In this episode, 023 - "Work is Wonderful...But Make Time for Play. ENJOY LIFE!" I talk about the following:
1. Intro/Opening: Work is Wonderful...But Make Time for Play. ENJOY LIFE! 2. Positive Perceptions: "Enjoy Life" pg. 34 from Perceptions, Parables, and Pointers by Jerald Simon
3. Motivation in a Minute (a motivational/inspirational topic): "Most folks are about as happy..." pg. 195 from Perceptions, Parables, and Pointers by Jerald Simon
4. The Music Within: Joseph Smith's First Prayer arranged by Jerald Simon from the album Hymns of the Heart by Jerald Simon.
5. Poetry that Motivates - "Let Me Live" pg. 19 from my first poetry book, "The 'As If' Principle" (motivational poetry) featuring 222 motivational. inspirational poems I have written.
As a music educator, I have written 25 music books featuring original music I have composed and teaching piano students worldwide about music theory, improvisation, and composition. I refer to them as Theory Therapy, Innovative Improvisation, and Creative Composition. You can learn more about the various music books I have written on my website, http://www.musicmotivation.com. -
I began composing what have become known as Cool Songs to help motivate teens to want to play the piano - the FUN way. You can learn more about the fun, COOL SONGS I composed each month that have accompaniment minus tracks so students can play along with drums, guitars, keyboard synths, and other instruments and sound effects on my COOL SONGS website at https://www.coolsongsclub.com - or my Music Motivation® website at: https://musicmotivation.com/coolsongs/
Here is a link where you can download a FREE PDF book on motivating teen piano students ("20 Ways to Motivate Teen Piano Students to Want to Play the Piano - the FUN way): http://www.coolsongsclub.com/freebook. After entering your email where you'd like the FREE PDF sent, the page will then refresh and you can learn more about the COOL SONGS Club.
You can join the COOL SONGS Club FaceBook group on my COOL SONGS FaceBook group page at this link: http://facebook.com/groups/coolsongsclub/ - If you know anyone who would be interested in joining this new group, please invite them. I'm excited to share ideas, suggestions, and hear your thoughts, ideas, and tips on motivating and inspiring piano students - the FUN way!
You can also learn more about my ESSENTIAL PIANO EXERCISES COURSE and join members from 20 different countries around the world at this link: https://www.essentialpianoexercises.com/ - This course features video piano lessons for Jerald's best-selling books:
Essential Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know
100 Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know
Have fun. Enjoy life, travel, explore, relax, get out and have a good time. See the world experience life, get to know other parts of your city, state nation. And the world at large work is wonderful, but you need to take a vacation at every now and then play and get together with family and friends. Experience new cultures, meet new people and create many lasting friendships with people from other countries around the world. Live life to the fullest, have fun, enjoy life. Now, if you think about that, life is meant to be enjoyed. We should have fun. Life is not only about having fun. We must work and we must pay our dues and we must sacrifice and learn how to serve and help others. But if we are not enjoying, then life becomes drudgery. If we dread each day, what fun is in that instead of fretting about our future and worrying about past mistakes, we can live each day in the present. And this moment is the time for us to experience all that life has to offer. We need to have fun. If we are not having fun with our work, our employment, our job, our career, then we need to rethink what we are doing because there should be some amount of joy in what we do each day. Welcome to music, motivation and more the positivity podcast. I am your host, Gerald Simon. I am the founder of music motivation and the creator of the cool songs club Today's podcast is titled enjoy life. Now life is meant to be enjoyed too many people focus on sadness when they could and should instead focus on gladness. We can see the dark, but why not look to the light? We can hear about sad experiences that surround us, but why not focus on faith field experiences that strengthen us, that encourage us, that point us to perfecting our weak thises work is wonderful, but we must make time for play for the positive perceptions portion of this podcast. I would like to read an excerpt titled enjoy life on page 34 from my book, perceptions, parables, and pointers. This is what it says. Have fun. Enjoy life, travel, explore, relax, get out and have a good time. See the world experience life. To know other parts of your city, state nation, and the world at large work is wonderful, but you need to take a vacation every now and then play and get together with family and friends. Experience new cultures, meet new people and create many lasting friendships with people from other countries around the world. Live life to the fullest, have fun, enjoy life. Now, if you think about that, life is meant to be enjoyed. We should have fun. Life is not only about having fun. We must work and we must pay our dues and we must sacrifice and learn how to serve and help others. But if we are not enjoying life, then life becomes drudgery. If we dread each day, what fun is in that instead of freting about our future and worrying about past mistakes, we can live each day in the present. And this moment is the time for us to experience all that life has to offer. We need to have fun. If we are not having fun with our work, our employment, our job, our career, then we need to rethink what we are doing because there should be some amount of joy in what we do each day. If we do not enjoy the work we do, then we must rethink about the reasons why we do the work we do now, all work, regardless of what it is, we'll have things we, we don't enjoy certain aspects that we either dread doing, or we do not always enjoy doing because work by nature must encompass both the good and the bad, but we can rise above it. However, that being said, we enjoy what we do every single day. If we don't, then we need to reassess what we are doing, why we are doing it and what we could potentially do instead that would bring joy and excitement into our lives. Some people dread each coming day. They look forward to the weekend, but every day becomes a day to get through. And that is not how we should live our lives. We should enjoy life and live life to the fullest. For the motivation. In a minute portion of this podcast, I would like to read a quote from my book, perceptions, parables, and pointers. This is found on page 1 95 of the book. And this is what Abraham Lincoln said. