Success

How does one define success?

When I wrote the book “Living Life Inside Out” I didn’t have plans for it to be a bestseller, although that would be wonderful. But the decision to write it was never about money or success.

I wrote it to share my journey with others in hopes that it might help them. I also have relied on books like mine to help me along the way for many years.

Once I decided to self-publish a lot of decisions had to be made about quantity, costs, who to contract to print it, and so forth. This is where success could be placed on a dollar amount.

My initial goal was to recoup my costs by selling half of my original order. That was the easy part, really. I managed to make back what I had spent after just a couple of months of having the finished product in hand.

Having met my initial goal is a successful step, but I do have higher goals. I truly believe my book can help others and I want it in as many hands as possible. I was touched recently when a friend who is a senior in high school bought the book for her boyfriend who is a freshman in college. Her mother had bought her one and she liked it enough to buy it for him. That’s what I want for my book, whether it ever makes it big or not, I want it to help people enough that they want to share it.

I don’t know when or if I would ever feel like this is it as far as calling it a success. However, something happened recently that caused me to feel a little more official as an author. The Central Arkansas Library System purchased two of the books. They can be found at www.cals.org. There’s just something about being part of the library that gives credibility, at least in my mind.

I have very few childhood memories although I can remember going to the library in downtown Little Rock to check out books. I remember the stairs that led up to the children’s books and carrying armloads of them to check out.
Now if someone wants to read my book without having to spend any money, they can do it in central Arkansas.

It’s just one brick in my wall of success.

Life Has Changed for the Better

My life is still turned upside down, sort of.

I held another snake the other day.

On Sunday I went hiking — all day — and the yard needs to be cut, the house is filthy, and I’m working the next 11 days in a row and then leaving town for a few days, and I’m not worried about any of it.

What has happened to me?

Did you catch that? I held another snake. Yikes. Not a big deal, you might think. For me it is.

What’s happening, what happened to me? Did I finally figure out I’m not that big of a deal? Did I realize just how little control I have on the world and that I don’t have to keep all the plates spinning?

I keep up with high profile murder and missing person cases. I think I started that with Jon Benet Ramsey, or I might have picked up on that later while reading online about another case. I remember a lot about the O.J. Simpson case. I remember where I was when I heard that Laci Peterson was missing. When Elizabeth Smart was found I was online on a crime forum typing in how she wouldn’t be found when I heard it on the news in the background.

Now there’s the Caylee Anthony case. A reality television show that nobody could have dreamed of. That poor little girl was murdered and thrown out like trash and her mother, Casey Anthony, in jail accused of killing her, rants to her parents that she’s lost everything and she does not mean her daughter.

I don’t like drama in my life. Maybe that’s why these high-profile cases attract my attention. I can watch the crazy drama and not have to live it.

There are so many things and situations that I’m grateful to not have experienced. I’ve had my excitement, I hope. I’ve had drama. I’ve lived on the edge and almost died. I like calm now.

I stopped in the woods Sunday while hiking so I could just listen. There was a stream flowing visible for at least half of the four-and-a-half mile hike. It made a beautiful sound. Sometimes I heard leaves rustling and prayed it wasn’t a rattlesnake.

My life is simplified of late.

For the past several months I’ve been working two jobs and trying to find time to promote my book. I’m no longer on a partial layoff; I’ve had all of my hours restored, so any time I work at the second job it’s extra income.

It’s been tough and it has changed me. The worry and stress about what might be has been bad. But here I am on the other side of that, at least this time around, this recession.

Life is good.

In other news: I sold another book internationally this weekend. This one is headed to France.

The books will make wonderful Christmas presents. It’s always fun to get a new book to start on January 1 and follow through the year.

Look for the Good

I realized something about myself recently, a trait that isn’t pretty and one which I hope to change.

For the most part it seems I see the bad in people. I can trace this back to things and people in my life and blame it on that, however I won’t change if I do, so I choose to move forward and not make excuses. I want to see the good first and foremost.

It’s so easy to turn against a person, to see things from our own vantage point, and sometimes with negative input from others. If enough people tell us that a person is a failure of sorts, or a problem, whatever it may be, we start to believe it.

