Boomer Business Brain Drain...

We all know and hear from all sources that starting your own business is hard. “If it was easy...everyone would do it!” We still never know how hot the stove is until we touch it. Yes, I have touched the stove and yes... it is very hot! I get it. I knew it was going to be and I also knew that due to choosing a business that was a core passion of mine, was THE thing that was going to give me the strength to get through the hard stuff.

There is another aspect to this journey and that is those “passing moments”! We cannot get so absorbed in fixing all of the issues we face in life that we go past these wonderful, blessed moments without enjoying them! For me, that means doing something that is logic brain free. In that, I mean anything that totally distracts my thinking from my daily thoughts of the business. Personally, this is usually some mindless entertainment on TV or at the movies. This merely serves as a “slap of cold water in my face” as it stops me from thinking about the hard stuff. I am then able to purposely focus my thinking on all of the blessings and positive things in my life.

Most of the time in our lives, we can choose how we feel...happy or sad. Sometimes, something as simple as purposely smiling, for no reason, to myself, will snap me out of feeling worried about something. It is an amazing thing...try it sometime! People and situations affect us every day of our lives, but it is how we choose to react to these situations that guides how we feel. This is more easily said than done, many times, but we can choose how we feel, eventually.

Some times, events occur that are more devastating and physically disastrous and none of us know how we will react in these situations, until we actually go through them. Usually time is the determining factor in how we end up feeling with these types of situations. Time allows or helps us eventually determine how we need to think about these more difficult decisions, but in the end, it again, is how we choose to react that determines our outcome.

So, as I know I will continue to face issues that I need to correct and deal with in my start up business, I will continue to give myself that slap in the face with cold water, force that smile, watch some TV Land reruns of the Dick Van Dike show, and remind myself....”enjoy this moment, look at a blue sky, some green trees, listen to some inspiring music, but realize all the many blessings I have....in this moment”!

Only Time Really Tells the True Story

My business, David's Music House, Inc. is now entering it's sixth month of being open and I am realizing a new phase in owning my own business.


The first three months were just pounding in nails, ordering things, paying bills, looking for ways to bring in customers, ya da ya da ya da.....It was a complete whirlwind of emotions of both highs and lows. There weer golden moments and others of complete and utter stress. After three months, we were able to take a break due to the Christmas Holidays. After the break, I saw many things that needed tweaking and we made some changes of focus.


Now that we have hit the sixth month, I am seeing another similar phase. It is now time to do more tweaking, in the area of organization and time. We have hit a huge milestone in offering "A Total Music Experience" to the community as we added a whole new service. We have added dance to our host of services. Dance Etc. is a local dance business that has been in the community for 15 years. My youngest daughter, Savannah went to dance classes at Dance Etc. a few years ago. I was so happy to welcome Megan Beile, owner of Dance Etc. into our music family. This addition will also bring in many new families into our "experience" to see what David's Music House is all about.


Yes indeed, you can plan, get advice, read and research everything you can find to plan and start a business, but nothing but TIME of actually going through the steps and phases of starting a business will show you what it actually feels like. Don't misunderstand, the planning, advice, etc. is absolutely necessary to prepare you for going through the phases, but only going through the steps allows your to gain the true feeling, awareness and experience necessary to know if you're doing good or bad.


All signs point to success! The message is getting out to the community. Musicians are calling to perform in the Coffee House. Local musicians are discovering the recording studio and our helpfulness, comfortability and flexibility.


The main goal and passion to bring to any business is to NOT do the things that make you dislike other businesses when you are a customer. My passion is to ALWAYS present the best appearance of the business and to treat each customer as friendly and helpful as possible. We want to make sure that if anyone remembers anything about coming into David's Music House, it is that they were treated with kindness and made to feel welcome. This along with your expertise and quality service will insure that the word will spread and bring new customers consistently.

A New Year and Perfect Time for Reflection

Let's face it, the first day of a new year is really just another next day, but having a calendar that marks it as the first day of the new year makes it a grand event. As such a grand event, it gives us a great opportunity to make it a day to start something BIG. We all usually make promises to ourselves to do things that we always want to do, but we decide that this is a perfect day to finally do it, such as lose weight or be better organized, etc.

Perhaps starting a new business, as I did in the final quarter of 2010, is making me do a lot of reflection, on what was going right and what needs fixing, but this is making me look at the new year by first, reflecting on what happened in 2010 first. Reflection will directly feed into what the focus for the new year should be. Reflection will provide the goals and resolutions for the coming year.

Starting a new business, especially for the first time, will have you going through a learning period from time you start planning, through when you open your doors and then for a period of at least 3 months. The dust has seemed to settle and the first 3 months are basically tweaking and getting things running. Suddenly, as the dust clears, you find that you begin to see some clear directions that need the most focus. In my case, it has been an awakening of needing to narrow my focus and key in on the original key areas that were in my beginning business plan.

