blindness

Leading you out episode 002 Mistakes aren’t the worst things that can happen

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Hello again;

If you have been following my blog for very long; then you know I’m all about taking action. My core belief is to do what I can as well as I can today and then do it better or do more tomorrow. But I know so many people who are waiting for things to be perfect, so I thought I would share some of my recent experiences and how the mistakes I made not only didn’t crush me but turned out to be even better than I had planned.

Watch Mistakes aren’t the worst things that can happen

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https://youtu.be/Ckhnui1kvd4

Listen to Mistakes aren’t the worst things that can happen

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http://maxwellivey.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-15T19_09_16-07_00

Happy Accident No. 1

The first one is from last week’s video.
I had decided that it was finally time to start recording videos and posting audio for myself as the blind blogger in hopes of jump starting my coaching business and bringing in some opportunities for speaking engagements.

If you are at all like me, the first time you do something new you want it to be perfect. You want to appear professional and show people what kind of person they will be dealing with. Or in the case of a podcast you want to give future viewers and listeners an idea of what to expect from your upcoming episodes.

So, I made a plan. I prepared what I wanted to say. I decided what song I would use for the intro. I connected my headset. I tested the sound level. And I recorded the episode.

I did everything right but turn the lights on. 🙂 For those who don’t know, when I say I’m totally blind; that’s pretty much what I mean. I can only see enough to tell if the lights are on or not by turning my head and looking directly at the spot on the ceiling where the light fixture is. I forgot to do this even though I knew better. I also failed to check the light switch to find out if it was in the on position.

So, I recorded my video and uploaded it to youtube. I stripped the audio and posted it to podomatic. I wrote the blog post and started sharing it online. It was only then that I found out about the problem.

People couldn’t see the video

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3 radio shows in 1 week am I starting to become famous

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Hello again

This post is a response to a suggestion from Ronda Andrews, host of Speak Life Radio. She suggested that I may not be getting the results out of my radio appearances because I’m depending on people finding them from my as seen online page.

She suggested that I start writing a short blog post every time I do a podcast, radio show, or write a guest post. She said this way anyone subscribed to my rss feed will be automatically alerted to your appearances.

This week I was blessed to be featured on three radio shows. Yes, even I’m a bit amazed by the number of people who want me to tell my story on their shows. I thought I would right one post to tell you about all three of them.

And you may notice that I included two ways for you to listen. You can listen to them on my site by using the embedded audio players. Or you can click the direct link and listen on the show host’s site. This may be easier if you want to fast forward as you can download the audio from their pages.

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Overcoming a broken microwave to enjoy my week alone

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Hello again;

Some of you know that me and my family used to own a carnival. While we don’t have any rides any more, we do still have contracts. Basically my dad built the kind of reputation that makes people want to continue using us. We still have a few festival and fair contracts that we fulfill by subcontracting with friends and family who are still in the business.

Two weeks ago was one of those weeks. My mom Patsy, brother Patrick, and Nephew Seth took off to manage the carnival area at the Newton County Fair in Newton Texas. This left me and Miss Penny here by ourselves.

Since I started working to help people sell amusement equipment, I prefer not to go with them to events like this. The truth is I never enjoyed watching other people make money. And it would mean a week in a cramped motel room with terrible wifi and my poor doggie penny in a kennel.

And with the news stories about this new mysterious respiratory disease called KIRD I was not thrilled with the idea of putting my buddy penny in with a bunch of strange dogs. I know at that time the illness was concentrated in Illinois and Indiana; but there had already been one case in Georgia. And most of us don’t take chances with our kids or pets. So we prepared for the week.

They did all the usual things washing clothes, packing their sales booth, buying me groceries. They loaded up the truck and took off on Tuesday Morning of that week. They left and like a good boy I locked the door and turned the dead bolt as they left the driveway.

So, I was looking forward to a week of peace and quiet. I was planning to get a lot of work done. Yes, we all tell ourselves that when we have time with no distractions or responsibilities. And things started off well.

The trouble started

The trouble started and the challenge began on Wednesday.

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