When Des came to visit, I was lucky enough to get two tracks for the new album done.
Yes you heard that - the new album is finally becoming a reality! YAY!
One of the things I've always wanted to tackle was Tobymac's "Made To Love". I've heard it covered and mixed in a couple of different ways, but none of them spoke to me quite like doing a jazzy love song version. After all, there is no greater love, right? Here's our last take:
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About a year ago, my husband and I bought a Porsche. We call it "The Time Machine" because it's really a blast from the past.
When we bought it, we got the expected commentary from friends and family:
"A Porsche? Really? How can you afford that?"
"What are you going to do with a Porsche? It's way too small for your family."
"Mom, can I have it when I graduate from high school?"
... and on and on.
When they found out it was a Porsche 924 - a classic from 1977 - and we only paid about $1500 for it, the comments took a different turn:
"What are you going to do with an old beat up car?"
"Forget it! I don't want my friends seeing me in an OLD car!"
"That's $1500 more than I would have paid."
"Does it have seatbelts?"
"Regular or unleaded gas?"
... and my favorite: "Can you even fit in that thing?"
One guy I used to know - who owns a limited edition Porsche Panamera (valued around $75k) - liked to poke fun and ask me when we were going to get a real Porsche. He'd say to me "Don't you want to see yourself someday in a new Porsche?"
I wonder if he'd say that to his wife - who is about 20 years his junior. 🙂
Last summer was a rough one for us. After two years of trying to keep a failing business venture afloat, and some personal financial issues around the health of our kids, we made a tough decision (more…)
Back in May, I was joined on stage by The Damn Whippersnappers for my first virtual concert. It was a fun-filled and amazing day. I've posted clips from that show, but none of them really do justice to the fantastic musicians that played with me that day.
Well, as luck would have it, Des, the keyboardist from that show, has graciously offered to join my in the studio today to record a few tracks for the 300 songs project. He can take a song in any genre and effortlessly move it into a new one. So when I got the idea to do ZZ Top as a jazz piece, he was the first guy I called.
Here we are (and you might hear my 8 year old "playing drums" in the background on this rehearsal clip. In truth, this was both a rehearsal and a performance, as we were recording live both on camera and into the studio board. We're considering making it available as a download. Let us know if you're interested in the comments below.
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In the long journey of recording 300 songs, I do a lot of it alone. That's fine, but sometimes I like to do multi-part harmony, and that's not something that comes across very well in my rehearsal videos. It's so much more "awesomer" when you can ask for help. I'm very lucky to be part of a local vocal group called "The Sweet Browns" who sometimes rehearse at my place. This week was one of those times.
Jen and Jackie had independently had the idea of singing "Foil" at some point in the future, and since we had a quorum (one on a part), we decided to try it and see if we could figure out all the parts. Mind you, there's no sheet music for Weird Al's tunes, so we did what any good teenager would do when they're trying to learn their favorite songs: we listened to the CD repeatedly for about 30 minutes until we were pretty sure that we knew all the bits and pieces. Jackie had a head start, because she's a life-long Weird Al fan and walking encyclopedia of all things Weird Al, so it was her CD and she was already fairly familiar with the words. The rest of us were listening to the song for maybe the third or forth time since his multi-video release a few weeks ago.
Then, Jen, Steve, Jackie and I progressively turned the volume down on the stereo until it was just us singing.
And in less than an hour, it didn't even sound like crap! We're holding lyric sheets, because this was the first time we'd worked on the piece, but you're seeing us raw, behind-the-scenes style. If you come to our show in November, it'll be a much cleaner experience - and probably a lot more fun, too!
It's more "awesomer" when you ask for help. (Click to tweet)
This video is take 3 from the rehearsal.
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Never before, and probably never again am I
gonna do something like this.
Give a look at this week's video. If
You have ever had projects that you felt like giving
up on, I challenge you to think differently. You'll
never experience success if you keep saying you're
gonna get to it "someday."
Let yourself off the hook!
You deserve a little bit of time to clear your head - maybe some
down time, sure - but if you keep quitting before you start, you'll
never get where you want to go. I'm
gonna share with you a little secret... When you
run through this video, you'll see what I mean. Somewhere
around the 1:13 mark, you'll find out my "third approach"
and how it can help you get through task overwhelm. If you feel lost in the
desert on the number of projects you've got on your plate,
you are not alone. Just remember that quitting is
never the answer. It's gonna take stamina, it's
gonna take determination, it's gonna take sweat equity to
make your dreams come true.
