Be the Rockstar in your life NOW.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” One Sunday while in Sunday School class, when I was 13 years old, my teacher, who was going through a life change, presented this question in a different way. He was turning 40 years old, and having thoughts of when he was our age. He decided to use this as a life lesson for us.

Now, off the top of my head, I can remember about three, maybe four, lessons a well-meaning Sunday school teacher tried to get through to us as kids. This is one I remember. Maybe it’s because I myself am over 40 now and realize what he was going through that week. Or maybe it’s the answer I gave that week. Maybe it’s due to the fact that at age 40 his lesson finally hit home.

What he did that Sunday was go around the room, and ask each of us to give a word or short phrase to describe what our life would be at age 40. Then he addressed the good and bad of what each of us said.

My answer was RockStar. This was in the early 80s and, in those days, many rock stars didn’t even live to be 40. The drugs and hard life took many of them at a young age. I was determined to not let that be me.

As I grew up and reached my 20s, it was a forgotten lesson. By then, I was chasing what I thought life was about: Money. By the time I hit my 30s, something else took a front seat in my life: Survival. That’s right. I was just surviving, trying to pay for money spent in my 20s, paying off debt, learning lessons I was repeating for the 3^rd time. And I was still trying to come up with a solution for what described success for me in life – learning to be myself, use the tools and gifts God gave me to reach for the true dreams of what I wanted to do.

Last night I sat and watched a movie from the last decade that reflected the time period I grew up in. It also mirrors the main thoughts behind this blog as well as the book I’m currently writing. It was a Mark Walberg movie from around 2000, called “RockStar.” First I watched the movie, then I watched it again with the director’s commentary. Afterwards, I went to Wikipedia to research the movie further. It came from a true story idea (it turns out a lot of my life lesson movies do have a true life story behind them).

In the movie, the young man so loves and respects the music of his favorite band that he devotes his life to being exactly like their lead singer. By following the footsteps of the lead singer, using his great voice, and modeling his life so closely on that singer, through a stroke of fate, he actually becomes the new lead singer for the band. That puts him into the life of a RockStar but, after years of riding the wave of RockStar success, he is faced with the reality of chasing a dream that is really someone else s life. Ultimately, he walks from the band and searches for his own life.

While I didn’t want to give all the details on this movie, I do want to hint on the points I made above and how they relate to my story. I also want to show you how you can use this to better your life.

Just like the character in the movie, I wanted to be a RockStar. I was seeking what others defined as success. When that didn’t work for me, and my life came crashing down, I still tried chasing a dream that was not truly me. In the process I learned that over a 10-year period of my life I developed my own Seven Point Plan to help me succeed wherever I am. I became the RockStar in all the places I was at the time.

I’m going to share with you over the next seven days how I used these steps to become successful. As I share them Ill share a few failures and what I learned from them. Use this list to look back in your life learn what you did when you were successful, learn where you went wrong with your failures. Know the steps to take, and the steps to avoid. See you tomorrow for our first step.

I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time to live your dream, to love what you do and those you share life with. Get ready to be a RockStar in your world.