You’ve probably heard me say- If your dream is big enough that you can do it by yourself its probably not big enough. You’ve also probably heard me say- You are the five people you hang around the most. It’s funny how what you believe in life manifests itself all around you. I knew it was time to create a video that would tell the story behind one of my songs.

We did a little innocent focus group with the public to get some honest feedback on which of my songs would be the best candidate. It’s hard sometimes to evaluate your own art. Now that I look back at this video and how we pulled it off there is no way it could’ve been done without the entire team we built around this project. This all started by me driving down to Austin and meeting with director Mickey Cevallos in his office. From there I played him a rough draft of the song. I then pictured a female background vocal enhancing the track. My good friend photographer James Bland introduced me to John Mellencamp’s back up singer Pat Peterson. I called her up, she heard the track, liked it and was on board. I had Grammy award winner Eric Delegard mix it. Then I had Bernie Grundman master it. All the guys in my band- Tex Bosely, Clark Erickson, and Elliot Morgan played great on the track and went back and forth to Austin with me to film scene after scene.

Mickey’s entire staff of Gilbert, Vera, and Jazz were invaluable in helping us on location. Robert Lopez and the staff at Bull Films brought the chopper camera from San Antonio. Melissa my assistant went back and forth with me from Austin and ended up being perfectly cast into the video. Brent Watson let me crash on his couch time after time after so many long days in Austin. His brother Brad snapped some incredible behind the scenes photos.

How’s that for a mastermind group? Fifteen people and a years worth of envisioning, scheming, location scouting, clothes shopping, and carefully watching the weather and we were finally able to pull this off. Here’s a shot of Mickey the director of our video shooting some time lapse photography over the bridge. He’s got some cajones sitting on the ledge like that.

It’s my hope that anyone who hears this song and watches this video will realize the point of power is always in the present. Get real clear on what you want to do and those who can help you achieve your goal will arrive.

I wrote this song from the perspective of God. If you listen to the opening words- “When people sing I will dance, into the earth in a trance, I travel far and emerge in the words of a song” you will notice it is kind of a riddle. A subtle “Who am I?” We derive the word music from the Greek term muses. The Greeks believed that muses were angels that sent music to us. In a sense I can relate to that. When I look back to all the music I’ve written its like I am a receiver on a radio dial. If I show up and spend time and sit there at my piano each day every once in a while I get rewarded for my tenacity. Woody Allen once said that “80% of success is showing up”

I love the work of Joseph Campbell and I visited his grave when I was in Hawaii. I completed this song a short time after. His work was the inspiration for this song.

The meaning behind this song is to follow your bliss, and be alive and in the moment. If you do what you love you will never work a day in your life. You must believe in yourself when no one else does. When you are presented with obstacles in life, these obstacles are best overcome by searching within, listening to your inner voice, and being true to yourself. The night is always darkest before the dawn. No matter what obstacle you are faced with in life it is essential to realize that you are not alone. This is the amazing power of music. What ever experience you are dealing with, somewhere someone has written, or is writing a song that can be related to your own individual struggle. This translates the awesome powerful feeling of unity among us that can be shared through artistic expression. The quality of your life is in the quality of your relationships. I am the luckiest person in the world in this regard. I’ve known Mickey for twenty years and we’ve always been friends and stayed in touch. It was just a matter of time until we did something of this magnitude. We are just getting started and it wont be long till he makes a movie and I compose the soundtrack. Stay tuned and even more importantly stay in tune with your friends.

This video is a result of a year long collaboration between Eric and his good friend Mick Cevallos from Cevallos Brothers Productions. It took a year to complete from conceptualization to implementation hiring talent and many trips back and forth to Austin weather permitting. Once we got all the shots done we had Bernie Grundman master the track and then let Mick do his thing. As you will see Mick “does his thing” quite well. Enjoy.

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning, I put both my feet on the floor and I walk over to the mirror, look myself straight in the eyes and say “I love you Eric.”

I learned this little lesson from a woman with a gigantic heart and even bigger message, Louise Hay. You should check her out. She is a pioneer in the field of healing and wrote the book on it called: “You can heal your life.” It sold well over seven million copies. That’s a lot of books.

She coined the term “dis-ease”. You might want to think about this, this is profound. The word disease means dis-ease. You are not at ease. You are anxious, depressed, scared, worried, envious, or whatever other laundry list of negative terms we can conjure up. Your thought patterns have your body, which is a print out of your mind, in a state that is not at ease.

This is exactly why the most important appointment of the day is the one I have with myself, to remind me, all be it with a sense of humor, to believe in myself. If you love yourself, you believe in yourself. The word believe is translated from the latin confido meaning to trust, to have confidence, to believe. In the moment, right there, looking into your eyes it’s impossible to be in a state of dis-ease.

