Others

(This is a post dealing with skill development, whether you are a musician, sports participant, business owner or budding artist.  The logo implies music, yet these ideas are transferable to all endeavors.  Thanks for reading.)

Let’s talk a bit about the importance of others.  So you have a talent or a business entity?  Perhaps you are considered “great” at what you do. That is well and good.

And are you benefiting others with your talent or business?  Are you making a difference in someone else’s life? 

Writers write to being joy and enlightenment into other’s lives.

Businesses exist to bring useful products or services into others’ lives.

Even multi-million dollar athletes bring a measure of joy to others.

Musicians certainly bring added benefit to their audiences, community and world. 

What is your attitude toward ‘others’? 

A quote: 

It is paradoxical but profoundly true that the most certain way for people to bring hope, help, meaning and joy to their own lives is by reaching out and bring hope, help, meaning and joy to the lives of others.  If you’ve already experienced this beautiful phenomenon for yourself, you are in good company.

~Author Unknown

With an eye out for others in all I do; what a marvelous attitude and philosophy for doing anything worthwhile with my life.

Michael Biggs

Steps and Skips

Insights for Success

Be Remarkable

(This is a post dealing with skill development, whether you are a musician, sports participant, business owner or budding artist.  The logo implies music, yet these ideas are transferable to all endeavors.  Thanks for reading.)

What is remarkable and where does it come from?  Are you in search of remarkable?  Where can we buy it?

And the answer is:  Remarkable comes from someone who is passionate about what they do and they are willing to make it just for themselves, whether others tune in or not.

Remarkable is Glenn Miller using a clarinet when his lead trumpeter busted his lip and was out for the count.  He re-voiced his arrangements with the clarinet in place of the trumpet and revolutionized big band music, creating his own remarkable sound and brand.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen revolutionized computer software by learning from the mistakes others made, and they created a remarkable company called Microsoft.

Are you remarkable?

Sometimes remarkable is one simple change. 

Remarkable could be using a live person to answer the phone in your company when the whole world is going to automated phone systems.

Remarkable could be giving away your first book just to get your name out there in the marketplace.

Find your own unique voice that is remarkable and then watch as they discover you.

Michael Biggs

Steps and Skips

Tips for the Developing Student

I Believe in Evolution

(This is a post dealing with skill development, whether you are a musician, sports participant, business owner or budding artist.  The logo implies music, yet these ideas are transferable to all endeavors.  Thanks for reading.)

I believe in evolution, for some of my best mistakes have evolved into amazing successes. 

~Dropped drum sticks have taught me to improvise.

~Poor job performance has taught me better ways of performing.

~Mistakes in a musical performance have honed my performance skills to a new edge.

~Mistakes in relationships have brought me to the doorstep of my greatest love of a lifetime.

I believe in evolution.

Education itself is the best example of evolution that exists.  Compare a first grade student to a senior and you readily understand that.

And so we evolve as human beings.  We evolve or we die.  Those who choose to remain rutted and root-bound are the lost kingdom people.  They lose their edge, they lose their desire to grow and understand, and they lose their way in an ever-changing world.

The golden question is this – will we evolve, learn, grow and become students of our past, or not?

Let’s march toward our future and evolve together.

Michael Biggs

Steps and Skips

Tips for the Developing Student

Road to Creativity

(This is a post dealing with skill development, whether you are a musician, sports participant, business owner or budding artist.  The logo implies music, and these ideas are transferable to all endeavors.  Thanks for reading.)

Want to be a creative type?  Perhaps I can give a wee bit of insight.  I’m going to base this loosely on a text found in the Bible, but this is not a Bible lesson.

The Steps:

Ask and you shall receive

Seek and you shall find

Knock and the door shall open unto you

Ask:  So you want to be creative.  That’s good.  Ask yourself “in what particular area do I seek to be creative.  Ask of yourself or ask of others – and include God if you are inclined toward a spiritual part of your life.

Seek:  Once you know in what vein you wish to be creative, and then seek out others who demonstrate that kind of creativity.  A person can learn a lot from mimicking others.

Knock:  Now is the time to try your hand at the creative process.  Knock on the door of your own creativity.  You may be lousy at first, but who cares.  Repeated effort is what improves skill.

Let’s bring this all together with a personal story.

I write six blog posts every week.  When I started I feared I would soon run out of ideas, and then what? 

The last blog site I created is called A Time for Rhyme.  I have long admired Shel Silverstein’s clever and unique way of writing and drawing.  One day I asked myself, “What if I were to write in a style like Shel? 

The next logical step was to seek out Shel Silverstein examples.  I now have almost all of his books and am making a serious study of his comedic writings. 

And then came the knocking part.  I actually knocked on the door of my own creativity and applied my hand to the process of writing some poems in Shel’s style. 

I may never be discovered as a serious comedic poet, but honestly who cares.  I am in pursuit of my own creativity and I state up front that these poems are for fun, they are silly and they are full of nonsense.  That is my chief aim in life with this blog site – to create fun, silly nonsense.

I am well on my way in this creative endeavor.

And now it is your turn.

You will be amazed at what you discover.

Michael Biggs

Steps and Skips

Tips for the Developing Student

The Road to Greatness

Pic greatness just ahead

(This is a post dealing with skill development, whether you are a musician, sports participant, business owner or budding artist.  The logo implies music, and these ideas are transferable to all endeavors.  Thanks for reading.)

I wish I could point you to THE one road that leads to greatness.  Unfortunately it does not exist.

OR, perhaps it does – disguised somehow.  Consider this.

~Walt Disney was once told a mouse would never work.

~J K Rowling was on welfare while writing her first Harry Potter book.

~Oprah Winfrey was told she was ‘unfit for TV.’

~Jerry Seinfeld was booed off stage early on in his career.

~Stephen King received thirty rejection slips for his script Carrie.

The moral of this story – maybe the road to greatness is found in the seeds of disaster and failure and rejection.

I see a correlation here.

Michael Biggs

Steps and Skips

Tips for the Developing Student

Steps and Skips Top 5

What a marvelous time of the year.  I can’t remember a more enjoyable Christmas season.

This week I’m kicking back and recharging my brain.  That gives you the chance to review some of my best and most popular posts. 

Enjoy.

See you on the other side of the new year.

P Michael Biggs

1 - It's Called Steps

2 - A Word about Mistakes

3 - Your Talent Is Showing.

4 - Smart VS Dumb

5 - Watch the Pro

One Solitary Life

(In the spirit of Christmas, we are taking seven days to focus on the Christian perspective of Christmas.  And in the spirit of Steps and Skips, this fits perfectly, for it speaks of power, influence and great role modeling.  Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas.)

(Based on a Sermon by Dr. James Allen Francis)

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.  He grew up in another village.  He worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty years old, and for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. 

He never wrote a book. 

He never held an office. 

He never had a family. 

He never went to college. 

He never put his foot inside a big city. 

He never traveled more than two-hundred miles from his birthplace.

He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness.

He had no credentials but himself.

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him.  His friends ran away. 

One of them denied Him. 

He was turned over to His enemies. 

He went through the mockery of a trial. 

He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. 

While he was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. 

When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today He is still the centerpiece of the human race.

I am far within the mark when I say this:

All the armies that have ever marched

All the navies that ever set sail

All the parliaments that ever sat in rule

All the kings that ever reigned

All put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.

Based on

~Dr. James Allan Francis

The Real Jesus and Other Sermons

© 1926 Judson Press

Merry Christmas!

P Michael Biggs

Offering Hope

Encouragement Inspiration

One Word at a Time