Follow your heart

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No matter how frightened you are, you must follow your heart. It will tell you what you truly love and what you should be doing. Do not resist the calling, grab it and start living your dreams. There are so many people out there saying the same thing above and not showing you how to do it. I don’t really know if there is an answer to your question on how. You have it find what works for you and never give up. The moment you feel like giving up is the moment you could be stepping into the life you have always wanted. Just one more step, one more piece of art, one more photograph, one more poem and one more creative part of your life out there for the world to see. 

Do not be afraid, what you want it just in reach and your next step could be the one that makes it. 

As always take care of yourself and each other!

Passion

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Is there something that you are passionate about? That you enjoy doing so much that even when you are not doing it that you are thinking about it all the time? Something that calls your name and that you can’t live without doing? Can you turn this into a business? I think we all have a passion that we love to do so much that we can’t go through life without it. Something so powerful that it calls out to us to do every day. 

The struggle is how to turn that into a business and make a living doing what we love. There is so much information out there that we can be overwhelmed on how just to get started. The easiest way to get started is to just continue doing what we love day in and day out. One day, it will be like magic and the next thing we know, we are doing what we love and making money. I don’t know the steps on how to get there or where to begin. I have searched countless times and most of the information out there cost money.

Some steps you can do are free and some of them are not. The goal is to be ready when the time comes. The only way to do that is actually by doing what we love right now, before you get paid. There is a lot of information out there about the lucky ones, that hit big overnight. Well, it appears they hit big overnight, yet no one was watching them until they hit big. You have to do the work that makes you ready for when you hit big.

Don’t give up the dream and doing forget the process. Time is now and you should be doing what you love. Let's go out there and do what we love. As always take care of yourself and each other!

Death

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This year has really been a tough year. The lost of family members, the pandemic, things going on at work and just over all been a year that really sucks. No, I did not lose family members to COVID-19. I lost my mom and my uncle to cancer within a year of each other. November 13th was the one-year mark of my mom’s passing. I am not even sure what to think about that. You know it's been such a rough year that I am not even sure I have thought about that much. All this year's holidays will not be the same. 

No, they are not the first year without my mom, but they are going to be the first ones that I can remember. She passed away so close to last year's Thanksgiving and Christmas. When I think about it right now, it is very hard to come up with words to finish this post. Death is so difficult to talk about and such a reality for us all. I will leave you with this, please take care of yourself and each other. Enjoy the coming holiday’s as much as you can.

Thankfulness!

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

This year has been rough for all of us and with all the chaos going on in the world. It can be hard to be thankful. With the holiday this week, most of us will be thankful for something. However, this year will be different and for most of us it will be hard to find something to give thanks for. This holiday we must dig deeper to find what we are truly thankful for. I challenge you to look closely at the things that have happened over this past year and find something to be thankful for.

You will find something to be thankful for if you look hard enough. If the only thing you can be thankful for is that you are alive another day. Then I challenge you to make the best of that and give thanks. As always take care of yourself and each other!

Reading and Writing

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I have struggled with reading, spelling and forming sentences my whole life. I was held back in the first grade because my reading was very far behind. Even today many years later, I struggle with reading fast and with writing. Spell check helps my spelling, but it isn’t always the best at doing its job. Even though I struggle with this, I am still here writing and putting this blog out there for people to read. I spent much of my life ashamed of my reading, spelling and writing. It took a long time not to be ashamed of it, but even today people still throw it in my face.

For those out there that think they need to be perfect in everything they do, you don’t have to be. You just need to enjoy what you are doing and be willing to risk being told you’re not good at things. You see, writing isn't something I feel I am that good at, but I know that the more I do it the better I will get. Yet if I am going to wait to be perfect, then I would not have all the published blog post or a published book. I have two published books actually, one that is on amazon with the name My Road to Recovery, and the second one that I did some illustrations for. That first book was done with the rest of my 11th grade high school art class.

I wasn’t the greatest artist in the class, and I am still not the greatest artist now. All the art, all the writing for classes and all the history that I learned throughout school has giving me a love for the creative world. I love to create things, even if they are flawed. Even if they are not perfect and even if they don’t live up to anyone's standards. I create things because I love to and that is all that matters. Never let anyone put you down for trying and never give up on what you are trying to achieve. You got this. 