I found myself trying to plug every hole and remedy every situation all at the same time. Since a human being is clearly only one physical body and not capable of being everywhere all the time, I realize that I must define my most important objectives and focus my energy and time into these areas. Doing this will not only insure a better chance of success but it will also take care of other areas, purely through osmosis.

Take some time this first week of the New Year to think about the last one and the lessons that were learned. You will find that it will lay out your goals to begin in the new year. Also, don't worry about setting goals that are forever or for the entire year. Concentrate on some immediate goals, and work on them until you achieve them.

The New Year will always be another year of challenges that will require you to constantly change your goals. The first day of a new year is a great time to refresh but we can and must make new resolutions all the time as we face what life presents to us, and you can be sure that that will always happen.

Thanks to all of the readers and supporters of this website/blog and I wish a prosperous and happy 2011.

David

Halloween 1938, Orson Welles radio broadcast "War of the Worlds" classic

Occurring before the Baby Boomer birth years, Orson Welles' grand hoax radio broadcast, "War of the Worlds" remains an all time Halloween classic. 
 
Orson Welles is an icon to boomers from many classic movies of our time, such as "Citizen Kane", which has been hailed as one of the best movies ever made.

On October 30, 1938, Welles, the host and creator of a drama based radio program called, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcast a live dramatic adaptation of the H.G. Wells' novel, "The War of the Worlds", about the invasion of planet Earth by creatures from Mars. The event was taken seriously by thousands of people all over the country and caused a great deal of panic. Of course much of the panic was over-hyped, but as many may have not heard the introductions of the show, they thought it was real. The program did not have commercial interruptions, making it seem even more realistic. 

The next day, the New York Times article explained the radio broadcast as a hoax and it made Orson Welles famous.

You can listen to the actual radio broadcast via my fellow Associate Content writer friend, Michael Segers' article,

War of the Worlds: Free Old Time Radio for Halloween

 

  (Photo from The New York Times Source: microfilm archives of the New York Times © Wikimedia Commons)

Michael's article has some great information about archives of historic radio programs, so please read all of the article, but you can click here for the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. (You can even right click on the program link to save the mp3 to your computer)

Although Baby Boomers were the television generation and radio drama began to fade in popularity, there is something about listening to stories on the radio, where the listener has to use their imagination, that makes it all the more dramatic and enjoyable.

Give a listen to this classic radio show this Halloween with the family.

Awesome clip for Boomers...Bruce does so much good for his heroes of music!

This is a terrific video clip from a GrowingBolder.com interview of Roger McGuinn where Bruce Springsteen pays tribute to a musician who inspired him. Bruce is 60 and Roger is 64 and these two Rock and Roll Hall of Famers play two great Byrd hits in this video, Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn, Turn....absolute classics!

The video has a great interview from Roger as well as more information on GrowingBolder, which is a great site of inspiration to all of us Baby Boomers as they strive to show the amazing people of the over 50 crowd and how we age is all in the mind of the beholder.


(Re-post)

Baby Boomers are joining the Social Networking World in Record Numbers

Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/with/3407406333/

Baby Boomers grew up in a world with three or maybe four TV channels that would sign off at the end of each day. Our high tech toys were Erector Sets, auto racing sets and toy electric trains. When we became parents, the marketing world targeted Boomers with new tech toys, knowing that we would buy in frenzy because we didn’t have anything like it when we were young. As Boomers grew up, the world went through so many major technical discoveries, that naturally, we all became fascinated with it all.

Boomers grew up through the 20th century and played a part in the fastest growth of scientific discoveries the world has known, and yet as computers and the Internet started to become a part of our daily lives and in our jobs, Boomers were in their 4th decade and became less likely to jump into the quickness of change with computers and the Internet. Many could not keep up the same pace of understanding and therefore resisted becoming as knowledgeable as our children, who grew up with computers being second nature, through their toys and video games. 

Boomer parents found they were being left behind and clueless to knowing what their children were doing on the Internet. This, of course, made many even more wary of the Internet, due to bad news stories of children and others being victimized. Parents found they had to begin to learn more about this “Internet thing”. 

As the main venue of Baby Boomers, television began displaying nearly everything in terms of the Internet, website addresses in news stories and advertisements, Boomers became more and more aware that they were being left out of this new media venue. Over the last decade, and especially over the last couple of years, Baby Boomers have jumped into the social networking world in staggering numbers. They have discovered how they can reconnect with family members and friends they haven’t seen or spoken with for years.

According to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey, Internet usage among people over the age of 50 has doubled over the last year, growing from 22% to 42%.

It takes Baby Boomers a while to join into new ideas, but once we do, the resulting effects are always overwhelming, in many perspectives. Boomers still love new inventions. We grew up seeing some of the most amazing technical advances of our world’s history. Now that we are in our mature years, we may be slow to start, but as Boomers join in a movement, so goes the growth and possibilities.

Source: Wikipedia