Todd Dulaney: When Spirituality meets Excellence!

A secret to creating life-changing music…

First, a little background. Todd Dulaney is a Stellar Award winning and Grammy-nominated gospel musician, with top hits on the Billboard Gospel Awards. His musical recording career started when he received The Call to go into full-time music, from professional league baseball. After some years of coaching by Smokie Norful, he released the album Pulling Me Through, and since then, his limit has been beyond the stars with live shows, released songs, and albums.

“His dream is to write music, which ministers to the heart of God and touches the heart of man. Not what’s hot, but what delivers, what heals, what restores—music that God inhabits…One thing that Todd desires, is to keep the message of Christ on display more than the brand of the artist.” According to him, without the Christ of the Gospel, we don’t have Gospel/Christian music.”

During a session on the virtual conference #Elev8withpb, Todd Dulaney revealed one of the things that have made him stand out in the world of Gospel music.  Indeed, when you look closely at musicians that are making waves, especially gospel musicians, you find out that this is a common factor in each and every of them.

Excellence. At philcooke.com, Phil Cooke explains that including good quality, being relevant (selecting the right tool for the job), being appropriate (right way in the right circumstance equals excellent choice), being relational (it’s never just about a project, people matter always), and being resilient (never taking NO for an answer) are the major look-alikes that describe excellence.

Now, back to the subject. Todd Dulaney understands that a great leader and indeed anyone who wants to be successful must have a side of them that desires excellence at all costs. He explains that it is okay, if your co-workers think you’re “not-nice” or irritable, just because you desire things to be done in an excellent manner, all the time.

His message to budding musicians out there is simple. Combine power with excellence. In his words, “I want things done with excellence…I’m expecting to be excellent. Not just powerful, but excellent. I want the screens running right, I want the sound to be excellent, I want the band to know what to do, all the time.”

“…I believe that the people God has put with me know what to do. So if there’s ever a time where somebody look like they don’t know what to do, I’m like ‘what are you doing here?’” (Just in case you want to sing or play for him #wink.)

“Yeah, we want the Holy Ghost. Yeah, we want power—but I want it to be done with excellence. I want excellence to meet the Holy Ghost”.

In my opinion, excellence starts with the little things. I mean, you can’t expect to jump on a stage and minister power, as well as excellence, if you haven’t been used to it. Like my mother always says, “Leave things better than you found them”. And that includes your talent too (LOL).

Therefore, starting now, it would be a joy, for me, as well as for you, if you could start pushing yourself to be excellent. Starting from the seemingly inconsequential things, until excellence becomes part of you. Then, and only the, can you begin to expect and push others to be excellent, too.

I hope this piece has really inspired and encouraged you to go even further and provide that drive you need to take your “game to the next level”. Do make sure to comment, rate and repost because there is someone, somewhere who needs to hear this other than you. Stay blessed!

PS. If you also need to watch the video, here is the link https://youtu.be/GFAXZYGZe-o