You deserve to stand tall and own your dreams. Don't
cry about missed opportunities. Keep pressing on!
Never give up on what really matters. I'm
gonna say that again. Never give up on what really matters!
Say to yourself that you're worth it! Say
"goodbye" to negative thinking. You're
never going to entertain those thoughts again. You're
gonna take the world by storm!
Tell everyone about your awesome new plan...
a plan that will give you power over overwhelm. Don't
lie around waiting for "someday" to sneak up
and leave you high and dry. Get over your
hurt and let the world know how lucky we are to have
you in it!
(Or just watch the video and it will all become clear)
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It took Bart Howard well over 20 years.
Bart was a piano player in the Blue Angel cabaret, working on his own music, in the hopes of one day working with his idol, Cole Porter.
Most musicians know the name Cole Porter. Very few know the name Bart Howard. But this one song is his legacy.
Bart wrote dozens of tunes, but none were as popular as "Fly Me To The Moon".
Bart was asked by a publisher for something simple, and in 20 minutes he cranked out this cabaret waltz. The publisher asked him to change the lyrics, but Bart refused - a move that could have jeopardized his opportunity to have this song produced. But Bart held his ground on his song. Since then, "Fly Me To The Moon" has been covered, re-arranged, and even had the time signature changed when Quincy Jones arranged a version for Frank Sinatra.
Originally titled "In Other Words," Peggy Lee recorded and later performed the song on national television. As it grew in popularity, Peggy convinced Bart to change the name to it's well known opening line.
For Bart, it was this song. The success of "Fly Me To The Moon" was such that he continued to live off the residuals of that one song for the rest of his life. It's considered a "Towering Song" in the history of contemporary popular music. In 2004, 50 years from when he wrote that tune, Bart died.
This week's song is a request from @PattyKogutek on Twitter. Thanks, Patty! It was a joy to learn this story and be able to share it with everyone.
Just one step. Just one song. Just one moment. That's all it takes to make history. What will you do?
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Judy Garland is one of my all-time favorite vocalists. So much of what she sang is right in my range, so that may have something to do with it. And while she was known as a "pop" singer in her time, she really had a lush, jazzy quality to her voice that lent well to a variety of genres. I'm seriously considering doing a whole series of videos that answer the question "What if Judy Garland sang (insert song title here)?" She was such a trailblazer as an entertainer - and she inspires me to own my dreams even to this day.
"The Man That Got Away" is, in my opinion, one of her most overlooked tunes. Sure,"Over The Rainbow" is probably more well known, but when I see that scene from "A Star Is Born" - where they do the entire song in one continuous shot - I always get goosebumps.
It's not the traditional arrangement - this one's a bit more haunting. It reminds me that it's a waste to keep longing for that thing (or person) that's long
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I'm laying down a challenge for you today.
This week's post shares a quick tip and friendly reminder to clear out the clutter in your heart, your home, and your life. When you do, there's a gift that comes back to you. Clearing space always makes room for something new. What that "something"
What about you? What's the Key Area of Success where you could take a moment and create some space? When you've cleared space n the past, what was the "new" that showed up for you? Share your thoughts in the comments for our whole community to enjoy.
On the heels of last week's post about Comparison-itis, I was driving in the car with Hubby yesterday and this tune came on the radio. It reminded me that nobody's perfect, we all make mistakes, and that's how we learn.
Have you been beating yourself up because you're not perfect? This catchy little tune might help. 🙂
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"I am enjoying showing up as myself more completely."
That was the nugget of gold I rendered from my weekend intensive with my coach this past weekend. Once a quarter I sojourn in Minnesota for a few days to do deeper work to heal my "stuff" and open up blocks around my mindset. Because I'm a coach myself, I know the value of having a different perspective to help me open my eyes to my own hangups about success and how my life "should" be at this point in time.
This revelation came as a surprise as much as it came as a soothing realization. There's ease in showing up as myself - without worry or self-censorship. Granted, there are times when a little tact is recommended, but to just be myself fully - warts, sparkles, and all - is a gift I'm learning to give myself (and the world) more regularly.
Comparisonitis is a dreadful condition. It's a horrible inflammation of the ego, causing immense discomfort about who you are, and overall dissatisfaction with anything you've accomplished. When you suffer from Comparisonitis, everyone else is always farther along, doing better, making more money, living the life you believe "should" be yours. There's no sense of satisfaction, and often you feel guilt - like there's something wrong with you, or you need to be doing more.
