Little Rock Library

As mentioned in an earlier blog, Living Life Inside Out is now available for checkout in the Central Arkansas Library System.

I checked one out so that I could see it with the library stamp on it and so I could include some pictures here.

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!

Living Life Inside Out – The Book

The day I’ve been waiting for is almost here … the books have been shipped. UPDATE: And they are here!

 

While waiting there are a few things I need to do to get beaglebirdpress.com ready so that mail order requests can be taken care of quickly. Hopefully that will be up and running before the books arrive.

It’s an exciting time as a vision and dream is coming true. And it’s also a time for new things as I set out to market my work to the world so that I can recoup what I’ve spent and hopefully turn my dream into a bestseller.

UPDATE: Go here to purchase your copy now.

Starting Over

“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose — not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.”
—Anne Sullivan

Each of us has been down a road before that we thought was going to be a rewarding and fulfilling journey, one which we knew was the right path. And while we were on that road we were happy and grateful, and probably relieved because we finally got there.

And then something happened. It didn’t work. We failed, it failed. It doesn’t really matter. What matters in the end is that we don’t give up and never try again.

We can start over. We can begin our day over. We can start a new job when one doesn’t work out. We can go back to school if we didn’t get the degree we sought. We can begin the diet and exercise program once more. We can try another relationship if ours ends in a breakup or divorce. We can start over. It’s the doing that brings success.

It hurts to not find success, especially when we thought we finally had arrived at a place we wanted to be, only to have it pulled away. But we do grow from unsuccessful attempts at things.

There’s the old saying that when God closes a door He opens a window. And really there are lots of opportunities for us in this world. We just need to remain open to them and not close ourselves off when we feel hurt, disappointed, and defeated.

People will lie. They will promise us things in business and in our personal lives that they never intend to give, or maybe they aren’t capable of giving what they promise. We can’t be responsible for the shortcomings of others. What we can do is keep beginning, and failing if that’s what happens, and one day we may truly be on that road we just thought we were on before.

None of us wants to be the person who isn’t honest and true to others; the one who promises what we can’t give or misrepresents who we are. And most likely the people who treat us that way don’t mean to be dishonest and hurtful either. We ought to always beware of carrying our baggage into the future lest we become that way.

But even when others do us wrong, or fate doesn’t give us what we want at a particular time, we can start again.

Failure breeds strength; starting over is the beginning of success.

Do What You Love

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
—Maya Angelou

It may not be a viable option to drop whatever job or career we have at the moment to suddenly pursue what we love as our main income source, however we can pursue what we love doing anyway.

We may start out taking a few classes to get a new degree or a first degree. We may learn to play an instrument with no intention of starting a musical career, but simply because it’s something we love and want to do. Perhaps we truly love to work with children; we can find a place to do that.

Life is full of opportunities. Working at a job we are not happy with will drag us down in every area of our lives. Finding something fulfilling to do with the other hours of the day may help until we can leave a particular job and enter into a career we love. Or maybe we’ll have so much fun outside of work that we start enjoying our job more.

If you do what you love and love what you do you will find a lot of joy. Whether a thing pays a lot of money or a little money, or none at all, it is worth doing if we find it fulfilling. If we are fortunate enough we will be able to earn a paycheck doing what we love, but we won’t get there if we don’t do it.

Love what you do and the rewards are plenty.

Dreams Trump Fear

“There’s a moment when fear and dreams must collide.”
—Josh Groban

Do you have a goal or dream to do something “more” with your life, but you are afraid that you will not be successful, or that it will have cost too much money or time? But still you think of it all the time and you know in your heart you really must do it.

This is when fear and dreams collide. It’s when a decision is made that to not follow the dream is worse than following it and possibly failing. And sometimes even if we fail at the attempt, there are other things learned along the way so it’s not in vain.

Not doing something, not using a God given talent, is wrong. We can always find excuses if we look hard enough. In fact, the excuses are often easier to find than the courage to face the fear and move forward with our dreams.

Every now and then we just have to take the plunge and hope that we are making the right decision. If we are following a dream, but we fear failure, and we fear lots of “what ifs” but we move forward anyway, that’s how we succeed to our full potential.

If our dreams are to become reality in our lives, they will, but only when we step out of fear and all of the negatives about something and look at the positives and take a chance.

To really do anything difficult or new we are going to have fear, but the dream will propel us into action and will supersede the fear if we allow it.

If we want something bad enough we will succeed in getting it.