I watched the movie “Doubt” for the second time recently. I won’t give away the ending, but in the movie the nun who leads the school accuses the priest of doing something inappropriate with a male student. She sees the bad in the priest. The nun has black and white thinking, she is certain that she’s right. And he can do nothing right in her opinion including how much sugar he uses in his tea, the length of his nails, and so on. You get the point.  

When we only see the bad, when that’s what leads us, rather than finding the good first (and always) it’s easy to be led down the wrong path.

My eyes were opened to this whole concept when I found that I had developed a negative attitude about someone who once had an important place in my life. I only heard one side of the story: the negative side. And I heard it a lot. As we all know there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.

I walked in this person’s shoes just long enough to get it, to realize what a mistake I had made.

I encountered the beast firsthand, the same monster that had been attacking this person. That’s when all the pieces fell together … sort of, although it was anything but immediate.

If you haven’t walked in someone else’s shoes, you won’t know where they have been, what their struggles are, why they behave in a particular way, and especially how they feel.

But if you face the same monster as another it opens up a whole other side. It gives you knowledge that is missing when you only hear the negative about someone.

You may wonder about this beast, monster to which I refer. It’s comparable to watching a bear play from your picnic table. The cute bear you see is like Winnie-the-Poo. He eats honey and seems sweet and loveable. But he’s not Winnie-the Poo. He’s actually a very real bear who is just who he is, but you don’t want to be in his path when he’s angry, or have him mad at you, because that’s when he becomes a monster, a beast that is unrelenting and will take whoever he must in his path to get what he wants.

When the monster first attacked me I didn’t see outside of myself, it was all about me and my pain. But through the grace of God I was given insight via a conversation or two and the light bulb came on with a very high wattage.

It was a knowing that you know that you know moment. Having faced the wrath of the beast, I knew exactly why others behave as they do having experienced it too. It makes perfect sense.

So here I am a while later having made amends where necessary for any part I played in the monster’s game. I learned so much. I feel like a load has been lifted off my shoulders and the world shines more brightly.

Now I have the opportunity to carry this knowledge and wisdom with me into the future. I hope I do. I pray that I don’t forget the lesson of seeing both sides before making a judgment.

I hope I see the good first and always.

Lying Is Not Okay

Someone told me recently that lying is okay. In fact, I was informed that sometimes you have to lie, and that everybody does it.

Really, I thought?  It does seem that telling the truth has become almost a thing of the past in some circles.

I won’t say that I never tell a lie. I think it may be a fact that most people do lie occasionally, especially white lies, but to claim that “everybody does it” and that it is okay is beyond my realm of understanding.

Just imagine if you taught your children that it was okay to lie either by direct teaching or simply showing them that is how things work by your actions. Do you think one day one of your children might say that his or her parent lies all the time? It happens.

Do as I say, not as I do, will not work when we are dealing with children or even adults who look to us as models of behavior. One never knows who is watching and who is emulating our behavior.

We all have a responsibility to do the right thing. I have been really surprised of late by some people who would boast of their love of God, of how good they are at living the Christian life, but who also have turned their backs on what Jesus would instruct them to do, and how he would act.

I’m not trying to judge, but once again the Christian teaching that I am getting from observation has turned me against organized religion so much that I may never attend church again.

When people celebrate that folks are not attending church by blaming it on what another person did or did not do, the message they are supposedly trying to portray is buried in the insanity of the behavior. Rather than reaching out to pull the flock back in, they laugh and virtually high five to cheer about how “right they are” even though they didn’t get their way.

Is “being right” to a Christian more important than “living right?” I often think about the question that emerged a few years ago on bracelets: WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)  If you don’t get your way is it okay to behave in a way that Jesus would frown on?

I think God might not be smiling down on this behavior.

For now, I’m done with trying to follow those who supposedly lead in the Christian faith. This includes all of the politicians who preach the gospel and wage the sin behind closed doors.

I’m going to look into some other beliefs and find which one I believe that MY God would want me involved in.

The following was written many years ago. I challenge those reading here to truly take it to heart. If you follow the crowd and side with those folks even when they are wrong, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror.

The Man In The Glass
— Anonymous
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in you life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you’re a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

He’s the fellow to please-never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end.
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

Do No Harm

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope … and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples … build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” —Robert F. Kennedy

 Wow, “a tiny ripple of hope” … that when combined with other ripples can “build a current,” one that can knock down oppression and resistance.