There’s an old saying: “The day the man found the mirror is the day he lost his soul.” There is some wisdom in that, and I see where its coming from, the world is full of narcissists, however I think believing in oneself is the most important gift you can give yourself. It truly is the gift that keeps giving, because when you believe in yourself, you love yourself. Which means you believe in love, and are real, spontaneous, open, and vulnerable when need be.

This is why this appointment sets the tone for the entire day. You have appointments with everybody else, why not have one with yourself?

You have to go to work, you have to go to the dentist, you have to pick up the kids, you have to go to the tax office. All these things are important, and I realize they must be done. Trust me they will be done in a much more effective manner if and when you take the time.I want to emphasize time. Mark Cuban hammered home this point quite eloquently in his last blog entitled “Don’t follow your passion, follow your effort.” He stated “Time is the most valuable asset you do not own.”

The only thing that happens when you wait for anything is that you get older.

That’s true and besides time the most valuable asset you have is yourself. Visualize the positive energy, and love each person carries as filling up a sort of personal cup. If you take care to make sure your cup of love for yourself is full, it will consequently overflow, extending outwards to the people around you.

Carpe Diem

It still surprises me how many people have not heard this phrase. Truth can be a little tricky sometimes, and it can get hidden in all these cute aphorisms and platitudes. I have been very lucky in my life to hang around some pretty big movers and shakers. I don’t know what it is, but I just vibrate to the same measure as those guys.

Even when I was a kid I would imagine myself growing up and hanging out with all my hero’s. I met Larry Bird a couple times and after that I just kept meeting everybody that I looked up to. One day I looked around and they were all around me, and they still are. I can call a good friend the greatest prank caller in the world. So many of my friends are phenomenally successful artists, musicians, and chefs. I don’t even have a rolodex big enough for all of them.

This is not meant to be brash or any kind of boasting and is in no way meant to impress anybody. If there’s anything to be impressed here, it is to impress upon you the power of this principle and the importance of how you spend your time and who you spend it with. You can always reinvent yourself, never forget that, you can always reinvent yourself. I knew this, but even knowing can fall by the wayside if you catch yourself hanging around the wrong crowd. A few years ago I took a real good look around and decided to start making some changes. I fired a few friends and ignited a major reevaluation of my social circle.

Its sad, I have a dear friend who I care for very much that simply will not apply this principle in her life. I have watched carefully as she hung around bars and douche bags, you know the type. The Dallas observer wrote a brilliant article about them a couple of years ago. I think it was entitled “The thirty thousand dollar millionaires.” Fifteen years in the service industry and its all she knows. Because of who she’s hanging around she’s now facing insurmountable legal odds that will effect her life forever. One of the cardinal sins is pride. Its pride that keeps her from walking through that door. The way out is through the door. I love that saying, its actually a zen koan, and its brilliant, its so to the fucking point. The way out is through the door.

I met a lot of very interesting and successful business men through my love of the electric guitar. Us men have a special connection with the guitar. Its like a tool, a wrench have you. Legendary attorneys Dick Deguerin, Rafe Foreman, and Greg Westfall all play the guitar. For example its good to have friends like them when you need good counsel, and if your trying to be anybody in the United States, especially in the entertainment business, you will at some point need good counsel. You are who you hang around.

Do you know how comforting it is to be able to call an attorney the caliber of Rafe Foreman in the middle of the evening when you are freaking out about something?

The best part about this phenomena we are speaking of is this: when you are ready to do the work and reinvent yourself, to live life like we talked about on the edge. Like clockwork, the right people will show up when your ready for them. They will roll up their sleeves and go to work with you.

The first way someone that studies the guitar with me can get on my radar is perseverance. Jim Gardner, owner of Legendary Leadership Arts, is a great example of this. Jim hardly ever missed a class and since he was my last guy on Wednesdays we had time to get together before my band rehearsals. Jim shared with me some of the strategies and tactics he’s developed from his years of experience working in the corporate world with Pizza Hut, Fidelity, Levi Strauss, and now his own companies. We looked at my strengths, weaknesses, objectives, and tactics and developed a new vision for where I wanted to go. Once again you are who you hang around, and I am proud to have a friend like Jim.

I highly recommend giving him a call if you need to get your business and/or organization to the next level.

I encourage you to sit down one night in front of your computer with a cup of something wonderful and in a simple document take a look at this, put it on paper, ask yourself as you go through each name. You can use a strategy I learned from John Maxwell, ask anybody about John Maxwell, he wrote the book on leadership. He says there are two kinds of people, those who lift you and those who lean. Its really that simple baby. Get to it.

