Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Sean Golightly of Flagstaff

We recently had the chance to connect with Sean Golightly and have shared our conversation below.

Sean , really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What do you think is misunderstood about your business? 
Well, I’d have to say the most misunderstood thing about my creative business is my role within it. Even I have a hard time keeping up with what my title of the day is.

There’s a famous saying: “Specialization is for insects.” I like that approach. I think it is good business to hold myself to the standard that a human being should be able to change a diaper, write a song, build a wall, balance accounts, grow a garden, manage a team, publish a book, partner dance, edit a photo, butcher a chicken, address city councils, perform a monologue, analyze problems, offer solutions, raise children and comfort the dying. I’m certain I can do all of these because I have done all of them–all but one. My chickens mostly die of old age or skunks.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Sean Carnegie Golightly. The best way to know me is to know what I’ve been up to. Last year I released an album with the big band F-Town Sound, helped renovate the Beaver Street Theatre in Downtown Flagstaff, and worked to restore forests in Coconino County. This year, I’m singing in a country trio, planting a new garden, managing a set of memorial forests, and executing a publishing contract for my upcoming book, “Seattle, At Least.”

These efforts I squeeze in around my first purposes: being a good member of my creative community and a decent father to my children.

Bukowski wrote “Find what you love and let it kill you.” That’s nonsense. Never stop finding new ways to love.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
Folks sometimes accused me of natural-born talent and I made the foolish mistake of believing them. As a boy, I wanted nothing more than to believe that I didn’t have to work for my dreams, that it would all just come naturally. That’s how many of my artistic heroes had been portrayed–brightly burning forces-of-nature whose contributions were inevitable so long as the world got out of their way.

Now I know better. An accusation of “talent” is a curse. Never was I more lazy and entitled than when I believed I had talent. These days, I worry more about being persistent. This sentiment really came to a head for me while I was writing “Seattle, At Least,” – a story from the summer of 2016 when I bicycled and busked two thousand miles up the West Coast. No amount of talent can shorten or soften the process of writing a book. You just have to sit down and do it, day after day after day. Forget inspiration–just show up and get to work.

My old artistic heroes were also frequently members of The Twenty-Seven Club: they let their “art” kill them before they had seen thirty. I’m not into that. I want a long life. Time is on my side. I’m not chasing goals, I’m outlasting them.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
Here’s one: The day after Thanksgiving 2018, I caught the flu, ran a fever, and fainted. I dropped like a bag of bricks chin-first into the hardwood floor of my father’s slab-built home. I broke my jaw. A doctor drilled Phillips-head screws into my gums, then wrapped steel wire around the screws to keep my mouth closed for a month. Later, they showed me an X-ray that showed a missing piece of bone. Where did it go? Pierced somewhere in my head and eventually reabsorbed into the body, so the doctor said.
Before I suffered this injury, I was free-wheeling, living out of my car, with no health insurance. Fortunately, I had family to lean on and was able to get access to Arizona’s Medicaid program, which spared me from emergency and surgical costs that would have put me $60,000 in debt overnight.
All that’s to say is that while I healed, I noted a few things:
1) You can’t heal yourself. Health is a community activity. Even something like wound care can take a village—a friend to pick you up off the floor, a doctor to wire you shut, a sister to fill out your government-sponsored insurance application, a mother to hold you when you have a panic attack because you can’t open your mouth, and hundred of thousands of taxpayers to throw in a penny so that a single accident doesn’t put you into years of financial ruin.
2) You can sometimes heal yourself. The body is capable of miracles. It can take a shard of bone like a bullet to the brain and simply make it go away. It can build up new muscle to compensate for a joint that will never be the same. The mind too can be miraculous. It can adapt to such unnatural circumstances—even torture, like having your mouth forcibly closed for weeks at a time—and learn to see the situation as acceptable. Unfortunate, but survivable.
3) I can still sing with my jaw wired shut. The Last Canaries had scheduled the release of their album “A Cautionary Tale,” in mid-December of 1028, a couple weeks after my accident. I had been looking forward to the show for months, and I would’ve been damned if I was going to give up on singing my parts. I got onstage in front of hundreds and sang through my teeth. Despite everything, I could still hold a tune.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
It’s all “the real you.” Identity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Who you are in public–that is to say, who you are to the people in your community–cannot be separated from “the real you.” To claim otherwise gives people a way to avoid taking responsibility for their actions: It wasn’t “the real you” that did heinous things, it was just “the public version” that had a job to do, was just putting on a show, was just following orders.

Who we are is what we do, and everything we do impacts others. Whether we like it or not, who we are to the people in our lives is more important than who we are to ourselves.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
I write about this in “Seattle, At Least,” which will hopefully be ready for release in 2026. For the long answer, give it a read.

The short answer is yes, many times. Most times, even.

It used to bother me a lot (back when I was a lazy, talented boy). I wanted the work to be finished once and for all. I wanted satisfaction like a transaction–bought, paid for, and forever in my possession until the day I died.

But satisfaction in life is not like buying a toy in a store. It ebbs and flows. It has to be cultivated through seasons, like a garden, and must be allowed to wither and die in order to bloom. On the mountain where I live, no one can keep flowers alive in the winter time, and you’d be a fool to try. In the same way, you can’t force satisfaction by trying to get something you want. You just have to let it grow in your life when the time is right–and stop to notice the little budding times where, yes, you are satisfied.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sean_golightly/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-golightly-22747814a/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sean.golightly.3
• Other: Spotify:

  Sean Golightly: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4Nre9DuHcnQzAV9i9oK3Q7?si=uyx-HBPCSdmBVV_mdjfA7Q
  F-Town Sound: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1q7e3aP9Fom0wIx97Bq5eb?si=4lGkMupyTiq1uvyPDT7_jw
  The Last Canaries: https://open.spotify.com/artist/17TyrLw4ZwhmjPMyviNu9r?si=yxn54LvLSdaHQ4T1v2-DPQ