Those are powerful words and while I’ve been thinking about this blog for a while it’s taken me a very long time to get started writing it.

You see, what I want to write about isn’t about hope, it’s about what happens when evil and destructiveness are involved in the midst of something that’s supposed to be good and healing.

You may know what I’m trying to say. I’ll give a few examples.

Have you ever been involved with a group of people that was trying to do something good for a cause? And all the while the group is trying to do it there is one person, or a handful of people, who just continue to bring negative energy into the situation. There’s bickering amongst the group and soon few people show up to help.

I think about jobs I’ve had where one supervisor continuously said bad things about his supervisor to his staff. I felt the tension and negative energy in that situation and I often wondered if it bled over on the project we were doing. 

It’s the same thing in some churches. Those who claim to be doing God’s work are often not really doing that at all. Because if they were really doing what God commanded there would be love in their hearts instead of constant gossiping, lying, judgment and just overall bad feelings. How can a person say they are serving God and praying for good things to happen, when they spend more time putting down others and lying?

It happens at jobs, clubs, churches, and in families.

Do no harm

We’ve all heard that over and over and I discovered that it’s used in some religions as well as in the oath doctors used to take:

• The Golden Rule in Buddhism is: Do no harm.

• When John Wesley gave the General Rules to the people called Methodists the first thing he told them was to do no harm, and

• The original Hippocratic Oath, once sworn by all doctors required that its adherents “do no harm” to their patients.

It’s used in many more places than I listed, but the point is made, it is used in different religions and by the medical community.

How do we do harm? We don’t do harm by focusing on love which encompasses all things good, but we do harm when we focus on all that is wrong. We talk about it to whoever will listen and we keep the evil energy alive.

We do harm when we don’t show love. If I look someone in the face and smile really big at them when I want a favor, yet I won’t give them a passing glance when I don’t need something, that’s not love and I find it unlikely that many folks would think it was.

It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar, and so it is with people, with success, with doing right.

We do what we know is right to do, even when it would be easier to do wrong.

What I’m saying is that if a small act of kindness — a ripple of hope — can spread out and have a snowball effect for good, then too, can a negative act have the same impact.

To me, if there’s negativity behind the scenes, then the energy from that is going to show in real life.

If sending up prayers can heal, then can’t also speaking evil harm? Does it harm even if the person spoken about never knows it was said?

It takes just as much energy to say a bad thing about someone as it does to say a good thing, maybe more.

Another thing to remember: the majority is not always right.

Just because you may have found a group of people to befriend who support your negativity, that doesn’t make it right.

Most people would probably say that it matters not what they say or do in private, that it doesn’t reflect upon their public work. I disagree. I think that our negative energy shows up in our lives and causes us not to succeed where we are most striving for success.

I implore you to always strive to do the right thing no matter what. Yes, we all fall short — I never claim to do the right thing all the time. But I do know that the attitude of frustration that says if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, has never worked for me even though I’ve followed that path before.

Do no harm in person or behind another person’s back.

A Leap of Faith

I delivered a book today; my book about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing.

I wanted to take this book to Jason Priest, owner and founder of Little Rock Jams, so that I could get a tour of his new studio that opened in August of last year.

I took guitar lessons from Jason for about a year and stopped before he made the move about a half-mile away to new digs. I was a true beginner, and never did progress very far. I determined that my money would be better spent elsewhere, but I could still pick around on my guitar at home.

Jason was a faithful reader of this blog, which was my book in progress, and now as you know has turned into more of a regular blog.

Jason started his first guitar studio as a solo teacher. He began this gig back in July 2006 when he had an opportunity to “early retire” from a telephone company job during one of the mergers or something similar to that. In other words, a window of opportunity happened and he moved with it.

So to know him when — back when he was just about to add a teacher besides himself and then he was looking for a bigger space to add more staff — to know him then and to see where his studio has progressed today was a treat.

He took a step of faith to do what he’s done; what he’s doing. Little Rock Jams is a studio in Breckenridge Village with instruction rooms and an awesome studio for concerts. He’s so busy that Jason’s taking on running the show and letting the other teachers handle most of the teaching.

