My kids worked up a song for their mom this Christmas. Maybe your kids would like to sing along?

Listen to We Love You Mom!. (4.2mb .mp3)

Keep in mind, we had to write and record this when mom wasn’t around, so the kids didn’t get much practice time! (and I mixed it a lot in the headphones, which isn’t always the best.) Alissa (9) actually recorded the little solo too – she was pretty excited to do that.

I think it’s fun and says a lot of things moms need to hear.

View the lyrics of We Love You Mom! (76kb .pdf).

Enjoy.

PS. If you liked that, you might also enjoy last year’s Christmas gift to mom, a song called Super Mom. It’s a rocker.

Play Super Mom. (3mb .mp3)

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Was my wife, Mary Elizabeth.

I don’t tell her that enough. Seems only appropriate to do that on Christmas.

To honor her, I wrote a little song.

Play The Best Gift I Ever Got (5mb .mp3).

If you’re curious to see the lyrics you can view this .pdf (73kb).

Enjoy.

PS Apologies to those who are tired of love songs. The thing is, authentic love is worth writing about.

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I’ve been to two funerals in the last week. Both people left notable legacies.

One was a woman I never met directly, but indirectly through her son. What a legacy she left.

Another was a high school teacher of mine who had a tremendous impact on my life and my musical journey.

Both funerals were wonderful celebrations of lives well lived.

The thing about great funerals is that they cause you to pause. Pause and think. Think about the impact you are making and how you will be remembered.

Am I having an impact like that?

I know, it’s not right to compare, but it’s also not wrong to get introspective every now and then and think about our lives and whether we need to make some changes.

One notable is that I missed my opportunity to tell this teacher how much he impacted my life. I missed my chance to tell him it was worth it. That regardless of all the crap he put up with, he made a difference – a big difference. I missed a chance to thank him for his encouragement. To tell him how that made all the difference.

Are there people in your life that you need to thank?

If you were gone tomorrow, how would you be remembered?

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I promised an MP3 of a song many moons ago in my MustardCast with Ben Delzer of the band, standing mavis.

It has taken me too long to get this out to you, and I apologize for the imperfections of it. It was played live and mixed down by me, a non-engineer. (This is what you get when you let a drummer behind the board!)

I promised my wife I’d do the dishes tonight before midnight, and then I went into final mixdown of this and. . .whoops. . .looks like another late night. (I will do the dishes, though.)

This month has been crazy, but I am so excited by the music I’ve been able to be a part of.

As I finished this track up, I thought about Ben and Matt, who make up the other 2/3rds of standing mavis. I would do anything for these guys. They are so great.

Jim Collins in his business research (visit his link in my blogroll) often talks about “getting the right people on the bus” in your company. (Read Good to Great to understand this.) It’s a lost art in terms of bands.

I cannot think of two people I’d rather be on the bus with than Ben Delzer and Matt Rodgers. Two fantastic musicians. Two fantastic people.

Here’s the song, Steel. (4.3mb .mp3)

I’ll also upload it at http://www.myspace.com/standingmavis.

MustardCast Number 3 with Brit Rice is next on the list…before Christmas? Oh man, I don’t know. . .

Thanks for visiting!

PS If you didn’t catch the interview with Ben, you might want to. Learn more here.

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At a Christmas party this weekend, I had the pleasure to talk with a writer (non-fiction) who was making the final edits on a book that will be coming out in 2007. It was an excellent discussion and I was very interested in the topic as well. The author was extremely humble about his expertise and the success of landing the publishing deal.

I’m not going to mention the author nor the topic because of a unique dilemma the author is facing.

He’s a tenure track professor.

It turns out that maybe 90 percent of this Ph.D’s day-to-day job responsibilities revolve around research that is unrelated to the topic of his book. To be clear, the book IS related to his area of expertise, but a different, niche facet.

He faces an interesting problem – to keep his head down, get tenure, and THEN work on trying to gain more exposure for the ideas in his book, or to say, “look, this is my passion, I’ve got to go after it!” and risk potentially negative consequences at his workplace – the consequences of a faculty and board who may not see the true value of this published work.

I know, I’m being a bit vague here. I don’t want to compromise his situation.

What would you do? Risk potentially losing tenure by trying to share with the world concepts that could impact lives, sharing concepts you are most passionate about? Or would you “play it safe,” not heavily promote your work, and hope for a clean path to the magic land of tenure?

I told him to tell the world about his book, to secure speaking spots at relevant conferences, and start following his passions – now.

Are you “playing it safe” in your own life?

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I’m happy to say that I’ve finally got this ready for you and I hope you enjoy it.

Play or Download MustardCast #2
Play MustardCast #2, interview with Charlotte Otter, in iTunes

Download the .mp3 file of MustardCast #2, interview with Charlotte Otter (16.4mb)

This is a 18-minute discussion with Charlotte Otter, a wonderful writer you can visit at Charlotte’s Web.

Here are the questions we discussed:

• What would be your dream writing gig?
• Are you going after that?
• Do you have a plan to make that happen?
• You’re a mom of 3 and wife of a busy husband – how do you do it?
• Is blogging helpful to writers or should they stick to their “serious” writing?
• What do you need as a creative person from your spouse to help you go after your dreams?
• What discourages you the most?
• You’ve done corporate, done journalism – how have you handled the adjustment to staying home with the kids? Discuss that decision and any struggles.

Charlotte also shared some tips and a short story:

• Recommended Books by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, and The Right to Write.
• How to Exit Gracefully from a Hammock by Charlotte Otter. (112 Kb PDF)

Update: Added link to Charlotte’s short story.

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