Comparisonitis is fear in disuise. Instead of doing what we can where we're at, we're constantly comparing ourselves to every Tom, Dick, and Jane out there that appears to be in a better position than us.
One of my first (and admittedly worst) cases of Comparisonitis was with a contemporary colleague of mine. It was around 2008, and another coach was having what appeared to be way more success and making way more money than me. We both launched our businesses about the same time, and I was frustrated at how much exposure she was getting, how many "big name" people were talking her up, and how she looked like she was on the fast track to success.
What I didn't know was that all that surface shine came at a great cost to her personal life. She had taken out a second mortgage on her home so she could invest in all the programs that those "big names" were offering, which came with a promise of promoting her stuff to their audience. Ultimately, she ended up divorcing her husband and starting over on a much smaller scale. She tried to leapfrog and wasn't ready for the hard landing that comes from such a high jump.
You don't know what's going on in someone else's world. Stop comparing your success to theirs. (click to tweet)
There's a difference between Comparisonitis and benchmarking - which I'll get to in a minute - but for now, realize that your first step in moving beyond Comparisonitis is to stop "shoulding" on yourself.
I forget where I first heard the phrase, but if you've worked with me for any length of time, you've heard me use it. We get so caught up in the "shoulds" - instead of accepting (and maybe even embracing) where we are now. I think Mark Silver over at Heart of Business said it to me best:
"As long as you are in comparison, you are rejecting what is true [for yourself], and you are not able to be present to what is... People make up stories to protect themselves from having to surrender to what is currently true for them."
- Mark Silver"
When we're not focused on what is, we're focused on what we think should be happening, what we should be doing, what we should be experiencing. All that does is create more anxiety, more guilt, and more frustration about where we are not, instead of appreciating where we are.
Yet, if we stop comparing ourselves to anyone (except our past selves), we can see how far we've come in our lifetime, despite the obstacles, trials, fear, worry, doubt, and pressure to be something other than who and what we are.
When I look back on my life (instead of comparing that life to someone else), I'm really proud of what I've accomplished, who I've become, and what's on the radar for my future. I get a chance to appreciate my own awesomeness (without arrogance), instead of poo-pooing and downplaying my life because it's not "enough" compared to someone else.
My coach has helped me practice what she calls "AWOJAWA" - awareness without judgement, awareness with acceptance. We often think that pain, discomfort and other feelings of that ilk are "bad" and to be avoided. While it's true that I wouldn't want to live there all the time, sometimes pain can be a powerful tool for recognizing a need to change. Fear can be a powerful motivator to get stuff done. It's not good or bad, it just is.
Likewise, we think that happiness, pride, peace, joy and other feelings of that ilk are "good" and to be sought after. Yet, how much happiness is there in chasing joy? How healthy is it to be peacefully blissed out and completely unaware of the 8 year old setting fire to your kitchen?
It's not good or bad, it just is. We are the ones putting all the judgment labels on our emotions.
Comparisonitis still flares up in me from time to time, and I do my best to use a healthier way to track my growth and progress. Benchmarking is an idea that's used a lot in corporate worlds, and one that I think we can use beneficially in other ways. The idea is to look to a standard and measure our results compared to that standard.
But here's the kicker - you can't measure to some external standard. Take for example, my weight loss journey. If I constantly compared myself to every other woman that was more than 100 pounds overweight, observed the charts and "standards" that governing health agencies said were ideal, I'd be miserable.
My standard, instead, is consistency. What can I do consistently? I can run - if I'm pushed - but I can't sustain that. I hate running (for now anyway). What can I do - and do it consistently? I can get off my butt and dance around my house for 10 minutes a day. Will that cause me to lose 100 pounds overnight? Nope. But once I'm consistent at 10 minutes, I can increase it to 15, and so on.
So I benchmark my progress against my own reasonable standard. Will I get there as fast as I want to - as fast as I think I should?
Um nope. But I'll be making healthier choices more consistently... which eventually leads to the result I want.
Did you hear that? I'll let you take a minute for that to sink in. You are already a success. How's THAT grab ya?
In benchmarking, I'm allowed to see myself as already successful. Because I'm comparing myself now to what I've already done, and what's doable for me going forward. I can celebrate my wins NOW instead of waiting for "someday" in the great beyond.
Tomorrow never comes, yo. And yesterday is always gone. Insert cheesy cliches about embracing this moment here.
So in showing up fully as myself - as often as I can - I get to experience the grace and beauty of my own success. I get to draw closer to the Divine ideal of my life - whatever that is. I'm still figuring it out.
