You Don't Have to Beat It — You Just Have to Outlast It

Reflections on ten years of Six Missing, survival reality TV, and why sway: breathing room exists

I want to talk about Alone. But first, let me back up — because that's actually how we got here.

SXSW just wrapped up in Austin, and while I didn't do much by way of events this year, I did get to see two old friends and one new one, which was absolutely lovely. Through chatting with one of my old pals — who had me on his podcast while he was in town (more on that soon) — we realized we've known each other for almost 30 years. How absurd is that? Three decades, and somehow it still just feels like us.

But here's the thread that ties this whole thing together: my other old friend is the one who turned us onto Alone.

The Show

If you haven't seen it, Alone is a survival reality show where contestants are dropped — completely solo — into the wilderness with minimal gear and told to last as long as they can. No camera crew. No producers. Just them, the elements, and whatever they can figure out. Season 11 is on Netflix, and my partner Hanna and I tore through it in about a week.

Reflecting on it together over the past couple of days, something started to crystallize for me.

Some contestants came in trying to dominate — to beat the game, outsmart it, conquer it. Others took a different approach entirely. They weren't trying to win against the wilderness; they were trying to exist with it. To build something sustainable. To make themselves at home in an environment that wasn't designed for them.

And in the end, the one who built the most sustainable relationship to their survival — not the strongest, not the loudest, not the most aggressive — was the one who won.

I feel the same way about my relationship to music and the music industry.

You Can't Beat It

I'm not trying to beat the music industry, because it simply can't be won. The goal posts never stop moving. Streaming payouts shift. Algorithms change. What worked last year doesn't work this year. If you orient yourself around winning that game, you will exhaust yourself chasing a finish line that doesn't exist.

But what you can do is co-exist with it. You can build sustainable workflows and habits and a body of work that allows you to quite literally outlast the other contestants.

There's an old adage: you don't always have to be the best, you just have to outlast everyone else. That's something I've been sitting with a lot lately, as I approach ten years as Six Missing this year.

Ten years. I genuinely can't believe it and also I can completely believe it, because I've never once felt like I was grinding against something. The work feeds me. It always has.

My Version of Alone

My approach to Six Missing mirrors the mindset of the best Alone contestants. Build a shelter, find food, sleep, stay alive, repeat.

For me: shelter is my body of work. Food is the inspiration and motivation. Sleep is still sleep (heh). And staying alive is continually releasing the highest quality work I can — not rushing, not forcing, but never stopping either.

I never grow tired of it. And I think that's where my real advantage lies. Another ten years? I'd do it without hesitation. I'm really only just getting started.

But here's where my version of the story diverges from the show, and it's the part that actually matters most to me.

A lot of those contestants tap out — not because they can't survive physically, but because they miss their people too much. The isolation becomes the thing that breaks them, not the cold or the hunger. And honestly? I get it completely.

Unlike them, I don't have to choose. I get to make this work with incredible artists, collaborators, and listeners who light me up just as much as the music itself does. Every collaboration teaches me something. Every conversation with someone who's actually heard the music changes the way I think about what I'm making.

And that includes you — reading this right now. You showing up here, following along, lending your ears and your time — that's what keeps me wanting to share. That's not a small thing. That might actually be the whole thing.

sway: breathing room

Which brings me to today.

I have a new single out — sway: breathing room — and its existence is pretty much a direct product of everything I just described. It's full circle in the best way: me, sitting with my guitar and my pedals, the way I used to make music when Six Missing was brand new. That intimacy, that simplicity. But sway: breathing room takes it a step further — printed to tape, slowed all the way down, given room to exist without rushing anywhere.

Mmm, tape.

It feels like a breath. Which, given everything, feels exactly right.

If you'd like to hear it, you can find it HERE. And if you haven't started Alone yet — you can thank me later, just as my friend did for us.

Your friend, TJ