end gigs, you know, does to your financial situation.

So yeah, I mean I never, never thought I'd be in this situation twice where cats would, I'd get these high, high estimates. First time was like awful and even this time was also awful. Like my wife and I were very fearful that we would lose yet another cat. But because of playing gigs that didn't have to be the case.

So yeah, I'm starting off the new year with gratitude. Gratitude for music, gratitude for my cats, gratitude for my family, gratitude for you all. And relevant to this episode, I'm gratitude grateful for my ability to market and sell my musical performances for a high rate so that I can afford these things like life saving treatments for my family.

So cheers to 2026. And if you are interested in learning how to market and sell yourself to these high end gigs, I highly recommend checking out my updated book that you can get online. It's called Gigging Secrets and I'm selling it online at giggingsecrets.com G I G G I N G S E C R E T S.com so happy 2026. Let's knock it out of the park. And remember, your music will not market itself. Bye everybody.