Yesterday, while driving, I came up with a new way of visualizing the relationships between the programs I’d like to offer.

I held it in my mind and committed it to paper later that day. It’s starting to make sense. However, the diagram I drew made me realize that there are still some pieces missing. And what is the overarching theme?

Read More

When I was in high school there was no social media. There wasn’t even email.

So how did I maintain relationships with the kids from other schools that I met at music camp? Or my friends who went away to college and elsewhere?

We wrote letters back and forth. Actual letters, on paper.

Read More

Even as a college student, the only practical career I could visualize for myself was to be a teacher.

I didn’t know much about other careers, and my obsession with music precluded my pursuit of even learning about them. So when I went to college, it was to study music education — a worthy compromise.

I never could have imagined where I’d end up. After all, when I was a kid, there was no Internet.

Read More

The idea of “passive income” is oh-so-tempting.

Build a thing once — a digital product or an affiliate website or an apartment building — and then people will buy it again and again. Make money while you sleep!

What this fantasy leaves out is the amount of work required to not just build the thing in the first place, but to create the entire ecosystem that will allow it to be found by the people who will want to buy it.

Read More

Back when I first started teaching music lessons in Atlanta, I was a little self-conscious about my circumstances.

I lived in a small, run-down apartment with no central air conditioning and a bad parking situation. Piano lessons, I taught in the bedroom, and guitar lessons were in the living room.

Read More