Had a major client - messed it up

Many years back I had this major client approach me to work on their music. A producer who had a high volume of work and needed someone to mix on a regular basis. I did one mix for them, which turned out great. Another mix had already been done it, which they weren’t happy about - but they loved the mix I had done. I was excited about the future work!

I got the next track - two upcoming artists in the modern rap genre. Again, I did my best work to make the song stellar, but the producer thought otherwise when he heard the first mix. “Not exactly the direction we were looking for”... I Remember the words clearly.

I don’t know what happened - I was somewhat so eager to please this client, that I forgot to do the actual and extremely important conversation on what kind of direction they wanted on their mix! Again, this was early in my career. BIG F*”K up! I of course talked it out with the producer and offered to give it another go, now that I knew what direction they wanted. But I never got a second chance - I was eventually just cut off. Name of the game is these higher-profile projects - If you mess up there’s often someone else there to take your spot.

From that moment on I’ve always made it my number one priority to talk about the song, direction, thoughts etc. before I start a project (how obvious it might seem). Did it suck in the moment and a couple of weeks afterwards - YES! But I learned a valuable lesson that has helped me tremendously later in my career. But that f*”k up moment often comes back to haunt me.