motivational

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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Why I sing and how I can help you free the song in your own heart

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Hello again; I just recorded another video for my podcast about the amusement industry and the equipment my clients have for sale. Its called Calliope Corner, and you can find my videos on youtube.

For those of you who haven’t seen any of them I should tell you that I start off each one with me singing and then I introduce the show, mention the website and contact information; then go into whatever ride, game, inflatable, etc I’m talking about.

Its been a while since I recorded one of these videos. I was launching the new site and dealing with some minor health issues. But I had forgotten how much I enjoy recording the videos. More importantly I forgot how good I feel when my friends write to say how nice my voice is and how good I sound. One friend even suggested that my singing could make me famous.

I am happy with my singing, but it wasn’t always that way. A very short time ago I wouldn’t have had the confidence to sing in public much less on youtube where millions of people could see and hear me.

Some history

You see, on my dad’s side of the family most everyone can sing or play a musical instrument or both. My grandfather J. V. Ivey was a great finger picker guitar player. He also sang mostly country and had a radio show in their home town of Union, South Carolina.

My dad Maxwell Ivey Sr. played the guitar and sang too. He was more of a strummer. Him and his brothers and friends had at least one band when he was a teenager.

Being a daddy’s son I wanted to do what he did. When me and my brother Michael were young he bought us both starter guitars. He put different colored finger polish on the frets of mine to help me make the chords. i could make the sounds but couldn’t make music.

I could sing or at least my mom and dad never complained. Me and my dad would sing along to radio, 8 tracks, and later cassettes while driving to and from events, family outings, scout meetings etc. We liked the same music and sang together.

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My first ebook Leading You Out of the Darkness Into the Light is finally published

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Hello again; Well, I finally did it. The ebook Leading You Out of the Darkness Into the Light Is now available for sale! I am excited and relieved and more than a little scared. So, in this post I will explain the decisions I made and why as well as what comes next.

 

 

Where it is for sale

I know that for me completing the ebook and getting it published is an accomplishment in itself. I’m proud of the hard work I did, and I believe the book can and will help a lot of people. But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t care if it sells or not. I do want it to sell well. I also want it to be well received. So, I thought I should start by telling people where they can buy it and why.

For now the book is available through Selz.com, which allows for anyone to sell both physical and information products online. They take a smaller percentage of sales than Amazon and the submission process is so much simpler. All I had to do is upload the image and the pdf version of the ebook and people can purchase it with pay pal or a credit card and download it immediately.

Leading You Out of the Darkness Into the Light is also available from Amazon.

If you want a print copy, you can order one from CreateSpace.

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Good health makes me a better blogger part 2

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Hello again; I am happy to have heard from so many people who are either in good health or who have promised to take steps to make sure after reading last week’s post. I do believe that good health is critical to your long term success at anything. So, I wanted to follow up by addressing other aspects of good health.

Vision

It is pretty well known that I am almost totally blind. I have a genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa. I have only light perception at this point. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have to worry about eye health.

In fact I was surprised to find out that having your eyes checked is another way that your doctor’s can recognize disease early. In my case my last eye exam turned up large cataracts on both eyes. I was thinking big deal I can’t see anyway.

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