As a musician, I grew up with teachers, church leaders, even other kids my age, telling me that I shouldn’t study music because musicians end up being poor. Later in life, I decided to learn sound engineering in order to have my own recording studio or to be a freelance sound engineer. In pursuing this avenue, a different, albeit similarly voiced group of individuals, told me, but you will have to go on tour or work late-long hours which won’t allow for a family. When I started into real estate, my parents questioned why, now with a family, I chose to get into a profession that has no regular income security like a salary/office job would have. Then I started to write a book and my in-laws started to wonder when I was going to get a real job.
Overtime I started to realize that I was an opportunity junkie. I was so tired of being told that my professional choices were flawed that I sought out new opportunities to try and quench those that doubted. Seeking opportunities were more to make others happy with my life than it was for me.
Then I came across this quote from Milton Berle. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” During this time of career shifting I continued to find that desk job that would make my in-laws happy, and the day job that would keep me around home. The more I tried, the more rejection I found. At some point I told myself, I can’t wait for some employer to find my value and to leave my future in his or her hands, and I don’t think that I would want some of the jobs that others were pushing me to find. Opportunity was not knocking at my door, so I went and built several doors. So I shifted my paradigm. I realized that there is a way to have a job with security, that keeps me close to my family, and can be in something that I love.
Now in 2010, I am hearing more knocking than I have ever before. I have my own recording and video production studio, a classic radio production facility, I have one documentary released with another being released later this year. My book is going to press and should be available before Christmas, and I have produced and recorded multiple albums this year. Nobody handed me these opportunities, I had to go make them happen. In tough economic times, we have the opportunity to make our own opportunities. Rather than be a victim of layoffs and unemployment, we can embrace the strengths we know we have and form the futures we have always wanted. This is not the promise of millions of dollars, but of satisfaction, of fulfillment, of lasting happiness.
Happy door building everyone!
