So, some of you may have noticed, I didn’t post a blog last Wednesday or Friday. What’s that? You didn’t notice? That’s okay. I guess. Feel guilty yet?
Anyway. I was at the eighth annual Day of Excellence here in Rapid City. The day of excellence is an event where sponsors bring in four motivational speakers. I can tell you, I was in some serious need of motivation. Unfortunately, it being an all day event, I had to seriously screw up my sleeping schedule. I took the day before off so I wouldn’t be a zombie through the whole thing. Long story short, it just messed up my schedule so I wasn’t able to get much writing done, much less blogging. Still, it was a great event and I look forward to it every year. I like that they do it in the spring. It really helps with that fresh start feeling.
First up was Mack Dryden. Mack is a two time cancer survivor, a blackbelt in karate, and quite possibly the most flexible man of his age I’ve ever seen. He gave a great speech on achieving your goals and kept us all laughing the whole time, even if many of his jokes were straight from the internet. Still, his speech inspired me, as did his flexibility from re-earning his blackbelt at an age where most men have trouble tying their own shoes.
Next up was Matt Guthmiller. I hate to say this, but it seems that every year there’s one dud in the group. Nothing against the kid, He has an amazing story to tell, he just needs to learn how to tell it. At the age of nineteen, he became the youngest person to fly solo around the world. You’d think this would be an exciting story, but it kind of had the feel of a high-schooler giving a “What I did on my summer vacation report.” I don’t know if he’s just getting tired of telling the story or what, but it was mostly just a litany of where he went, how long it took to refuel, and getting back in the cockpit and how boring the flying part actually was. It was pretty much monotone the whole way through and I found myself nodding off. After talking to several other people, I found out I wasn’t the only one. Matt is a very smart kid. He’s currently attending MIT. I just hope he learns to tell his story with excitement and passion. It’s hard for us to be excited about what you’ve done when you’re not. I will say, even as the dud, he was better than last year’s dud who spent his entire hour trying to sell everyone on his paid seminar which cost several hundred dollars.
After the lunch break, Juli Burney took the stage. Juli was hilarious. I found myself grateful that I’d decided to skip lunch in favor of a more substantial meal afterwards. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been able to handle the amount of laughter on a full stomach. Juli is a very positive person and her message of basically not worrying about the little things and trying to turn a crabby person around with humor was very inspiring. She told several stories where she could have taken offense at something, but instead chose to see the humor in the situation. By the end of her hour I felt truly inspired and more than a little guilty for how I handle things sometimes.
Finally came the headliner, Judson Laipply. What can I say? This is the star of one of the first viral videos. The evolution of dance. We even got a live rendition which was amazing. While that was cool, it was his speech that was truly inspiring. He spoke on evolving yourself. His message is that everything changes. You have to change with it. He also spent a good deal of time on evolving in the right ways. For instance, not letting things that don’t matter ruin your day. I have a big problem with this. As you may know, I currently work the night shift at the desk of a motel. This gives me all the writing time I need if I could just learn to use it more wisely. Unfortunately, it only takes one bad guest to completely throw me off for the night. If one person starts yelling at me, I spend the rest of the night brooding on the situation and get nothing done when the truth of the matter is, I’m probably never going to see this person again. So why do I let it ruin my night? I plan on keeping his advice in mind next time.
As I said, as motivating as the day was, it really threw off my sleep schedule for the whole week. Even worse, as a swap for the day I took off, I had to start this week a day early so I’ve been off by a day all week. In addition, I haven’t been feeling my best health wise. I think I’ve been fighting something for a while now. Or it could just be allergies. Let’s hope for that. Disrupting my sleep schedule didn’t help, but it was still completely worth it.
The good news is, the sequel to Blood Moon is well underway and should be out quite soon. I’m looking at hiring a professional cover designer to redo the cover for Blood Moon and to do one for Daughters of the Flame. Blood moon especially needs a new one since I’ve come up with a name for the overall series.
Anyway, that’s it for today. I’ll see you on Friday with a new piece of flash fiction.
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Justin M. Kelly 