Comfort Zone Kills Growth | Alec Takahashi on Lighting the Biggest Stages & Betting on Himself

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Alec Takahashi and I go back a long way. We first met at a Christmas concert I was producing, back when he was on the road with Lincoln Brewster. I loved that name so much I later gave it to my son. So it’s a full-circle joy to have him on the show now, because in the years since, Alec has become one of the most respected lighting and production designers working today. He’s the co-founder of BKD Creative, he’s toured with Thomas Rhett for nine years, and in 2023 he won the Parnelli Award for Lighting Designer of the Year, one of the highest honors in live events, and he believes he’s the youngest person ever to take it home.

The line that named this episode is his, not mine. Comfort zone kills growth. Alec has lived that sentence since fifth grade, when a teacher handed him the light board for the cafeteria talent show and told him he might do this for a living. He started cold-emailing production managers at fourteen. He chose the road over college and graduated high school six months early to work full time at his church. And at the end of 2016, with nothing lined up, he walked away from that steady job to see what the road held. That meant couch-hopping, living out of a suitcase, and sitting in a Nashville Starbucks at six in the morning with his luggage, not knowing where the day would take him. A few years later he started a company in the middle of COVID.

We talk about the risk that scared him most recently. A month before rehearsals for a Thomas Rhett tour, management pulled a truck of gear and the whole design fell apart. Instead of fighting over the truck he couldn’t control, Alec flew to Chicago, walked the storage floor of his lighting vendor, and redesigned the entire show in four days. It became one of his favorite years. It’s the clearest picture I know of the three levels of control, full, partial, and none, and of pouring your energy into the part you can actually change. We also get into why he refuses to be the smartest person in the room, why human connection can’t be handed to a chatbot, and the risk he’s taking right now that he honestly dreads.

In this episode:

Why comfort zone kills growth, and how to keep choosing the uncomfortable thing on purpose
The fifth-grade talent show that started a career, and the teacher who spoke it into existence
Cold-emailing tour managers at fourteen, and the connection that came back around a decade later
Choosing the road over college, and graduating early to go all in
Walking away from a steady job at Christmas with nothing lined up
The Nashville Starbucks at 6 a.m. with a suitcase and no plan
Starting a company in the middle of COVID
The truck that got cut a month before rehearsals, and the four-day redesign that saved the tour
The three levels of control, and why he only spends energy on what he can actually change
Treating stress as your body equipping you, not breaking you
Never being the smartest person in the room, and why he still seeks mentors and becomes one
Protecting human connection in a world of AI chatbots
The risk he is taking now that he genuinely dreads

Key takeaways

Alec started running lights on a fifth-grade cafeteria stage, was told he had to be 13 to serve on the church's main production team, and asked again on his 13th birthday.
He skipped college after people in the industry told him touring and on-the-job learning would be more valuable, and went full-time at his church six months after graduating high school early.
When business management cut one truck a month before rehearsals, he chose to scrap the design and rebuild it in four days rather than fight a decision he couldn't control.
He separates what he can control (the design) from what he can't (the truck count) and puts all his energy into the former.
BKD Creative's differentiator is process and collaboration: they treat themselves as a service to the artist rather than the artist, and every client so far has rehired them.

In this episode

3:24Discovering lights in fifth grade
6:00Asking until the door opened
11:42Cold-emailing tours as a teenager
14:36Choosing not to go to college
21:28Comfort zone kills growth
30:38Leaving the church job with nothing lined up
37:22Starting BKD Creative during COVID
43:14Losing a truck, redesigning the show
1:01:07Winning the Parnelli Award

Read the full transcript80,667 words

Key takeaways

In this episode

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