1. You can’t predict a game. Too many times we try and predict what might happen in life but in all truth, we have no clue. Life is meant to be full of ups and downs, that’s what makes it “life.” Stop trying predict what’s going to happen next and live in the moment because it might be all that you have.

2. One stupid mistake can cost you the game. You live and learn. One mistake could completely change your life in an instant. Life is not perfect, learn from your mistakes and don’t make them again. You don’t want to live your life always wondering why you made the mistake in the first place. Always remember this, “Don’t get into a car that doesn’t have any brakes.” 

If you asked me back in high school what I wanted to do when I got older, I would shrug my shoulders and not have a clue but I definitely said, “I don’t want to work in the family business.” I’d like to think it was partly because of the teenage years where you think you know everything is why I said that because my family is awesome. It’s just amusing now considering I’m doing exactly what I said I wasn’t going to whether it was teenage inspired or not.

Family business was not in the cards.

I went off to college on a volleyball scholarship which at that point was the main reason I wanted to go to school because for some reason I didn’t think it would ever end (again possibly teenage inspired). Sports was what I was good at and having the athletic talent that I do is something I’m just truly blessed with. When I met with my counselors at college they told me about all of these classes I had to take just to get started and then asked me, “What do you see yourself majoring in?” I just sat there and then I blurted out, “Physical Therapy,” while thinking to myself, “What did I just say?!” I guess since sports was the only thing on my mind it seemed like the thing to do or at least look into it. Who knows.

As freshman year went on, I was talking to one of our volleyball trainers about what I was attempting to start majoring in. She immediately says to me, “Girl, you are not going to make any money unless you go here or here.” And of course being 19 I was thinking well that’s it for me, I guess I need to switch asap. Well of course I didn’t because volleyball was my life at the moment, literally. It wasn’t until someone made me realize (stay tuned for another story about this later) a skill that I had which led me to my next course to major in, broadcasting.

This is a different post from what I normally write about but it’s pretty close to my heart considering it’s about my pup Chase. For some reason it hit me that I need to share information that I’ve learned about dogs with allergies with any of you trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with your dog. It took me almost 2 years to figure out why Chase would itch so bad and literally lose hair when vets would just want to give him a steroid shot to numb it. We all know that’s not the way to solve it and it’s not good for an animal.

I got Chase about 5 years ago from my family for my birthday. We grew up with dogs and it was just in our blood to have one around. I had always told my parents I wanted to get a puppy after I got out of college. Well, they surprised me the night of my birthday and took me to pick out a puppy from a 13 golden retriever litter from TN. Now any dog lover is going to look at this group of puppies and want ALL of them but there was one that just stuck out immediately and would not leave my side. He was the one.

Chase was an awesome puppy never chewing on anything, messing up in the house or even barking at everything he saw. The only thing was that as he started to hit 6 months to a year old, he was missing hair, had ear infections and could not stop itching. I took him to the vet that the family took the animals to and he said it was just an allergy to food and made me buy some ridiculous $90 a bag food. Chase didn’t like the food for one and he still itched. I took him back and the vet gave him a steroid shot and some steroid spray to help with the pain/itching. That relieved it for a short time but it kept coming back and I was not about to spend another $40 on getting the little bitty spray bottle.

You may have heard me talk about BB and our show or you have seen me post some interviews here. I have quite a few emails come in from people that ask questions ranging form “what equipment do you use” to “what has been your biggest hurdle since starting the show?” So this is going to be a 2-3 part series of posts because I have learned quite alot of things since starting the show and now I’m ready to share it with you so you can learn from my mistakes and my aha moments.

Here are some tips and thoughts for Part 1:

Don’t over think your show. What I mean by this is don’t get so caught up in what everyone else is doing around you that you forget to focus on your own niche and ideas for your show. From the start we had a great niche about the other side of customer service but we started venturing off and adding a lot of content to where I finally set back one day going “what are we really getting across to people?” Oprah once said that people want to be educated, laugh and feel emotion when they watch TV and it’s so true. I felt the same way and when we did so much of the laughter part I was asking our group “where’s the meat?” So we sat back and got to the root of who we were, what we wanted to be known for, how we can stand out in a large crowd and still be us? When you first start talking about a show whether it’s radio, web or TV make sure you know what you want to accomplish with the show without over-thinking it and trying to make it appeal to everyone because it won’t work.

Be particular but don’t kill yourself. I can be particular when it comes to editing because can see the show/interview in my head as I want to edit it but not everyone always can see that. I get things set in my head on how I want it to look and sometimes shut off other ideas. Normally I am not at all like this but for some reason with editing I am and Leah could smack me for it too. My point is that you don’t need to be so particular about how everything is done because if you shut out others ideas you could very well miss out on some great new transitions.

Be open to new ideas and bend with the wind. This follows with what I just mentioned about being particular so with this I am saying that there will be many that either don’t like your show, love it or visit it every so often. This is where you really have to figure out where the audience is and where they are not. Do they tune out when you talk about a certain thing, do they only tune into a certain segment or interview? It’s not easy to figure this out but one of the best things to do is to get feedback from your viewers.