As always, take care of yourself and each other!

Options

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There are so many people in the world that their option of us have a tendency to control what we think about ourselves. We spend so much time and energy trying to please people that we loose who we are. We trying so hard to get the approval of others when the only one we need approval of is ourselves. It is time to stop seeing approval for who we are or validation of who we are in others. Only you can tell yourself who you truly are. 

It is time to start being who you are meant to be, you do not need permission or approval. Step out, learn and grow into the person you are longing to be. If you are seeking approval, then I will give you that approval. Not that my option matters, but you have my permission to be who you are meant to be. Join in the conversation or start one. As always remember, take care of yourself and each other!

Challenges

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With all the challenges the world is facing right now, how we face those challenges can determine the outcome more than we think. These challenges can feel very overwhelming and at this point really starting to take their toll on us. We must not give up and we must faces these challenges head on. Remember, you have been built to faces these challenges and you can get past anything you put your mind too. 

As always take care of yourself and each other!

Darkness

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You lurk just beyond the trees longing to reach out and touch someone. You hide there watching as people past by. You are one the look out for your next pray, the next person you can take. You are pure darkness, pure evil, waiting to be unleashed to the world. 

Some see you only in glimpse and others have seen you full force. Yet no one knows the true you. They don’t know the leave the hides in the darkness waiting to be set free or break free. Only others that have attempted to keep the darkness at bay know the true you. They fight day in and day out to never let you into this world.

A Thief!

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You come in the night like a whisper from the darkness. We cannot see you or hear you come in. Yet you are always there, hiding in the shadows lingering just in reach of us. You have taken many before and will take many after. 

Some fear you and others embrace you. We all will face you one day or another. Some of us too soon, other of us long after we have wished for you. Some will go fighting and others will go with peace. Either way we all must go one day.

Change

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There has been so much change in the world we live in these days that it is hard to take it all in. The pandemic, the election, Black Lives Matter movement and any other personal changes that are going on. Do you send your child back to school, do you work from home, can you work from home. Do you shelter in place and have everything delivered. All the changes and choices we have to make during this pandemic can feel very overwhelming. 

Then what if those choices have to change? What if during the middle of this all you have to make changes that could put everything at risk? These are the things that some if not all of us are going through right now. This is just a little reminder that you are not alone and we are all in this together. Take care of yourself and each other!

…!!!!

Photo by Ahmad Zayan on Unsplash

I know I have had the title for this blog post recently before. I also told you to put what ever where came to mind about this year in place of the dots and at the time I had a word that I was going to put there. I was also going to use a different image. Even now I have a word that I am going to put there and the image I selected was not the image I was thinking about, but I didn’t want to go to crazy with the image. Even though what I feel about this year would justify shooting the bird and posting the middle finger to this year.

Through the window!

Photo by Ishan Gupta on Unsplash

We visit either with a window between us or distances greater than 6 feet. A phone call or FaceTime. All through the virtualization of our computer or smartphone. The distance between us feels like miles. I can see you and I can talk to you, but I cannot touch you. I cannot hug you or hold you. I cannot hold you and tell you everything is going to be okay. I cannot comfort you when the distance between us feels like miles. This distance that doesn’t allow us to be close in these trying times. 

This is what this pandemic has caused. This is the feeling that families are going through. This is the world we live in and this is what is the norm. When has this every been the norm? When has this every been okay? It's not okay, this is not normal. This is the world we live in and the distance we have. Not just with people everyday, but our friends and our family.

Will there every be an end to this? Is this really our new normal? This separation from the people we love.

Filming

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There is so much to learn when it comes to filming and a lot of information on the internet can make things feel overwhelming. I have researched this topic and I haven’t even begin to scratch the surface of the amount of knowledge out there on the subject. I learn more and more each day and that is amazing. However, now it is time to actually start putting what I have learned into practice. It is time to start actually shooting film, getting better at framing and other aspect of film work. 

Then there is the editing of all the footage you record. There is so many apps you can use to do this and some of them have a major learning curve. Something I haven’t even remotely started to manage. This is a skill that I am not sure I will every get down, but I am going to try my best. The best way to learn sometimes is learning by doing and getting better as you go along. Learning what works and what doesn’t. Making the whole process your own and changing things until everything works in the best way for you. 

