Verity's Blog

I am grateful...

Thought for the week...

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary."

                          - Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Computer

Thought for the week...

"I will persist until I succeed.
Always will I take another step.
If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another.
In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult....
I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking."

       -Og Mandino, American writer & motivational speaker

What is around the corner?

The last few weeks have felt like a whirlwind and I find myself out of breath and overwhelmed in many ways. It has felt like a dream to watch the last 300 copies of my album be bought and to suddenly be thrust into the limelight with tv, radio and newspaper interviews. All of sudden this goal I have been reaching for is within my reach and I feel excited and terrified. I keep confronting the question of who am I when I am not selling an album that doesn't exist? The last three years of my life have been defined by this project and suddenly it is almost done and everyone wants to talk to me about it and in a matter of weeks it will be on the shelves and in 2000 homes around the world.

I am a few days away from my birthday and the 13th anniversary of writing my first song, and it feel s fitting in many ways that things are all happening around this time. I said to someone the other day that if I had known it would take this long, I might never have started. I guess that is the truth with everything. But the longer the journey, the fitter we are when we get there. And while I am an incredibly 'fit' singer and speaker as a result of this experience I am feeling daunted at the demands that comes with achieving this dream. I am also praying that the risks I have taken to follow this dream actually pay off and I can have a successful and prosperous career as a result.

So, I find myself in unchartered waters but also incredibly loved and supported by so many people who want to see this all come to be. I think taking time out to just say thank you for the journey so far will be a good start, so that I can face whatever is around the corner with a sure step and smile. 

Shew - one step at a time!

Thought for the week...

"Fear less, cherish more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, listen more;
hate less, love more;
and all good things are yours."

                -Old Swedish Proverb

Thoughts on how to start living a dream...

Since all the coverage in the media lately I have had lots of emails from artists wanting to live their dreams and asking for advise on how I went about following mine. Since I am still in the middle of this journey I can only talk about what I have learned so far, so thought I would share an excerpt from an email I sent to a singer the other day...

There is no easy way to making a dream come true and the biggest step is the one where you say I am going to do this and see what happens.

The only way to build confidence is to take action and be prepared to fall and fail and then get up and do it better next time. As daunting as performing is, everytime you face your fear you grow and learn and come back better and more accomplished the next time. I think getting very clear on why you want to sing, what you want to share and who will you be if this all works out, is vital. Once you know your motivations it becomes clearer on how to go about achieving your dream.

I wrote songs for 7 years before I would sing them to anyone so I know all about the fear that can stop us. My question is - when you look back on your life will you regret not giving it a shot? Even if it doesn't work, won't it be great to know you tried?

Bruce Muzik interviews me...

Visit Bruce's website to find out more about the powerful work Bruce does to help people realise their dreams.

Thought for the week...

"Unremarkable lives
are marked by the fear of not looking capable
when trying something new."

      -Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher

Live on TV for me...

One of the huge things to come out of The Women's Show was that the producers of Morning Live and  Weekend Live for SABC2 had wandered past the stand and when they heard about what I am doing they instantly asked to interview me.

So... Tuesday 29th April saw me making me way to the SABC studios in SeaPoint at 7am to have  my first ever experience of being interviewed on LIVE television. It was terrifying! I made it through the ordeal with my heart in my mouth and really not sure if I was making any sense, but when I got home my site had already gone nuts with more people signing up as Future Owners so I had to guess I had done ok! The interview has resulted in The Weekend Argus writing a piece that they featured on page 2 & more interviews being requested by radio stations as well! This was a huge week for the project with over 100 new Future Owners coming on board and only 194 copies left to sell. YAY! 

What a week...

The last week has been a whirlwind to say the least! It started last Thursday with us flying to Joburg to get ready for The Women's Show at the Sandton convention centre. The organisers had kindly given me a stand at the show to say thank you for my involvement, but I soon discovered that furnishing a stand for an exhibition is a costly exercise. Given that I am still gathering the budget for printing and posting the album, I couldn't justify spending cash on hiring furniture etc so I had to get creative on how to decorate my stand. For days I felt completely stuck on how to do it, until inspiration struck that seeing my whole approach has been about "thinking out the box" that what better way to furnish the stand than with boxes!

With a lot of help from my sister and some friends who kindly donated the boxes, we managed to gather everything I would need to take up to Jozi. I spent two days printing pics of future owners, lyrics from the album, comments from supporters and posters that followed the journey. In effect I put together everything I would need to create a 'scrapbook' feel of what the last three years have entailed. After negotiating with the airlines not to charge us too heavily for the excess baggage of cardboard and plywood we finally arrived late on Thursday night to start setting up. Surrounded by piles of boxes and pictures it suddenly felt like my great idea might not work, but by the time we had stuck up the last picture near midnight it has all come together! We had a projector showing The Power Within insert about the project and playing tracks from the album; walls covered with lyrics, pictures and quotes; and a listening station where people could click through the songs and see what they liked.

The next three days were incredible! We got to connect with literally hundreds of people and their reaction to my project was awesome. The stand was filled with women reading all about the project, watching the videos and listening to songs. By Sunday we had 60 new Future Owners on board, aching backs and feet but lots to be grateful for!  YAY!