DejaSet First Recording

Last night Colin (business partner) and I went up to the Saxon Pub  to record our first sets using some of the recording devices I’d picked up over the past couple months.  Having gone up the day before to clear things with the venue, Leah (manager) and Richard (sound engineer) were ready to open up to help us out.  Richard was great and showed that his 40 years as an engineer weren’t spent just rocking out.

I’d contacted Matt the Electrician and Reed Turner who played last night before show and they were all for it.. so, all things cleared, we showed up bearing gear.  Surprisingly, everything went very smoothly.  Being able to plug into the front of house sound board and use a monitor mix to customize our recording levels was awesome.  I did notice that the lower registers seemed to be a bit loud on our recording, so I’ll need to account for that later.  Overall.. great experience and looking forward to getting out and recording again next week when we can sell the track.

Stay tuned

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Have the Will to Succeed

This is a society of instant gratification.  All too often, when faced with what seem unassailable walls between where we are and where we want to be, we turn aside from our goals rather than find a way through or around those walls.

Make a decision to succeed, no matter what.  Keep chipping away at those walls until you break through.  If you need external validation to provide your motivation, you’re looking in the wrong place.  Those on the outside looking in will never see the incremental growth that you’re making towards your goals and will think that you’re at a standstill when in reality the effort that you expend is constantly moving your closer to your goal.

Take a few deep breaths, picture your goal, then get back at it.  It’s the only way you’ll ever get there.

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All you need is love

I tell ya, the Beattles had a lot of this stuff figured out, but I never really understood, or really listened.

If you pick some result that you want to achieve in your life and begin back tracking how you got there, you’ll find that every positive thing in your live has a basis in love.

Love of yourself, family, lovers, friends, strangers and nature..

So,open the door to each of those types of love, stand fast in the face of a life, which through our perspective can either pull us down or lift us up. It is all up to us how to approach things.

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The Power of Full Engagement – Jim Loehr

Amazon link

The root of this read is that everyone attempting to grow goes through cycles of exertion and recovery.  Growth in emotional, spiritual, mental and physical capacity can only be achieved through these cycles.  Sprints with shorter periods of recovery do more to maintain larger energy reserves.

If we want to be able to maximize the short time we have here on earth, we should all strive to ensure that our tanks are as full as they can be.  Just like a high level athlete is judged partially on their ability to recover quickly from exertion, so to is a person who can quickly recover after emotional, mental or spiritual strain and put that strain to good use through becoming stronger.

Energy in one is not mutually exclusive to another.  If you are full of emotional energy, fulfilled and happy, it will be easier for you to expend effort in other areas of your life.  Never lose site of how your interactions with others can be either an effort or recovery.  You may play a unique role in that persons life which allows them to recharge.  There may be periods of days, weeks or years where someone important to you seems like they aren’t engaged in actively “exerting” when around you.  If they’re still around, it’s most likely that they need you as part of their recovery.  Find value in what you can do for another, but don’t discount your own cycles of exertion and recovery.

 

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Needing Approval

Throughout my life, although less as I age, I have sought approval from those around me, parents, friends, co-workers, girlfriends.. hell, even people I have just met. Earlier in my life it wasn’t unheard of for me to talk up, or brag about different things in my life. Even, at times, embellishing the truth or outright lying about things. If you were one of those people that I did that to:

I’m sorry, it was wrong and I strive to do that no longer.

I do think that I have turned a corner in the last few years where I no longer seek that approval at every turn. I can’t say that I never find myself exaggerating at times, but when I do I catch myself through a little twinge of awareness.

The goal I have set for myself is to only ever use myself as the benchmark by which I judge myself, not how others see me. My sense of satisfaction, or disappointment should only come from myself.

In order to live with a sense of positive purpose, I need to constantly look at myself in the mirror, wiping away the fog of self delusion, however thin it may be, and see how my actions effect the most important person in my life.

Myself.

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Core Values

I’ve never actually sat down and thought about the core values which govern my life. I think having a considered approach to this allows one an easy reference. Through the day you can say, “Am what I am doing right now in line w/ my core values”.

So..I sat down to figure it out by just writing down a number of concepts that are important to me, maybe some that I do well today, other that I’d like to do better.

The list became quite long, so I tried to categorize them into a few key concepts that I could easily recall and reference.

The long list:
Perseverance
Commitment
Honesty
Respect
Playfullness
Innocent Curiosity
Responsibility
Creativity
Compasssion
Patience
Empathy
Integrity
Kindness

These ultimately got grouped as below:

1) Care
- Compassion
- Empathy
- Kindness

2) Explore Life
- Creativity
- Playfullness
- Innocent Curiosity
- Learn

3) Be Trustworthy
- Commitment
- Honesty
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Integrity

4) Take the Long View
- Perseverance
- Patience

These 4 things are going to be going up around me as a constant reminder.

What are your core values?

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