TA4MC The hardest part of any creative project is beginning and ending everything in the middle is usually fun.

I love my Mint Chocolate chip ice cream with peanut butter and hot fudge topping. 

Be Creative and Consistent 

For all my life I have been a creative. As a child I made inventions. My first one was an automatic ice cream system. It had cones on a conveyor belt and tubes of ice cream that dispensed scoops to order. As the customer ordered, the cone dropped into a hole on a conveyor belt and then the selected scoops of ice-cream would fall into the cone. The desert would then arrive for the consumer at the end of the belt. I was always a mint chocolate chip guy myself but I knew that I had to have chocolate, vanilla and strawberry if I was going to sell it. I can say I got the bug for inventing because my father was an inventor and when I did something he liked, he let me know but more importantly he let other adults know. It was that praise that made me want to create more

As I got older, I found two passions, martial arts and music. With martial arts, the alphabet is conditioning. The infinite number of punches, hand strikes, kicks, throws, locks, chokes, movements, and blocks is the alphabet, grammar and sentences structure of martial arts.  The art comes in how you combine these elements into techniques that allow you to defend yourself or defeat and assailant. Training the body also trains the mind. To me this was the greatest benefit as the ability to focus and meditate while in motion and removed weakness from my body and built my confidence.

Where martial arts gave me an outlet for anger and creativity, music and writing lyrics gave me a way to express my soul and in some cases my deepest thoughts that I could not express. Maybe I was too shy or didn't trust sharing the emotions in a direct sentence. Putting words and ideas down on paper that expressed what I was thinking about let me express myself without worrying about what my concern is now, writing both with emotion and following the standards of grammar that make me come across educated

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I have other inspirations. In the past I have written books, created board and card games and role-playing games. Each has an element of creativity. As a teacher of Marital Arts the creativity of a class was to keep the classes interesting while hitting core elements of technique. When I taught how to play guitar, I had to be creative with how I presented the information and techniques so students felt progress. As a fourth grade teacher, I had to keep the kids interested in what was in some cases very dry material.

Now as I have committed to both a bi-weekly blog and hopefully a podcast in the near future I am transitioning from the person who does this just for fun to the professional who wants to be taken somewhat seriously.  The work has to be done. Even if it feels like walking through three feet of snow, if you commit to finishing, your word is the only thing holding you accountable. The world can read my blog. If I say, “I am going to write twice a week.” Do it. It may not be your best work every time but it is consistent and honest it will show. This commitment is how in the long run you will earn the respect of our followers.