Follow Your Passion
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Chapter 9 |
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Chapter 10 |
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From Accordion to Zen!!
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I walked to the pub at 5pm and sang from 6 to 9pm. I had taken my 9-5 and turned it upside down into a 5-9! I had freed up so much time which I invested straight back into catching more waves. I saw new crazes and jumped on them. I surfed for four glorious years! I threw myself into everything. There was a craze on alternative medicines and so I studied everything from Alexander Technique to Zen Buddism. I submitted articles on a plethora of subjects to numerous magazines. I wrote on Stress Management and Time Management for the Accountancy Magazine. I researched Scottish history and travel for the Scottish Banner, and, as you know I wrote for Decanter Wine Magazine on the subject of whisky!
I learned Accordion to be able to do one man dance band for smaller dance gigs. For the next three glorious years I threw my energy into anything and everything – from Accordion to Zen - I grew a beard and learned to juggle! TELLING STORIES AGAIN Storytelling had caught onto the ‘all things Scottish’. I heard a few tellers and realized that I could jazz this up but I needed a break and so I pulled the old Resume Wizard out again! There was a 'Scottish Story Telling Festival' in Edinburgh and I knew I needed a letter from them with that title on it! I told the organizer that my band would play music for free in the interval if he would simply write that I was a great addition to the festival - on headed paper of course! Now I was able to add ‘great addition to the Edinburgh Story Telling Festival’ and it looked like I was one of the storytellers! This helped me get my first storytelling gig in America and many grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council!! In turn this led to me writing children's stories and we produced 2 CD’s one of which was played on NPR! As you can imagine that CD has a big gold sticker on the front saying 'as heard on NPR' – milk it baby! (and buy it here!) For four glorious years I survived off a these few weekly gigs. I remember my grandfathers advice - 'the secret to life is to reduce your expenditure, not to increase your income!'
My friends could not quit accountancy so easily because they could not reduce their expenditure. They had all gone out and bought apartments and cars with their first paycheck! You can’t get up and balance on a surf board when you are carrying around the anchor of debt - it keeps dragging you down! You will not be able to turn and live lean if you have to earn a basic income just to keep your head above the water! You have to make an attempt to get off the beach when you are young and before you accumulate debt! Sand and water eventually make concrete! You think that you are building sand castles, but it can become quick-sand and you can get trapped when it all turns hard. Work For Nothing! You need to be debt free to be able to work for nothing! I have often found that the best leads come when you are able to do the first gig for nothing (and then charge them double for the second gig when you have firmly hooked!) I call this the First Principal of the German Beer Festival because they give the beer away for nothing on the first day of a festival and then charge double the next day to make their money back! Its like fishing for bait - you catch a little fish and then throw it back in the ocean using it to catch something larger! I had written free articles to get published. I had played free music to get a resume line. Now I wanted to bagpipe for nothing! I found a group who attracted a famous personality right in my back yard – 'The Harvard University Hasty Pudding Club'. I smelled an opportunity for a great resume line, but only because I had the free time to do the job for nothing!
The Resume Wizard can create a line that sounds enticing when really it is just bait for other fish! That is why you see that sign in bars 'Girls drink for free'! Another case of fishing for bait was getting a gig with the Bartenders School of America. They had no money but were eager to jazz up their course with a guy from Scotland teaching them about scotch in the kilt and playing the pipes for nothing! I could have become full time teaching Bartending Schools (there are hundreds across the states), but I viewed this as a little fish to catch a much bigger one. Think how much a whisky company would love the opportunity to get their product in front of future bartenders - it was as if I had built my own stage! It worked so well that I only had to cast the line once! A guy from Seagram came along to see me – his name was Marty Greenstein and that name will always sound sweet in my ears for he had the vision and the connections to get me a phone call with the Brand Owner of The Glenlivet. ‘Marty tells me that you know scotch and are good in front of a crowd. Do you have a kilt and do you know a bagpiper?’
It all happened so quickly! I was up and surfing the big one - and it has been the wave that never ended! All my other projects have had to be put on the back burner as I just try maintain my balance year after year! I have been surfing this wonderful wave of whisky for nearly ten years now. The company has been bought and sold and I am still up on the board doing the same old thing – and I love it! I have been paid well over a million dollars now to drink Scotch, and what a life it has given me! The best part is that I get the days free to type the story out. The Toasting Tour As I speak, I am typing this from the pool side in
the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida! I am on a 12 week tour
that will include staying at Miami Mandarin, Dallas Derek, Boston Four
Seasons, and the NY W.
It really is so much fun, and I get to see so much of America and meet come brilliant people! Here are some pictures that cannot do justice to all the fun we have! Click here for some more Picture of all the wonderful people I have met long the way!
AND FINALLY - A MESSAGE TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW! So many people ask me how
they can do this for a living. I wish I could spend more time to brain
storm a plan with them and show them what they have to start doing now if
they want to follow their dreams. They can unshackle themselves from the
computer and get out of the cubicle - all they would have to do is Play golf and eat some chocolate!' Click here for the
Next Chapter - ©2000-2005 JB |
There was a huge interest in everything Scottish
especially the music and ceilidh dancing (think square dancing to techno
music!!) I invested in a sound system, learned to play a chord
instrument (bouzouki!) and teamed up with three beautiful girls who played
fiddles and drums. We started a crazy ceilidh band called ‘Ceilidh
Minogue and the Flopsy Bunnies’. We jazzed it all
up a bit and played funky tunes, made up silly dances and blew whistles
and duck calls - we were the bomb!
Debt
is An Anchor!
If I had stayed in the office I could never have
taken this gig and would never be able to end the sentence on my website so
nonchalantly
“… and piped for Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon.”
The
answer to those questions had taken me years to construct. I paused and
savoured the sweet silence before I replied and set up the first gig. The
other speakers they were using didn't wear a kilt and hadn't even been to
Scotland! I was the new Brand Ambassador for The Glenlivet!
Tonight I will meet 250 people for a cocktail then talk them through
eight wonderful whiskies and
too many jokes!
Then I go out on the town to bagpipe into bars, buy
people drinks and get to see some crazy nightlife! Email me if you want a
ticket to the next tasting in your town!
