Someone Once Told Me

Someone once told me, "Kid, some day you will change the world."

I replied, "Why not today."

Often times people settle for less than what they are capable of.  People look around at what everyone else is doing and tell themselves what they are doing is enough.  People conform, people settle for mediocrity.  Why is that?  Why is it that people have every resource in the world to create a world that they want but don't?  It could be their environment.  It could be their desire for what they want.

I remember Tony Robbins once talking about people with impotent goals.  Most people settle because they don't know what they really want.  And if they do know what they really want and aren't achieving it, there is still something that holds them back.  What is holding you back from achieving what you want?  What's stopping you?

I was looking at my life over the past few weeks and I feel I've been making similar excuses based on similar circumstances.  It was with my work.  It was the show, or I wasn't talking to the right people.  Or I just didn't have the opportunities that would have allowed me to sell more.  Or it was the person I was working with, they got all the good opportunities.

This is a victim mentality.  There is nothing worse than a victim mentality.  I hate it and I'm glad I caught myself.  How do you get out of a victim mentality.  Think of abundance.  Create an abundance mentality.  Stop making excuses and start solving problems.  Your excuses are a clue to what you need to work on.  Let's say you're consistently late, maybe you need to plan ahead better or be more organized.  Let's say you're not in the financial situation you want, maybe you need to track your expenses better and earn more money.  Focusing on the activities that create income vs the activities that are not as important.  There are only a few important things that need to be done to move closer toward your goal.  Doing those things first is the key.

It's possible that the important thing is harder to do and that's why people avoid it.  Stop avoiding the hard thing if you know it's the important thing.  What are you doing today to move closer toward your goals?  What's your big goal you're going to accomplish by the end of the year?  Is there anything I can do to help you?  Let me know

Cheers,
Josh

World At Large -Modest Mouse - Ransom Jones

Another new cover.  One of my favorite bands Modest Mouse!

The Joy of Magic

I like to see myself as a new age rockstar.  I'm a sales rockstar.  I also play music.  I don't always relate to rockstars of the past.  I see myself as the type of rockstar you would be able to sit down and have a beer with.  I look at celebrities and sometimes they don't seem real.  It's not their fault though, it's more a portrayal they have in the media.  Celebrities are just as real as you or me.  They were people who had a vision for what they wanted and went after it.  It takes a certain level of responsibility to be in the entertainment space.  I've toyed many times with ego and vanity.  It takes self-promotion which can be hard at times if you're into self-loathing.

People experience a work of art differently.  Each person will interpret a piece differently.  Nowadays there is not much of a definition to art.  What I mean is that there are no limits to what someone can call art.  I don't create art.  Art can be too limiting to whatever medium people like to view what you're doing.  Oh, you're an artist.  No, I'm not an artist or a musician.  I love to create, yes this is true, but an artist.  I'm no artist.  I'd prefer to call myself a magician.  This is a better term for what I like to do as an "artist."  Because for me, it's about shifting people's perspective.  It's about showing you something old in a new way.  It's about just creating.

It's about living.  I'm a living magician.  My instruments of magic are a pen and a page.  A guitar or a piano.  My voice.  Making noise.  The perceptions I'm after changing I don't even know that much.  Maybe it's just to change my own perception.  But by having a certain level of self-expression it gives me even more conviction in my own thoughts and beliefs.

Comedy is something I love too.  I like to watch a lot of comedy videos on youtube.  There's so many great comics out there.  With comedy it's about telling a vivid story.  It's about putting things together that you don't normally think of.  I've watched comedy at time and seen it as a sort of poetry.  Comics like George Carlin.  He makes you laugh and he makes you think.  That's the kind of stuff I'm into.  Thinking.  But thinking without doing never gets you very far.

