How To Not Be Like A Musician
Why Musicians miss out on the greatest opportunity of their lives My wife enjoys watching The Voice on NBC, yet another vocal talent show promising fame, glory, and riches to one lucky winner. My routine is always the same when these types of shows come on. At first I scoff. Then I attempt to do my work in the same room while ignoring the TV. Within minutes I find myself distracted enough by the show that the laptop closes and I end up supplying a running commentary on the performances for my sweetheart, as she smiles knowingly at my eventual and inevitable caving. So I’ve watched my...
Read More31 Books You Should Read
My friend is probably crazy. She’s compiling an epic list of books to read, which at this point has grown larger than she could reasonably finish in a lifetime. By her estimates, if she read for two hours every single day, for the rest of her life, she would get about half way through. So I was surprised the other day when she asked for any books I would recommend her to read. I asked her why she thought it would be a capital idea to add more to the already unrealistic pile. To her credit, she winked and said, “You never know, I just might read them all.” This kind of...
Read MoreWhy Living Like You’re Dying is Bad Advice
I think if I really chose to live my life like every day was my last, I would be a complete jerk. Maybe that says a lot about me, but I have a feeling that everyone would be more or less the same. Think about it, if this is your last day, and nothing follows, then what do you have to live for other than the moment? I know that if I wholly subscribed to that philosophy then I would only live for the here and now, which is to say, for myself. What Would That Look Like? I would find myself spending an inordinate amount of time in the shower, stealing every last scrap of water for my own comfort...
Read MoreWhat If Your Story Feels On Hold?
We’ve all been there. Those times when everything should be working out but it’s just not. Greatness seems right around the corner, only to be delayed by yet another roadblock. What do you do? You wait, and wait, and wait… But waiting is so boring. Most stories deal with the boring, waiting parts by skipping over them. Whether it’s a montage of several months passing in the movie, or a simple statement “After several months of anxious waiting, the answer arrived…” in a book, writers have the luxury of skipping over the boring bits. We don’t, we...
Read MoreStory, Your Life, and A New Step
Your life is a story unfolding, deal with it. Dismiss the idea all you want but it doesn’t change the reality of the fact. You are living a story. Does that sound too far-fetched or abstract? It’s not. Imagine your life right now as a movie or book, would you want to read it? Would you pay to read it? If your life is not worthy of recording in the annals of history, who do you have to blame? Does everything in your life have to be sweeping and epic? Of course not! But why wouldn’t you strive for that in every thing you do? Right now, look at your life and find the story...
Read More4 Easy Ways To Know Your Art Is Good Enough
Imagine a little girl making a painting or putting together a macaroni collage. As she happily toils away on the kitchen floor, her Mom comes up behind her and says, “Oh how nice, Dear. You’re doing so well!” How do you think that girl knows if her Mom is telling the truth? The little girl probably doesn’t care if her Mommy is just being nice or encouraging, she accepts it at face value. When you get older however, the problem becomes more serious. Specifically, how do you know your friends and family aren’t just being polite? How do you know that you’ve...
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