Reduce Your Pain

I love pipe organ music!  About 25 years ago, I aspired to be a church organist.  I was extremely nervous that first Sunday.  With shaking hands and legs, I attempted to play the last couple of lines of the first hymn as an introduction (and as one last round of practice for myself).  Despite intense practice through the preceding week, it went so poorly that no one knew when to start singing.  Even after playing the entire verse through again, only a few people could recognize when to begin. After 3 more terrifying weeks, I gave up on that career.  Ever since then, I’ve empathized with the many talented musicians I’ve met who are too scared to share – or even develop – their gifts.  But I’ve done more than empathize:  I’ve studied stress and learned to overcome it.  I am writing this blog because I want you to benefit from the growing body of knowledge and practice about performance stress.  I hope to spare you from some of the pain I’ve gone through.

Reach Your Potential

I’ve proven that I can manage and even use stress to my advantage during public speaking.  Now that I’ve launched the TurnTabs business, I’m heading back to the organ bench to see if and how music performance stress can be managed.  I’ll share what works for me and why.  I hope that you’ll share what works for you and maybe why.  As we journey together, I hope to help you reach your potential.

Manage Change

Improving and reaching your potential implies change.  I can help you there too, because I’ve had plenty of change in my life.  Some of it was forced upon me and some of it I’ve chosen.  Some of it was external change – moving across the country, career changes, job layoffs, marriage, parenting and grandparenting.  Some of it was internal change – expanding past introversion, gaining self-confidence, learning to express feelings, learning to be less of a perfectionist and more of an improviser.  If you’d met me even 3 years ago, you wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be writing this to you now.  More than that, I’m looking forward to being in dialogue with you through your comments.  For my level of introversion, that’s a huge change!  I hope that my experiences can make your learning curve and personal development faster, easier, and more fun.

My Gift

And that’s my gift to you: the means to reach your potential.  I hope to hear that you feel you are blooming like a flower, or that an audience member thanked you for your performance.  If I’m fortunate, I’ll get to be that audience member.   Here’s to you and that day!

How you can leave feedback:

Please leave your comments in the “comments” section, especially if you think they’ll be helpful to others.  You may also e-mail me at Dennis.Olsen@TurnTabs.com.  I look forward to hearing from and helping you.

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