Most people assume a career like Jon Schmidt's starts with genius. The pianist and composer behind eight solo albums, seven piano books, and the global phenomenon The Piano Guys tells a very different story on this episode of The Franklin Planner Podcast. Sitting down with co-hosts George Wright III and John Harding, one of his closest friends, Schmidt describes a kid who hated practicing, a career he actively did not want, and a series of what he calls miracles and happy accidents.
The through line is a piece of advice he heard years ago and still lives by: find your voice, then share it. For anyone trying to lead their life on purpose, the conversation is a practical map for how discipline, love, and inspiration work together.
Jon Schmidt on Finding Your Voice and Sharing It
Schmidt grew up the youngest of five in a tiny German immigrant home in Utah. His parents came over after the war, and the house was rich with music. His oldest sister, eleven years older and already in BYU's master's piano performance program as a freshman, taught him lessons for free. His father, an operatic tenor, had learned stand-up comedy as a prisoner of war so he could keep the airtime uplifting, and he could tell jokes for hours. Watching his dad share a gift simply to make someone smile shaped how Schmidt measures his own art.
Step one is find your voice. Step two, share it.
His test for whether a gift is worth sharing is simple: can it make a sad person smile? The audience does not need to be a million people. Communion with one person, he says, is still a joy, and the moment your gift enriches someone else's life is the best payday there is.
Why Discipline Matters More Than Raw Talent
Schmidt is blunt about his own ability. Compared with a musician like Jacob Collier, who has perfect pitch and every gift music requires, he says he feels like a pygmy. He did not love the piano as a child. His German mother simply did not accept arguments about practicing, so he practiced every day and hated it. Then something shifted.
I feel like you can do so much with half a talent, and you can make up for it with putting in extra time, extra determination.
Do something daily for a couple of years with even half a talent, he explains, and you get good at it. Once you are good, it gets fun, and then nobody can keep you away from it. For the hosts, this is the whole point of the Franklin Planner philosophy: greatness is inside everyone, but it only comes out through responsibility, commitment, and daily discipline.
How The Piano Guys Started as a Happy Accident
A friend who teaches entrepreneurship at Utah State University interviewed roughly a hundred entrepreneurs for a book and found a pattern. The successful ones were doing something they loved in service of others, and then they serendipitously met someone else doing the same thing. Two flowing rivers came together and created something nobody had planned.
That is exactly what happened with The Piano Guys. Paul Anderson owned a piano store called The Piano Guys and wanted to advertise it on a new platform called YouTube. Instead of buying a billboard, he asked Schmidt for a favor: let me film you playing a piano in Snow Canyon. Steven Sharp Nelson and Al van der Beek were each doing what they loved too, and the favor turned into a beautiful accident. George Wright III's takeaway is that people keep trying to find the perfect path before they start. Find your passion, build discipline, serve others, and things happen along the way. But, as Schmidt adds, you have to take action.
The Poem That Cured a 21-Year-Old's Anxiety
At 21, Schmidt was full of fear. How would he find a career, feed a family, or know what to study? Sitting in his parents' backyard, he prayed for help with the anxiety, then found a book his aunt Hilde had given him years earlier: I Challenge You by Richard M. Eyre. One passage changed his life. It challenged him to seek his personal mission, promised it would be revealed a line at a time, and insisted that the important thing is not knowing your complete mission but sincerely seeking it.
Schmidt made that seeking his number one priority, and the anxiety melted away. He did not want a music career because he did not want to put his family through the uncertainty. But he treated his mission as a collaboration with God that would be focused over time, and the path revealed itself day by day. John Harding calls this the power of a mission as an anchor: it does not hand you the exact map, but it keeps you steady while the next step becomes clear.
Make God Your Partner the Whole Way
Asked for advice to someone still on the path, Schmidt points to the painter Minerva Teichert, who never picked up a brush without praying first. His version: make God your partner the whole way. If you want a smoothie, he says, you use the blender instead of squeezing the fruit with your hands.
How to Use Music When You Plan Your Week
The hosts closed with a challenge that ties Schmidt's work directly to the Franklin Planner system. Set aside time to write your personal mission, your values, and your unique contribution, then put on music while you do it. Schmidt built a five-hour Spotify playlist of his tracks, sequencing each song by asking what a listener would want to hear next, the way he once built albums to feel like a single symphony. John Harding suggests using it during weekly planning, when you look out over the people and priorities that matter most, and again for ten or fifteen minutes of daily planning before the urgent crowds out the important.
Action Steps
- Name your voice. Write down what you are good at, what you love, and how it could make one person's life better.
- Commit to daily practice of that gift for a season, even on the days you hate it. Fun comes after skill.
- Stop waiting for the whole map. Take the one clear step in front of you and let the long-range picture come into focus.
- Draft or revisit your personal mission statement this week with music playing that puts you in a reflective frame of mind.
- Make inspiration part of the plan: pray, reflect, or sit quietly before you decide what matters most today.
Jon Schmidt's story is proof that you do not need perfect pitch to build a life you love. You need a voice, the discipline to develop it, and the courage to share it. You don't just manage time. You lead your life.