Until next time. Hope you had a great St Patrick’s day, and take a look around, and it is my wish that when you do, that you feel as lucky as I do.

Cheers

95% of all weight loss starts at the door of your mouth. It took me a long time to surrender to this. I came to the point where I was so frustrated with my fluctuating weight that I knew I had to make a drastic change. It was time to get this figured out once and for all.

Growing up I was always a fan of the fitness guru Jack Lalanne.

I read an interview with Jack where he described in detail how he fasted one day a week. He would give his body a day off and on that day he would rest. It is hard to argue with the results and amazing life that Jack built. He was vibrant, energetic, and hilarious right till the last minute when he passed away 96 years young.

You could hire all the personal trainers you want, join all the gyms, run your ass off for an hour a day, and buy every ab machine there is and never be in shape. How many times have you seen the same person at the gym for two years, and their body composition never changes. At first fasting is a real challenge, a challenge to your will power. When I started doing it the first thing I noticed is how incredible I felt the next morning. My tongue wasn’t coated, I wasn’t thirsty, and I felt very alert and lean.

Its generally accepted in the business world how profound the 80/20 principle is. If your not familiar with the 80/20 principle its a profound concept discovered by an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto. 80% of the results in your life stem from 20% of your actions.

Over two years ago I applied this principle to what went in my mouth and what kind of exercise I engaged in. I set a goal, because it is essential to have to have a target goal for weight loss. It is not hard to do this, just simply use a body mass index which you can find on Google. For example I am 6’2 and my ideal fighting weight is 185. Once I defined that goal utilizing the aforementioned principles I hit my target in four months, losing 45 pounds, and have maintained it with ease for three years.

Here’s how I did it:

Utilizing the 80/20 principle for body composition nothing went in my mouth that came out of a box, can or that had any kind of preservatives. In short if it had additives I did not eat it. That is how I got to my target weight. Once there I added carbohydrates back, but only as 20%. That way I could enjoy them when I am in the mood for them. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Look how fasting one day a week is exactly the 80/20 principle, Ill walk you through it. The average work week for an American is a 40 hour week, five days a week. One fifth of that, 20%, would be one day. If you give your body that day off from food, you have simply and elegantly applied the principle.

The question I was asked the most about losing the weight and keeping it off was, “Man, did you join a gym? You look like you’ve been working out.” Far from it. I don’t like jogging. I definitely don’t like joining gyms. The techno music is atrocious and I swear everyone in those places is out of shape. Whenever I meet a personal trainer I always ask him to do a handstand. I haven’t met one yet that can do it.

I decided to apply the 80/20 principle to exercise as well. I walk my German Shepard one hour a day, then I work out for 20 minutes, doing body weight exercises where my body is my own gym three times a week. For example one day Ill do thirty pull ups. A complete full upper body work out that is extremely effective, and can save your life. Day two Ill do a hundred pushups, or to exhaustion. Then day three I might lift some weights or just do some yoga poses. Its all you really need to do, and you’ll look and feel great. And there’s nothing like looking and feeling great.

Make your fast day your day. It is all about you, and you owe it to yourself. Who is more important than you? When you truly love yourself you bring that dynamic and presence and add value to a relationship. I hope this helps you, and feel free to email me with any questions you may have.

Namaste

Eric

This is going to be a short post. 96% of the population of the earth never reach their goals or amounts to much of anything in the acquisition of their dreams and aspirations.

Here are three powerful principles, when applied with assertiveness and fortitude, that will put you right there in the top 4%. Always remember the key to success is to find out what everybody else is doing, and do the exact opposite. These principles if applied overnight would completely eradicate the thirty billion dollar self help industry, would put psychologists completely out of business, and there would be no need for a life coach. Just simply do this:

1. Do what you say your going to do

2. How you said your going to do it

3. When you said you are going to do it.

As Krishna Murti says, think on these things. Nobody does this. I know a lot of people and I know some very big movers and shakers, and I can tell you assertively, I can count the people that do this on one hand.

Graffiti Park in Austin is great. It’s right next to Tommy’s Drum Shop and my good friend videographer Mike Cevallos’ Office. Day one of our video shoot began there, and day two was shot over Lake Austin at the bridge. Here a few behind the scenes photos. It took two months of tediously watching the weather to get it just right, and it all came together finally.

Tex on the bluff.

Here’s a panoramic view of Graffiti Park in Austin with Tex on the horizon.

Elliot reclaims his roots.

Here I have a wonderful view of downtown Austin, here’s what I saw.

Evening sets in.

Glowonia

Day two 360 bridge Austin

B&W treatment background 360 bridge.