Slow down my Friend.

When I was 20, with a somewhat useless Philosophy degree in my pocket, my Dad used to always tell me that to be successful, the logical step was to work for an established company, that will never go away. My brothers studied accounting, and they had gotten jobs at the all powerful Coopers&Lybrand, and Arthur Anderson, and I should do the same -- "get a job at Roberston Stevens," he said. Two years later, Arthur was gone, and Robertson sank. Lesson learned, and I decided from then on that I would be a creator. Of what I had no idea, but I would always create. I fell into the restaurant business for a brief 14 years (note sarcasm), started or built 7 restaurants, and just a year or two ago, I finally took a breathe. A real breathe.  Some negativity hit my life, and it was time to stop, and regroup. And although I am used to driving 90mph, I slowed down. Seriously slowed down.  Finally, I made a good decision.

For those of you going 90, who think that having a full schedule means success, I would humbly challenge your assumption.  I have never been more creatively productive as I have in the last year, and I attribute it to slowing down. Focusing on what's important, including non-business things.  This didn't come without having to give up things, financially and emotionally, and I still calm myself down daily as I get into my zones.  But the brainchild born of the focus is one of the most exciting things I've ever worked on, something I've noted to all of you before, called IROCKE. And although we've been in programming mode for over 5 months now, today the gravity set in when I read an article written on us in the Easy Reader, told from the view of an intelligent, unbiased writer named Mark, who knows the music business as well as anyone.  It was surreal to read our ideas put into an article, and after reading, I realized that whether IROCKE changes the workd or not, my decision to slow down and focus was right. (by the way, if you want to be a beta test user, go to irocke.com and sign up). www.irocke.com

They did a test a little while ago at Grand Central Station. Some people brought in one of the most famous violin players in the world, who was playing a 3.5 million dollar violin, and they had him play one of the most difficult and demanding concertos out there for over 2 hours, dressed as a street player, during rush hour. The question was this: when human beings are in the mode of work and survival, can they recognize and appreciate true beauty? In 2 hours, only 6 people stopped to listen.

Would artistic beauty have found its way into your mind if you had walked by?
Slow down my friend.