Staying Productive During Difficult Times

For anybody that has read any of my previous posts, it is pretty obvious that this blog is focused on my professional experiences with multimedia. Along with teaching computers at the middle school level, I have started my own freelance business focused on graphic design, video editing, music and training, the subjects I teach. The goal over the summer was to really establish my business, working to get my name out and acquire clients. I was going to be free from my commitments as a teacher for a few months so I figured I'd have a ton of time to focus on the business. Well, that's the dangerous thing about assumptions. Often in life "things" come up that take you off the course you set for yourself. The question is, how are you going to handle it? In my case, about a month before the end of the school year my wife, who was pregnant with our fourth child, was told that she was going to have to stay on bed rest at the hospital for the remainder of the pregnancy... What? Yeah, my amazingly strong and courageous wife ended up spending 3 months in the hospital with the end result being our beautiful baby girl Samantha being born healthy and ready to step into the world. So in the end, it all worked out and we, as a family, are moving forward with your typical newborn trials, tribulations, and of course pure joy. But what did all of that mean for my professional goals, the time I was supposed to have for the business? Instead of having my partner with me to help with our three other children, it was me that was on child duty, which is more than OK because I thoroughly love and enjoy my children, but the bread winner side of me was forced to put things on hold and truly prioritize what I had to get done for the business to move forward vs. what could wait. I had to make choices and do what I could. So to make a long story short... or shorter, I was able to get my business name officially established at the county government center, start meeting with a local business group (Contacts-n-Coffee) to make some connections and I recently got my official business bank account set up. To be honest, with all that my family has gone through recently it is amazing to think that I was able to make any progress at all. Make no mistake about it, there were times when I felt discouraged and I questioned why I was even trying, but throughout it all, the drive to support my family doing something that interests me and I enjoy has kept me on track. My pace may not always be so fast, but like that good old tortoise, if you just stay the course you may not only finish the race, you might just end up winning.

We have been going at it here at school for about a month now. Things are starting to settle down a bit, so there will be a new surge of energy put into this blog and my efforts to bridge both sides of my multimedia world, both as an educator and producer of...

More to come!!!