TAKE THE PLUNGE!
I recently crossed off a big check on my bucket list: I went skydiving for the first time ever! Talk about an adrenaline rush, it took me hours to come down from it. No drink or drug in the world can even come close! And to top it off it was a surprise birthday gift from my awesome girlfriend!
Now before someone reports me to the “overuse of exclamations police”, I do realize that skydiving isn’t for everyone. The thoughts of “jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with a professional skydiver tethered to your backside, (praying they really do know what they're doing) falling from 14,000 feet to the earth’s surface” may not be your idea of how to spend a perfectly good April day.
However, this new, death defying experience did make me think about the connection of how we deal with life's challenges, adversities and blessings.
At some point we will all be faced with opportunities where we just have to take a leap of faith and see what happens.
In the music world, this could be a number of things: Playing a song for the first time, trying a new piece of gear that you know very little about, working with other musicians that you don’t know, recording a song that might be seen as controversial, etc. But rarely does one make history by coloring inside the lines, sometimes you have to test the boundaries in order to make your mark. If it doesn’t work, at least you’ll know, but if you never try it certainly can't and won’t work. That’s what made artists like Hendrix, the Beatles, Garth Brooks, & John Mayer such marketable icons. They are universal and timeless just to name a few, but the big one; they weren’t afraid to step up to the plate when opportunity came knocking. I’m sure there were plenty of times they thought they had struck out, yet when they made contact, it was a grand slam! Those are the days we strive for!
To sum it up, I'd say “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Always keep it in the front of your mind, this is about to get uncomfortable, (when things get uncomfortable great change is about to take place) and great rewards are coming your way. Take that step and "jump," parachute and all because unlike skydiving, if it didn't work the first time, you can try it again!