Going from a one-man-show studio to having numerous teachers, including piano and voice, to what Jason has developed now didn’t happen without a lot of prayer, persistence, faith, determination and I’d guess blood, sweat and tears.

Life is about stepping out of our comfort zones in order to fulfill our dreams.

We rarely get anywhere in life without taking a leap of faith. If you’re one of the few who was handed everything on a seemingly silver platter, if life just comes easy and there’s never a struggle to achieve and get what you want, rejoice in that. Because for the rest of us what we have is what we earned.

We work hard, we pray a lot, we take two steps forward and one back, sometimes we even give up. But for the most part, when we truly want something, we go the distance, we don’t quit or give up, we just keep moving on.

And so the delivery of my book to Jason about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing was one that could have been written about him.

He’s already asked to star in the movie, so we know he dreams big.

Jason Priest, congratulations, my friend. Thanks for all of your support as I wrote my book and today as you admired it in your studio. Thanks for living your life as a good example. I know your children are learning the right way to do things.

Visit LittleRockJams.com to sign up for your lessons today!

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

Have you ever felt as if you had every right to retaliate against an action by someone who had harmed you in some way?

I think we all feel this way from time to time, probably very often actually. A simple thing like a driver cutting us off might make us want to do the same back, but where does that get a person? Possibly in a wreck.

Sometimes there is no solution to an issue. At other times there is, but a wrong for a wrong won’t solve a thing. Turning your back and walking away when angered is a good thing; running to tell everybody you can about how so and so ticked you off is another.

I don’t believe in standing around and letting someone badger me. If there is no way to stop it, I will leave. Seriously. You have to look at what you are getting out of the pain. Is it that you need attention so bad that you’re willing to stand for abuse? Verbal abuse, being lied to, bad treatment, is abuse.

Most folks, when they think of abuse the first thought is getting beat up, slapped, or some other form of physical altercation. Verbal and emotional abuse is just as bad and often more hidden.

A person can suffer emotional and verbal abuse from a partner, friend, boss, family member, or anyone really.

Of course, it’s easy to walk away from a casual friend who might abuse you, but not easy at all to turn your back on a family member, boss, or significant other. Easy or not, if you are in the midst of emotional or verbal abuse, get out.

Finding Yourself

How many of you reading this have spent most of your life trying to find what it is you were meant to do on this earth?

Some of us struggled through a lot of different avenues until we found the right thing. It might not pay what we wish to make, it might not even give us a lot of recognition, but it is the thing we were meant to do.

And have you ever struggled with self-esteem? Have you managed to find a place in your life where you feel pretty darn confident — finally?

Once you have found yourself through whatever means it took. When you’ve found what it is you feel you were meant to do, AND you feel good about yourself, do you notice others who are anything but excited for you?

They say you are self-centered, selfish, egotistical, and anything else they can throw at you out of jealousy or some other inferior feeling. Maybe they see confidence as arrogance.

It’s difficult when you are confident in yourself to not be arrogant. Perhaps it happens from time to time that you do come across that way. If so, step back and try not to let that happen anymore. Maybe it’s from all of those many years — a lifetime even — of feeling less than and unable to ever feel loved and accepted just the way you are.

So you love yourself. You learn to be proud of yourself no matter what “they” think. And when you finally do find peace and harmony in your life, when you find confidence in who you are, you do not have to ever let someone put you down for finally feeling confident.

We aren’t perfect. Nobody is. So if from time to time others see you as too confident, try not to be that way, but don’t let go of who you are.

And also remember that you have no idea what the other person feels about who they are. They could be suffering with their own self-esteem issues.

It’s really not an easy road to come out of low-self esteem into a place of confidence. It takes years of stepping forward and moving backward. Many tears are cried. Lots of pain is felt.

But my message to you is don’t give up. And don’t ever let someone steal what you have gained. Hear them out, feel what you need to feel, but know that who you are is who you were meant to be and something that you have given your life to achieving, even when often there was not a cheering section on your side of the field.

Just remember there will always be those who wish to burst your bubble. Usually it’s someone you care about the most who does it in a way that hurts the most. Don’t let a temporary hurtful remark stop your progress in anything.

And don’t forget, my book, “Living Life Inside Out,” is available for purchase at BarbKampbell.com.

