Being Responsible for your Dreams
Looking back is tough for me. It has always appeared to be a paralyzing process; there is no forward movement. Even the best defensive teams in sports have to score at least a point to win the game, so the thought of reminiscing about my life goes against the grain.
What scares me the most is that I do not want my past to represent the “good old days.” I recognize that my hair will never look again as if I stuck my finger in a light socket, nor will my waist size ever be as small as it was in my younger years (believe me, I’ve tried). Besides, the past doesn’t give me the opportunity to move the needle and do something new—the present does.
The good news of getting older is that your experiences, successes, and failures add up to who you are, which you cannot achieve without going through these experiences. I’ve witnessed younger people around me trying to dig their own hole in life; most of them are standing knee deep in mud. However once the hard work is done, you can fill up the hole with experiences and discover your own place on earth to stand upon. In my case, this has been very helpful as whatever insecurities drove me at a furious and reckless pace in the past have subsided to a more calm and enjoyable journey. The bad news is at the end of all of this you die, so okay, I still do have some concerns…
Being an entrepreneur is not a job for everyone—and understandably so. First, it’s two jobs in one. The first job is finding your path by digging a road in the direction you want to go. The second job is walking it, but then you may find the road you’ve created for yourself could be the wrong path. This happens all the time, and there’s no way to know whether your road goes in the right direction until you get on it and work away.
The difficult decision of digging a new road or slogging away until you finally get somewhere on the current road is emotionally challenging. However, this is where you learn about yourself and your capabilities. Those lessons become your bag of tools to apply to the jobs at hand and thus create opportunities, and ultimately, what forges your brand identity.
Being a musician always had a magical quality. The idea of taking a thought, or gift as I consider it, and creating something to share and connect with others is truly special. I admire this in others and am drawn to their stories in how they keep this process in their lives. As I grew older, I found that I could experience this in areas other than being a musician. My family and I have a home that we built physically and emotionally, and the sense of this creates a bond with the environment in which we live. The microphones we created and built are like that as well. They start as an idea, and eventually wind up as a tool to help individuals achieve their visions.
I’ve always felt this is was my way of giving back to the world, which has given me so much. This is also what helps me connect with others; it’s my small way of contributing. Seeing these ideas and thoughts through to fruition, and the difficult process of achieving success, have helped me become who I am today.
I have learned through many failures that if I want to go to the next step, it’s crucial not to give up—the road ends the day you stop. I’ve tagged this process with a simple line that represents the respect I have for this process: “Being Responsible for Your Dreams.”