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their to be. Now it's a simple statement, but it's true. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. We have that choice to be happy or to be sad. We can choose how we wish to portray ourselves to the world.<affirmative> but it's not about pretending to be happy. We are not acting. We are not putting on a facade. We must genuinely be happy. Which means we must find happiness in even the most simple and mundane of activities. Yes. Life can be a series of habitual tasks performed day in and day out. And yes, most can be tedious. And yet we can find excitement and joy in the simplest of tasks we can make are day great, or it can be grave. It can be somber. We can be solemn. We can help ourselves, see how we can improve. Now we will have some days that will get us down and that's okay. We need those times. We need those moments, but they do not. It need to last all day long. It's good to laugh. Laughter strengthens the soul. If we can find humor, if we can smile, if we can be giddy, be happy. If we can play, if we can remember what it was like to be a child, we will create experiences and have memorable moments. Every single day of our lives. It's a choice and we choose how we want to live our lives for the music. Within portion of this podcast, I would like to have us listen to a him arrangement that I did from my him album HNS of the heart. This is titled Joseph Smith's first prayer, listen to the music as the music gets louder. And as I go up high on the keyboard and then how I go down low, think about what this music may mean to you and what it can do for you as you listen to this music.
Speaker 2:
The,
Speaker 3:
The I, the, the, I, I, I, so the, oh, the hello I and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
Speaker 1:
For the poetry that motivates portion of this podcast, I would like to read my poem. Let me live. This is from my book. The, as if principle motivational poetry, it's found on page 19 of the book, let me read this to you. Let me live. Let me live in a world of wisdom, where knowledge and good books abound. Let me live in a nation of integrity, where honor and truth are found. Let me live in a town where people come first and neighbors become friends for life. Let me live in a home that is filled with love for the children, husband, and wife. Let me live a life of service and selflessly. Give all I own. Let me live in peace and prosperity for in life. I am never alone. Think about that for a minute. Let me live. What, what does that mean to you? Let me live. How do you want to live? There may be a difference between how you were taught or brought up to live as a child, maybe how you lived as a teenager or how you lived when you were in your college days. Maybe how you live as an adult in your early twenties, early thirties or early forties will be very different than how you live as an adult in your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, or hundreds. But that thought, let me live. Think about those words. Let me in a world of wisdom. Now, we live in a wonderful world, filled with so much wisdom, but sometimes we don't learn as much as we could. We don't do everything we truthfully should. And so, even though there is so much wisdom surround this at all times often, there's a discrepancy or a difference between learning, knowing, and doing now truly wisdom comes from experience, but it comes from life lessons. And every day we have life lessons, think about how you can grow in wisdom. And then it says, let me live in a world of wisdom, where knowledge and good books about there are millions of books in the world. We have so many books from every period of time. We have books about all, almost every conceivable topic. What is difficult is choosing or selecting the best of the best books, because so many books abound, and we can read a book that may be okay, but it may not Edify us. It may not teach us. It may not help us overcome some weaknesses. It may not help us be better. It may just be a book that we read for comic relief. And that is great. It may be a book that we read because we want to be entertained, or we want to acquire useful knowledge or even useless knowledge. There are many books that contain a lot of useless knowledge as well. We may want to look at a picture book because the picture either drawn or photographed, leave an impression upon us. They inspire us. They humble us. They compel us. They move us in such a way that because of the images we see, we see the world differently as a result and grow and improve. Let me live in a nation of integrity, where honor and truth are found. We live in a world where we can learn from other cultures, other people of diverse backgrounds. And it's wonderful. Let me live in a town where people come first and neighbors become friends for life. Life. Our neighbors should be family. They should be more than friends. We should serve them. We should help them. We should give of our substance to them. We should teach them. We should be kind. We should smile and laugh and be there when they need us. Then it says, let me live in home. That is filled with love for the children, husband, and wife. We need happy homes. Now, more so than ever. Husbands and wives should love and adore each other. They should serve each other. They should teach each other, but they should not correct. Or compel each other to be something they are not. They should not fight with each other. Yes, we can all disagree and we can agree to disagree. But when those disagreements escalate, when the words become weapons, and when they