Unless you have a BURNING DESIRE, consider yourself spoiled and kept

Ran into this datum today, during a rough spot. Seems I have the day job licked - it's really too simple to make the paltry sums I do (which is some of the top wages available locally for "untrained" labor). But to make more money, I have to sell more of my soul and weekly time.

This is not the problem I ran but up against - that was the one of actually considering that I could simply roll right along with this job during the summer as it was easier than going out and visiting local festivals. This was on Saturday. By Sunday, I was really ticked off. You see, this is hard physical work and leaves me little time for anything after I leave work (10-hour work days) and too tired to try much when I do have time. In going to bed early, I then wake up early. However, as I work to do anything at night (blogging, writing, doing artwork), this then keeps going all night long. I then wake up early and do some more work at this stuff that I like to do - really have as my purpose. By the time I have to go to work, I'm all frustrated again from not being able to do what I WANT to do, but only have time to do what I HAVE to do.

And so Napoleon Hill came to my rescue. Through this day, I continued to digest what I had been thinking about. My conclusion was that I had been more than a bit spoiled with living on a farm and only having to work for the little money I needed. I was essentially a kept man - only having to maintain the farm a few hours a day to earn my room and board. Only having to work for a couple of days a week at a day job to earn my spending money - and then keeping my debts going so that I never got ahead, needing constantly a job to earn money.

Out of this, I started developing a real burning desire to change, to succeed, to make my vision become a very large concrete reality.

But it wasn't until I got really torqued at not being able to work at what I really wanted to do with my life that I had to develop that desire.

Now I find that interesting, as I've been purposefully reprogramming myself for over 90 days now. My blog comments have been a record of this effort. To just now come up with this burning desire scenario is more than a bit interesting. I did get a lot done last week by simply setting targets/tasks and then getting these done. However, you may have noticed during the bulk of these posts that I've had a problem really getting going with my artwork as writing continued to take my time. Even last week, I was busy designing a brochure so that I could persuade radio stations to use me as a guest - which would drive business in and sell my books, getting all the research I've done out to people who can use it. The trick is to get my books to pay for my support, so that I don't have to work at someone else's economic engine, be a wage slave - even at two days a week.

I got into the whole marketing scene - where I've found that two key points (1)writing articles and (2) doing radio interviews is all the effective marketing that really has to be done. Bookstores will benefit from my work, and will then run their own campaigns. Yes, I can do booksignings, but this is really secondary and only feeds the flow once it is started. There are TV interviews, but again this is when you start moving up the Long Tail and get into broader niche markets.

Knowing all this, that these were really simple actions I could do in my life to make my book sales start finance my life, and make it possible to do more artwork - I got a real "hair up" when I had to go to work moving boxes of overpriced furniture and rugs out to people who have no clue how they really got all that money they are spending.

The funny thing is that I really had to swallow the point of my incredible potential ability - that same potential everyone on this planet has and only a few manifest. I can write, draw, speak, manage and do all sorts of things. In the last 10 or so years, I started to really analyze how come I am so different from others around me - how is it that I have all this talent. But at the same time, I was putting all my talent on some sort of back burner, not really giving myself credit for being all that talented. I was too busy figuring out my studies and finishing college and applying this stuff in the real world, through my summer work at festivals and so on.

Seeing that I was really just goofing off compared to what I was actually capable of - now that was a surprise. That is how I called myself "spoiled" and "kept ". Then I could see that there was a starting point for a real necessity of action. Money is one thing, and a pretty irrelevant thing. But now I could see that by having a lot of money come my way, I could help people on a much greater scale than I had tried before. I didn't have to have it as personal income (which the government is busy figuring out how it isn't yours anyway - the more you make, the higher percentage they want). Better was to configure it so that it would go into some sort of fund which could be reinvested in projects I'm interested in and which would help people improve their lives.

But to do all this, I had to really get to work. I need to get those articles out and those requests to do radio shows and so on. And I also had to start working at my cartoons and short stories so that this juggernaut type of scene could be started. Once I got sufficient funds rolling in, I wouldn't have to "work" at making a living. Like the sports player, I'd get "paid to play baseball", doing exactly what I liked to do and really felt I needed to do.

While this Burning Desire will take some tempering and adjustment so that it flames from hot embers into a roaring furnace, at least I've ignited the coals and started a new chapter.

We'll see how fast I can get this fire roaring.