For example yesterday I was thinking of writing someone I know a letter thanking them for their impact on my life.  I haven't done it yet.  I'm not sure if I will do it.  I was satisfied just thinking about it.  That was enough.  It made me think of other goals in my life and other things I've told myself I've wanted to do.  I couldn't help but laugh because so often I've been caught in mental masturbation, as one of my favorite authors would say.  It's the thought of something great, or a great idea but never taking action on it.  I finally realized why I do that, because I was satisfied with just the thought of it.  I imagined her getting the letter too.  I imagined it all.  And that's it, I didn't even want to go further with it.  It might be because writing the letter takes effort.  It takes making myself vulnerable.  It takes handling the fear of rejection.  What if she doesn't respond the way I imagined?  So often we give up on doing something because we are afraid it won't work out the exact way we imagined it.  So why even try?  Try because you never know what will happen.  Try because if you don't you will regret not trying.  You will look back on your life and wonder.

I don't want to wonder any more.  I'd rather face fear, rejection, doubt, whatever comes with the trying than to wonder.  I'm tired of wondering.  I've wondered most of my life.  What have you been wondering about that you know you need to take action on?  What are you doing today to move toward your dreams?

Just Some Thoughts . . .

I'm on a journey of discovery.  Sometimes I don't know who I am.  I'm an artist.  I'm a musician.  I'm a businessman.  I'm a son.  I'm a brother.  I'm a friend.  I'm a lover.  These are some things that come to mind.  But then I go on to think who am I really?  I'm a badass.  I'm a revolutionary.  I'm one of a kind.  I'm no good.  I'm destructive.  I'm going nowhere.

I often find myself setting goals and falling short.  It's a lack of commitment and discipline.  I read a lot.  I feel like I have all the answers yet I still don't end up where I want to be.  I have a great life don't get me wrong.  I'm just not where I thought I'd be at this time in my life.  And that's the thing, I'm holding onto this fuzzy image of who or where I thought I'd be instead of accepting the reality of where I am currently.  Moving forward from here.  I've thought about a wide range of careers.  Then I picture what it would take to actually do those careers and I sell myself off of it.  I love music and I have thoughts of having millions of fans one day but then am I crazy to think that.  Or I've thought I'd be a great actor but then I think about what goes into that and I feel I might die if did acting.  Would I overcommit to the role.  Why am I not committing to the responsibilities in my life currently?

Some days I want to run away from it all.  I don't really want to be seen.  I don't want people to try and understand me.  I just want to be free.  I'm after freedom and truth.  I look at the world and I see how messed up things can be and I'm curious as to why they've ended up that way.  I look at how we have more than enough food to feed the entire world yet two thirds of that food just goes to waste.  I wonder about true values.  If you're silent about something does that mean you're for it.  For example if you don't speak out about war, then you're for war right?  In a way, being silent is agreeing.  Not acting is a choice just as much as taking some corse of action is.  You might not be the one holding the gun but there's still some responsibility necessary.

I don't understand why the world is the way it is.  I don't know if I ever will.  That's why I just try to focus on my world and where I'm going.  Understanding myself and how I fit into the world.  And that's the thing, I've never really felt like I've fit into this world.  My curiosity always gets the best of me.  I'm curious what would happen if we did things differently.  I'm curious how we can change the world for the better.  But other days I can be very selfish.  And I am selfish.  We all are in our own way.

Where am I going with this, I'm not really sure.  I keep telling myself I'm going to post more music and post more on my blog and I don't really do that much.  I get caught up.  How often do we stop ourselves from doing something before we even have the chance to start.  We get caught up.  We don't call an old friend because we got caught up.  We don't tell someone how we really feel because we got caught up.  We do things to live at surface level.  Because at surface level we can wear masks.  When we wear masks it's easy to cover pain or the truth of how we really feel about something.

Pain is only temporary.  Take a chance each new day.  Take a chance to let it be different from the last day.  Don't shape your identity around your past.  Don't be the one who lets life go by without doing something you really want.  Even with all your responsibilities make sure you're doing something for you today.

Feel free to share your thoughts on your journey.

Jolene Cover - Ransom Jones

Newest cover song.  I've been working on a lot of new material.  Going to be posting a lot more so look out and let me know what you think