tear down an individual, when it becomes more destructive and devastating at first, maybe verbally, and then maybe it moves to physical abuse and that should never happen. Children should live in happy homes. They should have loving and kind examples to look up to. And yes, we all fall short. We all make mistakes and no one is perfect, but we can strive to improve. Then it says, let me live a life of service and selflessly give all I own. If we can serve others, if we can help, it can be as simple as saying hello to a stranger, smiling at someone who looks as if their frown needs to be turned upside down, we can do simple and small acts of kindness to serve others. And then it ends by saying, let me live in peace and prosperity for in life. I am never alone. All the time. We hear of hate crimes. We hear of people who, for whatever reason, disagree with others, either because of personal beliefs, because of culture, cuz of the color of their skin and all of these are terrible excuses because everyone, regardless of their level of education, regardless of their level of income, regardless of their culture, their upbringing, regardless of their height or weight, their size, the color of their skin, everyone deserves to be happy. Everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone wants to be accepted to even be adored and admired. And we can do that for others. We can love others. We can admire those around us. We can accept others for who they are, the beliefs. They believe the lifestyles they live. We can accept others. And we can realize that we personally cannot change anyone. We cannot change their views. We cannot change their ideas or ideals. We cannot change their beliefs. The only people who can change themselves are the individuals. If they desire to change, if they choose to change a belief or a view or an idea or a lifestyle, if we try to change them, then they lose their ability of choice. The power to choose is such a wonderful freedom. It's a right. We should not deny others. The right to choose and others should not deny us the right to choose. I do believe in God. And I know not everyone doesn't that is okay. Most people believe in a higher power, even if they do not believe in God, but I believe in God. And I believe that people can choose for themselves that no one else should make individuals choose. But I believe because I believe in God that God loves everyone, that he wants us to be happy. In my faith. We talk about a, a plan of salvation that God had created. And it is often referred to as a plan of happiness. We deserve to be happy. Work is wonderful, but we must make time to play. We must make time for trips. We must take opportunities to create memorable experiences for our children. We must learn to enjoy life in all of the various stages and ages of our experience. Whether we are young or old, we can enjoy life. Even if we are experiencing heartache, even if we are going through terrible times, even if we are trying to recover from personal struggles or battles or failures, we can still find the good in life. Everyone deserves to be happy. We can enjoy life and we can live life to the fullest, but it's our choice. So it's my hope that we will make time for play today that we will wake up every day and think about what we need to accomplish, but also think about<affirmative> what we can do for fun today. How we can enjoy life little by little minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week until those weeks turn into months and years. And then we will realize that we will have lived a happy life. Even if we experienced so much darkness and devastation, we can still find the light in everything that we do. So have a great day today. Be happy. Remember, it's a plan of happiness, of hope of faith, of positivity, of enjoyment. So enjoy life today. And the work is wonderful. Make time today to get out and play. Have a great week, smile all the while, be happy and do your best each and every day. Thanks for listening. See you guys. Bye. Subscribe to music, motivation and more the positivity podcast with Gerald Simon to receive updates about each new weekly podcast. Every Monday, a new podcast is released to help motivate and inspire individuals to learn, to grow, to do, to be and become the very best they can become. These are all motivational messages that inspire men and women of all ages to do and be their best to set goals, to work on improving who they are and who they would like to become. Thank you again for listening, Connect with us on social media to become part of the conversation. As we all work together to motivate each other, to do and be our best For listening to music, motivation and more the positivity podcast. I am your host, Gerald Simon, and I'm grateful to have you listen to this podcast. Every Monday, we come out with a brand new podcast and you can listen to it on any of the podcast streaming sites available, just search for music, motivation and more the positivity podcast with Gerald Simon. Any of the music that I've shared in these podcasts, you can listen to. All of my music is available on Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Amazon on, and any streaming site available. You can also check out my music books at music, motivation.com and you can find my poetry self-help and motivational books available from amazon.com from Barnes and noble and from all different online shops and stores. If you have any questions about the music that I create through my company, music motivation, you can learn more at music, motivation.com and you can visit my website. Cool songs, club.com to learn more about how I create fun, cool piano music that helps motivate piano students to watch play the piano the fun way, especially during their teenage years. I'd love to have you check that out, but thank you again for listening. Please feel free to connect with me on any of the social media sites out there. You can watch my YouTube videos on youtube.com/ Gerald Simon. You can connect with me on fake Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and all social media sites at Gerald Simon. Thanks again for listening until next time. Keep up the great work and have fun. See you guys. Bye.