I hope to be able to take what I have learned and put it into practice. The more I practice the better I will get. I don’t feel there is a way to master filming, but I could be wrong. I think there is always something new to learn and something new to try. Something that will make the film you are trying to shoot that much better or more exciting. They call it creative or movie magic, is it really magic or is it really more based on skill and pushing the envelope on what the standards are?

What are you interested in turning into a film? Have you every wanted to make movies? What filming ticks are you trying to master? Please join in on the conversation and let’s talk about film work. As always take care of yourself and each other.

…!

Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

Plug in any word you are feeling about this year, the week, this day or any other feeling you are feeling right now. May that be a happy feeling or may it be a feeling so unbearable that to say it would mean to make it so. Own that feeling and let it fuel you to your next great thing. Do not let it destroy you or what you are trying to do. 

It is just a word and they are just feelings. They do not have the power to stop you unless you allow them to. Do not allow your feelings to stop you, allow them to guid you and use them to break through the noise and into the life that you want. 

As always take care of yourself and each other!

Always Learning

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I am always trying to learn something new each and every day. Sometimes this can feel very overwhelming because I always want to learn something new. I have a few hobbies that I am trying to learn more about. One major one is actually two but they got hand in hand. Photography and Film work, the amount of information that I want to learn and that is out there to learn can be very overwhelming. I have learned enough about Photography to be pretty good at it, but there is always something new to learn. 

Film work on the other hand, I have only dabbled in and there is a lot of information to learn. How to properly create a film, how to actually tell a story, how to create the needed shots and so on. Then you get into what application to use to put this all together and that can be a lot to learn as well. I know there will become a point that I might actually need to take classes for all this, I am however trying to learn as much as I can on my own. There are a lot of people out there sharing some great knowledge on the subject. 

This all ties into my goal of never stop learning, but can be very difficult to fight the Resistance not to. The the part of the brain that tells you all the negative things about everything and keeps you for living your dream. I am not listening to that part of my brain, because this is what I want to do in life. 

I have the chance to make this something more than just a hobby and I am going for it. I will get better along the way and I will learn the things that I need to as I go. I know it will be a long road of both learning and creating but it will be worth it.

What are you learning new today? Are you feeling overwhelmed be all the information out there? What do you do to overcome it all? If you are stuck and feeling like there is no way past all of this, always remember, you are not alone and you can in fact get past all of this. You can start building the habits needed to live the life you want to live. You are a professional and it is time to act like one. Make professional habits and you will find the life you want to live showing up. 

As always, take care for yourself and each other!

Hobbies

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Hobbies can be some of the most frustrating yet relaxing things we do. It can be the thing we love the most and it can also be something we hate very much. We have a love/hate relationship with our hobbies. We love doing them so much, but also hate doing them just as much. Well some of them that is, yet others we have invested a lot of time and a lot of money into. We feel with so much invested in them, that we can’t stop doing them. Is there a time when it becomes apparent that it is time to give it up? 

I am sure there is and sometimes we start a new hobby thinking it is the next greatest thing for us to do. So we jump from hobby to hobby never truly finding the one that fits for us. I have this problem and I am working on focusing on no more then 2 hobbies at a time or hobbies that share one element with each other. What hobbies are you into? Do you find yourself having more than one hobby? What do you do to keep focused on your hobbies?

Feel free to share and join in on the conversation. As always take care of yourself and each other.

Wonderful

Photo by Phong Nguyen

Sometimes it is hard to find the wonder in life with the way the world is right now. With the state of the world and the pandemic we are living in the wonderful things in our lives can be hard to see. If we look for them they are there. 

Wonderful:

adjective: wonderful

inspiring delight, pleasure, or admiration; extremely good; marvelous.

"they all think she's wonderful"

Start looking for the wonder in your life and you will find it. What have you found that is wonderful today? Are you finding the joy in life that you thought was gone? It is time to look at the world through the eyes of a child, always wondering, always excited for the new things they will find in the world. 

As always take care of yourself and each other.

Productivity

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Productivity, something that most of us have been told we must be for most of our lives. Yet how does one actually be productive? This is something that we aren’t really taught in school, or if we have it has alluded most of us. 

Productivity is a measure of efficiency of a person completing a task. We often assume that productivity means getting more things done each day. Wrong. Productivity is getting important things done consistently.