July Brings Me Good and Bad and a Lot of Lessons

It’s an odd thing for me. Strange and unexplained. July. I’ve done some really bad things in July, some bad stuff has happened in July, and that month has also been a happy time in my life.

I don’t look back with regret on the things I have done in July; things that very easily could have and should have killed me. The reason I don’t lament them is that it’s because of those things that I am who I am today.

I’d probably never have gone back to college without the urging of a friend who helped me in early recovery from my battle with a very bad drug.

Without my return to college there’d be no book. It was in college that professor after professor commended my writing … so much so that it could not be ignored.

And if I had not found my writing talent there would be no book and the lives that my writing has touched wouldn’t have received that blessing.

Here are some things that I did in July in the past:

• One July 4th weekend in about 1991 I did LSD for the first time, and while I had tried cocaine a few times, very small amounts, and felt nothing, this was the beginning of my “do and take anything” drug days. I had smoked pot and drank alcohol, but never anything more. This was a major negative life-changing event.

• The first time I used a drug in a very dangerous way was in July the year after the first time I took LSD. I won’t go into any more detail with that one, but suffice it to say, I should’ve and could’ve died. It was another life-changing event, one that brought me to my knees and made me hit bottom quickly.

• The first time I faced my drug abuse demons was in July 1994. It was the beginning of a new life. I had hit bottom using cocaine. I had stopped in 1993, but I had a lot of growing up to do, and I started that process in a Twelve Step program. It was yet one more life-changing event, only this time it was positive.

• The second time I quit smoking was July 10, 2004. I quit once for three years and still wanted to smoke. After quitting in July 2004 I was blessed or cursed to find that I cannot tolerate cigarette smoke. The smell is nasty to me, unlike it was when I’d quit the other time. The quitting I did five years ago is the last time I’ll have to quit smoking. I can say that with confidence, and

• My book was published in July of this year. I didn’t realize this was happening, I did not tie it in with July events until recently. What a wonderful life-changing event!

I often wonder why these things seemed to fall in July, and I know there are more things, but that’s all I can recall at this time.

There was a time after the drug events in July that I dreaded that month. I don’t anymore. The last two events, quitting smoking and getting “Living Life Inside Out” in my hands outweigh all the bad stuff and they are more recent too.

And I don’t do any of those bad things anymore. I care about my life and health. I’m a new person and would not dream of ingesting something that I had no idea where it came from or what it might do to me.

I have never and will never claim perfection. I share my life including good and bad things to help others.

Here’s to many more happy Julys.

My Many Hats

Sully the Beagle Pup

My life feels much like a whirlwind. But I am not complaining; I’m just regrouping.

It seems I wear many hats now. I have my “mom of a wild and crazy puppy hat,” which cleans up a lot of poop and pee and doesn’t get much sleep. But I am adored and the feeling is mutual … while eagerly awaiting puppy teeth to go away.

Then there’s the writer/reporter hat that I’ve worn for about 10 years, only now I’m supposed to do what I did in 40 hours in just 32.

I’ve got my Game and Fish Commission hat that I wear mostly on Saturdays and also on days off from when I wear the writer/reporter hat.

And then there’s the hat of many colors: the author, publisher, marketer hat. Yes, I’ve been peddling “Living Life Inside Out,” for a couple of weeks now. Sales have been good so far, but stretching outside of my circle of friends is going to take a lot of work, not to mention stepping way outside of my comfort zone.

I’m not a salesman. I never have been one. I’ve tried it briefly as a profession, but I just don’t bullsh*t well. And while my self-esteem has grown a lot over the past few years, I certainly don’t enjoy selling myself. Since so much of me is in my book it’s just difficult for me to push it.

My theory is that if someone reads it they will want to buy another for a friend or family member. I’ve already had a few comments from people telling me how a particular meditation for that day spoke to them and how they needed to read what they did.

I told my mother that I thought I’d send one to Oprah. She said I dream big. Maybe. But why not?  I told a couple of other people the same thing. One said, go for it. The other said: Oprah may never see it, but one of her staff that does could be the person that’s supposed to.

The way I see it, I was led to write the book. What it is or what it becomes is out of my hands, but I do have to get it out there so those who need it will have the opportunity to be led to it.

So I wear all of my hats proudly. Some I like more than others. A few I won’t even mention here because many would tell me that’s too much information.