Here's another tidbit I gleaned from Mark - if we look at "excellence" (or "success" in this case) as a way to Master our world, we miss out on the other, more glorious result - we draw closer to the Divine.
So becoming myself more fully means I'm becoming excellent at being myself - instead of becoming something else that moves me farther and farther away from Divine Alignment.
Showing up as myself more completely means I own who I am, and I speak from my true voice - my truth - warts, sparkles, and all. Which, I think, is part of why I'm here on the planet in the first place. God doesn't make extra parts and pieces. We all have a gift and the only way we can share it is if we share it from our true self. I think Judy Garland said something about being a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else. Why would you want to be a second rate version of anything?
It's so important that we understand how important we are - how important YOU are in this world. What do you see as your gifts? And what are you doing to share them with the world - fully as yourself?
So I'm in Minnesota this week, and I'm spending time with my coach, workin' on me. We take a dinner break and head to a local joint, the Green Mill, and on the radio, I hear what I think is Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" - a tune I can never get enough of.
But you know how it can be noisy and chaotic in a restaurant, right? I'm trying to tune in, and realize what I'm really hearing is Bono from U2, singing his melancholy "With or Without You".
And BAM! A musical mashup is born.
Here's this week's tune - completed just before I need to leave for the airport to come home. Enjoy!
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This song was recorded before I left town for the Pink Papaya national conference. It was a song I'd heard a couple of years ago
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Happy Independence Day Weekend!
For the 300 songs project this week, I thought it was ironic that I was singing a breakup song by a Brit today (since the US broke up with Great Britain all those years ago), but the votes on Facebook made it hands down the winner. Next week, I'll post the Beyonce tune. 🙂
Watch for my badass boots and my Grandfather's military jacket from WWII. Later this year, I'm hoping to have my Dad's military medals, and when I get them, I'll show them to ya!
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I'm proud of my family's military history, and I'm grateful to ALL the men and women who put their life on the line every day to keep our country in one piece. Say what you will about the current regime, these people risk everything so I can sit in my living room and sing to you. "Thank you" doesn't begin to cut it, but it's what I've got today. THANK YOU!
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I may be ill this week, but I'm not skipping my weekly video. It's time again for another musical medley mashup!
This time, it's the most well known Sunday song of all time (that classic Commodores hit, "Easy") with a little country thrown in for good measure (that Tim McGraw hit "Watch The Wind Blow By").
Lionel wrote his song as a breakup tune, while the other is just a feel good, kick back love song. Put the two together, and it's a fun little anthem about freedom and doing what you love on your own timetable. Enjoy!
Four ounces.
It's approximately what the iPhone 5 (and a variety of other every day items) weighs.
And since the start of the year, that's my net weight loss for all of 2014.
Four ounces.
For the past two years, I've logged my daily weight (well, as often as possible), high or low, I've watched my body fluctuate around the same 10 pounds. And I'm still 90 pounds away from what most reasonable people would consider a healthy weight for my age and body type.
To an outsider, four ounces is laughable. It's barely a tick on the scale, and yet it's one worth celebrating.
Why?
Because I'm past the half-way point of the year, and I'm still trending downward.
See, I started the year above my normal weight - by about 3.5 pounds. That means, not only have I lost that extra baggage from the holidays (and my birthday party!), it means I've actually made progress toward my ultimate goal.
Plus, in June, I started a 3-day fast, which gave shaved another 4+ pounds off the scale. But I didn't fast for weight reasons (more on that in another post), so when the fast ended, I wasn't surprised to see some of that weight return.
But not those four ounces!
I'm no small woman. I know that. I also know that there are lots of moving parts to my own weight loss journey. Food sensitivities, emotional eating, and other stuff I'm just now discovering. Like my Cinderella complex. For as independent as I am, I keep hoping my Fairy Godmother will come with her magic wand and miraculously flush that 90 pounds off my body, give me a gorgeous dress and send me off to The Ball in my fancy glass slippers.
My coach called me on it this week. When I told her about my resistance to following through on my weight loss goals, she pointed out how good I am at getting things done - when it's a priority for me.
Zorch. She got me. It's fun to talk about what I've done well. It's sexy to talk about plans and goals.
I've worked over the last six months to see that four ounces - but not consistently. I'd put my head down for a while - anywhere from 5-21 days, and then I'd shrink back. I gave my power over to other people and put myself in a position where I didn't have healthy options available to me.