I think the definition above is pretty close to what a lot of us might be feeling about productivity. It has been what I have thought about it. Yet the second part is the key. It's not about getting more things done, it is about getting important things done more consistently. 

I have been striving to find a way to accomplish this more often. I have tired bullet journaling. I have tried multiple tasks managers and project management tools. The thing that I am finding difficult with them, is that I don’t have the framework in place to utilize these tools more effectively. The other challenging thing is it can be difficult to use the tool. With leads to not using the tools and being right back were I started. 

So how does one find the framework and learn to uses these tools to be more productive. That can be the challenging part of all of this. It all depends on your skill level, how much you think learning the tool will help and how much you really want to do to be productive. Once you have a base framework for which tools to use and how to make them work for you. You will need to keep tweaking them and remember that you will need to adjusted them often to fit your needs at the time.

I found my framework from Christopher Lawley, he has been using just an iPad for the last 5 or so years. This appealed to me because I too only want to use an iPad for my main machine. So I watched a lot of his videos and downloaded a lot of the apps. Then I started using them and tweaking them to fit my needs and how I work. This is not perfect at the moment because I am still learning to use these tools. However, I am a lot closer than I was just a few months ago. 

So to be more productive, we must learn how to be productive, what are the important tasks that need to be completed, find the right tools for us and then build the framework needed to be productive. If you need help finding tools that might help you in this, please reach out. If you need help tweaking your current tools, feel free to drop me a line. 

As always, take care of yourself and each other!

Personal Hardship

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What is personal hardship? One way to explain it is below, but for each one of us it can be a lot of different things. I just wanted to drop this little reminder that we are not alone. 

Personal Hardship (=Hardship that affects you rather than other people or people in general) The personal hardship experienced by loss of home, job and possible family. 

There are a lot of people going through personal hardship right now. The pandemic has affected each one of us in different ways and has added to the personal hardships that we might have already been going through. I have been going through some of the toughest things in my life. 

We have to remember that during this time, that we are not the only ones experiencing it and that we are not alone. That we are in fact all in this together and if we work together we will get through this.

As always, take care of yourself and each other.

Commuting!

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With so many options for commuting to work these days, do you know the right choice for you? It is hard to know which is the best option or what purchase to make. Some of is may not be able to afford an all electric car. Some of us have been community by bicycle for a long time, but may want to up the game with an electric bicycle. Even that can be a very difficult task. 

Whats the best ebike? I am not sure with all the choices out there and I don’t have a lot of experience on one. I am currently looking into my first one. So I will go into what matters to me and I hope that helps you decide if this is something you want or can help your commute. 

I currently live 20 miles from work one way. So for me I need something that is going to have a long range. Yet on the other side of that I need something that has a good size motor, something with the top speed closer to 30 miles an hour. The reason for this is because I can bicycle to work without a motor and average 10 miles an hour. Yet when I get to work I am very sweaty and that is no good. I have the ability to take a shower at work, but not everyone does. So I need the power so that I don’t have to work as hard to get to work. 

Then there is always storage, not just storage of the bicycle, with locks and stuff, but I need to be able to carry a few needed daily items. Do I have the option to carry the things I need? Some bicycles do and some don’t. So for me I need to be able to attach a rack and be able to add things to the rack. A bag that carries all my spare equipment. Things like tubes, patch kit, tools and other items for repairing the bicycle. I also need fenders if I am going to ride the bicycle all year long no matter the weather. 

Am I able to strap a bag to the bicycle that has a change of clothes? That is a very needed thing, because even if I am able to leave clothes at work from time to time, you never know when a good change of clothes is going to come in handy. Does the bicycle have the ability to have a water bottle cage or is there another way to attach one? I have researched a lot of options out there and depending on the bicycle the options can be limitless. If there is a will there is a way. 

So there are some of the options I need from an ebike and there are quite a few ebikes out there that have the options. There are a lot of other options that can be added to the bicycle to fit my needs. I just have to watch out for the amount of weight I add to the bicycle and make sure that it is balanced so that the bicycle rides correctly. 

So is an ebike right for you? Only you can answer that question. I hope that what I need in an ebike helps you decide if this is a valid option for you and sparks your interest in ebikes. There is a lot of information out there on ebikes and some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. Always remember that an ebike needs to fit your needs and be based on your needs. 

As always take care of yourself and each other!