The Client Letter
July 20, 2012
Sedona, Arizona
Sunny 78 degrees
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Need a mindset shift? Give me 30 days to work with you and you
will never think of yourself the same way again. Details here…
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The year was 1997 I think.
I was 19 years old, playing an organ competition in Fort Wayne Indiana.
I had almost lost my lunch on the plane ride into town. It was one of those tiny little planes where a swift breeze throws the plane around like a toothpick.
I won that competition.
And you know the best part about it?
The best part of the entire ordeal (and it was an ordeal) was that I got to call my teacher and tell him I won. I got to tell him that I achieved something he never did.
I hope that illustrates just how backwards my internal compass was at the time. I was so eager to please that the approval of another was the most important thing to me.
I basically directed my entire life force at a huge goal just to please. I don’t even think it was conscious, it was just the way I operated.
I still remember the moment they announced the winner. There were much more accomplished players there that day. Folks with advanced degrees and years of experience WAY beyond me.
Imagine everyone’s surprise (and I’m sure they were surprised) when the 19 year old kid won.
An amazing honor, lost on me because I didn’t really have the capacity to appreciate it. I couldn’t appreciate it because to do so would have required the ability for me to appreciate me.
I wasn’t ready for that back then.
For the record, I technically never finished my music degree. Through an odd series of events I never played a final recital.
4 years of work ended with no degree. It’s probably one of the greatest breaks I’ve ever gotten in my life. I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back. That person is no longer among the living.
Had I gotten my degree, I probably would have gone on to live a normal life as a church organist somewhere. I would have spent my days navigating a political mosh pit I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I would have spent my days as my former self. Content with chasing the approval and accolades of others.
Instead, someone saw fit to push me out and down a new life path.
For that I will always be grateful.
Some might say those twenty some odd years I spent as a musician were a waste. You could say that I “wasted” my talent… “wasted” my potential.
I’m sure people have said that and more.
But that part of my journey wasn’t wasted.
Without that journey, I wouldn’t be writing this to you now. Without that journey I wouldn’t be spending my days married to my best friend.
And without that journey, I wouldn’t have been given the gift of the six little wise teachers I’m responsible for looking after for a few years.
No step is wasted. Never forget that.
In my case, all those “wasted” steps led me right to the buried treasure.
The steps are worth it.