Watermelon Lessons

I had a booth promoting my website and mailing list at this years Montrose Watermelon Festival. It was a very good experience for me and I'm grateful for all the people that stopped by to check it out. I was giving away a free hard copy of their choice of sample chapters for signing up for my mailing list. I am pleased with all the response and met my expectations for the weekend.

My booth was as close to the stage as a booth can get and so I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of music. The band Thursday night was pretty good. Friday night's band was OK but, really, well... It was just OK. Saturday had two bands. The afternoon band was excellent! The evening band was not too bad but they were mainly there to have fun and didn't care if they forgot the lyrics or not. They were still enjoyable.

I was struck by the contrast between Friday's and Saturday's afternoon's. The afternoon band, you could tell they put a LOT of time and effort into practicing their performance. Every single member of this multi-generational family band had a level of professionalism that took a lot of work to achieve. By the way, the band was called Heather and Co. and can be found on Facebook. The Friday band seemed, to me anyway, to put in the minimum effort to be competent but not excellent. Several times I kept thinking "They would sound so much better if they just did this."

So what lesson did I learn? I've spent most of my life living like the Friday night band, or sometimes even the Saturday night band. I didn't realize how disappointing I've been to those who've watched me. As I embark on this journey to become a successful author, I want to be like Heather and Co.! I'm finally mature enough where I am willing to put in the effort to be excellent. And I have a good mentor in The 5 Year Plan course I'm taking to guide me through this.

I am grateful for all the people and resources I have available to me now. Thank you all!