One of the practices I've instituted this year is re-commitment. It's easy to get on board with something, but when you hit The Dip, it's also easy to fall off that bandwagon, and never return. Re-commitment is permission to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start over again with what you've said matters.
When the scale starts climbing, or the exercise gets monotonous, it's easy to give up, grab a jar of Nutella, and forget about what really matters.
When your friends invite you to go fun places - like Cops & Doughnuts in Clare - it's easy to get lost in a sea of sugary goodness and succumb to the temptation of tasty treats. It's easy to give up on your long term goal for some short term socialization and delicious debauchery.
And in some ways, I did. In others, I didn't. At the end of the trip (which was fabulous, by the way. Did you see my mugshot on Facebook?), I hadn't gained a pound.
Of course, I hadn't lost any, either. But my wins included:
One week later, and I can proudly proclaim I'm down almost 2 pounds from the trip - and then there's those glorious four ounces.
Re-commitment takes guts. It takes courage to say "Hey, I fell down, and I'm not gonna stay down." It takes balls to say "I made a disempowering choice (or series of choices), but I'm going to get back on track."
It takes cojones to say "Yep, I've dropped the ball regularly on this in the past, but now, I'm re-committing, doing some things differently, and we'll see how this time goes."
And it takes supreme levels of courage to do that in the face of well-intentioned friends and even haters, who've seen you fall and don't expect you to ever get back up.
When you do get back up (because you're awesome like that), you celebrate that win. Dance! Sing! Shout! Tell your friends! Paint a mural! Blog about it! Take pictures!
Even if it's "only" four ounces.
Don't focus on the thirty-eight steps you still have to go to see the finish line. Just focus on the step right in front of you. Take THAT step and see what shows up. Then take the next step, and see what shows up.
Rinse and repeat until you see the finish line.
You've got this. I believe in you.
See you there!
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367One of my favorite Jim Brickman tunes is not just a great love song, it's a powerful reminder to own your dreams.
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As a musician, an artist, a creative that's blazing my own trail, there's a lot of resistance. It comes masked as rejection from family, friends, peers, and the industry itself.
But the worst is when it comes from within myself.
I was a freshman in college. I had applied for a prestigious Music Composition program in the midwest and after submitting scores and failing an instrumental audition, I was given a provisional admission to the School of Music, but not the Composition program. I figured it was because I'd never had a music lesson in my life, and that my first semester voice lessons were the gateway to program entry.
I was wrong.
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Well, the auditions for Season 7 of The Voice have come to a conclusion for me. I filmed this yesterday on our way out of town. The audition was awesome, and while I didn't make the cut, I'm completely happy with my audition and learned a lot along the way. A post will follow in the coming days. For now, enjoy one of the songs the judges didn't get to hear.
"Let me be a lesson to you of what NOT to do."
When you're a celebrity on par with Jonah Hill, that's probably not the ideal phrase to be uttering to your fans. In this case, though, Jonah's sincere apology on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon after being caught on camera making a grossly inappropriate comment has done a lot to mend fences.
[I'll also go on the record as being ignorant, because I didn't realize the comment he made was now considered "a homophobic slur". I grew up hearing that phrase from men and women alike in my neighborhood. Not that it was a pleasant thing to hear, I was just a little surprised that it was a nuanced term.]
From the paparazzi video, it's hard to know exactly what was said, but Jonah indicated he and his family were being verbally attacked on a personal level by the photographer and "was genuinely hurt by this... and in response wanted to hurt him back".
To borrow a line from The Dixie Chicks: "There's your trouble!"
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One of my favorite songwriters just happens to be a retired football player. Back in the 1990's Mike Reid co-wrote a few tunes with Allen Shamblin, and this one is one of my all-time favorites. The first time I heard it was on Kirk Whalum's CD by the same name, and Mike was the vocalist. There were actually several songs by Reid on that disc and I fell hard for his music. I think he's one of the most underestimated songwriters and composers of our time. He's been a classical pianist, written for the stage, and you're probably familiar with at least a few of his songs. Oh, and he was an All-Pro football player before I was born. Is there anything this guy can't do?
It was only later, I'd heard it was made poplar by Collin Raye, and I was disappointed that he cut the middle section out of the song, since I think it really drives the point home about how powerful love can be. Anywho, this is one of my favorites, and I'm seriously considering it for my audition for The Voice if I make the cut for the open call next week. It's down to this or "Get Here" - made popular by Oleta Adams - but that's been done overseas recently.
What do you think? I'd love to get your comments below.
