No matter what road you take, it leads to where you are. Guest Post by Peter Baker

Sounds odd. But it’s true.

If you are driving in a car on a journey, a road will lead you to wherever you get. Most of the time, we have a destination. Either in life, or while on the road. The road you take depends on your goals.

Goals can be ambiguous, like Clay Aiken’s Sexuality or goals can be made with the utmost of specificity in mind. Neither approach is bad nor good, as I see it, though there might be the question on the tactical way to employ each form of goal setting.

A few years ago, I was in a heavy metal band and I was living with my father and his current fiancée at the time. I was driving with the keyboard player, and we stopped at a CVS to buy some toothpaste. He had to get home to his crippled brother and take care of him. I told him I would walk home, as it was not far away. Along the way, I noticed a music store was being built into the plaza I passed by every day. Right next to the local Beef O’ Brady’s sports bar, and Tattoo shop. I said, “Wow, three music stores on the same goddamn road. Maybe this one needs a guitar teacher.”

I sure as fuck hoped so, because I REALLY needed a job. My ambiguous goal was to get a job, and I didn’t care what. I even applied to (and got denied by) McDonalds. Almost three years later, I write this and still work at this particular music store, even after finally becoming a college graduate.

As many of us know, when you follow a planned weight training routine for so long, you plateau. According to the industry cats who write the books, when you plateau, it’s time to change something.

At first, working at the store was great. I got super good at guitar because I didn’t want some punk ass kid coming in and showing me up. I learned what I should have learned years ago in record time, and daily I keep getting better at the skill of playing guitar–I also am getting better at piano, merely because I have access to it. I have even forgotten almost all of the Nickelback songs I have had to learn at the request of so many of my students.

Alas, the plateau. Like the trainee who has stalled because his 5×5 plan fails, yet still loves weight training, I love what I do, but hate going into work every day now. I like being the teacher who gives the student the tools to question and create their own things, and not merely play by rote what others have done. It is a truly wonderful feeling, almost as good as telling someone how to implement a ROM test to achieve their goals faster. Accepting money, unfortunately, is a necessary side effect of all this. As far as money goes, my current place shafts me big time. It pays worse than the other two near me. The trade off is I merely show up and play guitar and show other people how to do the same. I get to know a lot of cool people kids and adults. Conversely, I see how terrible parents are at parenting. I even had a brief fling with a coworker and we made it to second base, but through all this I have hit that dreaded plateau, and dread going to the physical place of employment.

I decided to put it out here, on a blog more read than my own, so that way I will force myself to take the road less traveled. I decided recently to take my business for my own, keep all the profit, and in turn keep all the rewards–monetarily, and psychologically. The biggest fear is in actually doing it, but thanks to craigslist, it has made taking action a lot easier. Also noteworthy, I know little about running a business, so the process will be one of growth and learning. (By the way, if any readers would like to throw business advice my way, do so. If it tests well with a ROM test, I will go with it.)

Peter Baker is the author of Death Metal and Deadlifting , he teaches music in Tampa and enjoys throwing around Iron. Drop in and bust his balls from time to time, he enjoys that.

My comment will be posted here now: Peter get your ass in gear and get the career path you want moving. No point in waiting any longer. – ATG