I've told people for years:

If you really want to learn something, teach it.  Once you've heard yourself tell others what you believe over and over, you begin to believe that it can apply to you, too.

Believing in others is easy.  Talking the talk is easy.  Applying that belief to one's own life and walking the walk is quite another thing.

Since I've been teaching for so very, very long, I've had to apply a number of the principles I believe in to my own life, despite the fact that those principles are generous, loving, and hold me responsible for my thoughts and actions.  It's not so bad, I've found, once you  get the hang of it.

Now I'm hearing a small and distant voice telling me about the potential in myself that I've encouraged others to see in themselves.  

A few nights ago I woke up at 3:00 a.m.  Couldn't go back to sleep.  My mind was racing.  I had been fed an idea from Tim Ferris's book "The 4-Hour Work Week" that day - the idea that my (me, my, mine) expertise in voice could reach out across cyberspace and help lots and lots of people. 

Now, let's be honest.  Tim was not the first person to suggest this.  A short list of people who have suggested this over the years would include my mother, my father, my husband, numerous friends, other books, Perry Marshall (perrymarshall.com), Joan Stewart (publicityhound.com), and my 8-year-old daughter.  Recently I asked my students for testimonials I could post on my web site.  The responses I got were words of trust in me and respect for my knowledge and they made me cry.  That probably contributed to this decision as well.  Don't know.  But Tim's book was the tipping point for me.  At least in my mind.  Whether or not my actions can follow remains to be seen.

That night, that 3:00 in the morning night, I woke up and went to my computer.  I wrote up an ignorant but hopeful business plan outline.  The idea is to create videos that can help anyone improve their singing.  Against my nature, I'm going to aim for improvement rather than ultimate goal. Regarding singing, a little freedom can go a long way to improve someone's enjoyment of their singing.  I believe I can make a fool-proof system that will give anyone who participates in it more freedom and strength in their singing.

This will be a big job.  It will take money I don't have, and probably more time than it should.  But mostly, it will require me to believe in myself as I believe in my students.  It will insist that I allow for the unfolding process as I constantly encourage my students to do.  It will give me an yet another opportunity to find the joy in the journey.