Dan Coyle – Somethings Changed – A Candid Interview

Dan Coyle – Something\’s Changed – Link to You Tube Video

Dan Coyle is a nationally touring musician…, something changed inside of me as I watched Dan’s candid video, and then listened to his honest and sincere responses to my questions – his passion and inspiring story blew me away.

Dan was born and raised in a blue collar household near Buffalo New York. He felt from an early age that he was suppose to be on a path, he just didn’t know what it was.  Dan often felt like an outsider in his own town, their were terrific people there, he said, he just didn’t feel like he fit.  Sometimes Dan escaped this world,  with written words in one form or another. It was his way of expressing himself, while still keeping it to himself, and would later use this talent to write his songs. Dan was the first person in his family to go to College, and it was there that he quickly found the theater community, and where he picked up his first guitar. He found his voice, as he taught himself to play, listening to the Beatles, while creating his own unique and authentic sound. It came easy to him – he had found the path that he needed to take.

After graduation in 2004 he moved to Chicago, and in 2006, after a lot of hard work, the doors started swinging open for him. He had two studio cds and toured across the country, but as the opportunities popped up, Dan told me, so did the fear.  He heard all the voices of people telling him, all the reasons why things wouldn’t work.  Trying to please everyone, and not pleasing himself. It became a really hard time in his life, so he took time off to figure things out, to get himself settled down and thinking clearly.  That experience he felt made him more introspective, and I believe was the final piece that gives him the truth to his voice, and his depth today.

When asked about living his dream Dan modestly said, that he would say that he is one of the riches people he knows, not financially, but he definitely feels like he is living no one else’s dream.  He says that he truly believes that the only thing you can do for me is to make yourself happy, and the only thing I can do for you is to make myself happy.  Dan said that it may sounds selfish, but it’s really the most selfless act. We need to take the time and effort to make ourselves happy because that radiates out to people. When he does something now, he’s doing it for the right reasons, not blindly or mindlessly – it’s purposeful, and inspired.

I then asked, what would he tell someone that’s at a crossroad in life teetering between the safe choices, meaning the path that everyone tells you to take, and the path that feels right to you?  Dan laughed and said that he seemed to attract a lot of people who are at the crossroads of life, and then went on to say, if your at a crossroad then that means your standing still, but time isn’t.  So first you need to determine your world view.  Is your world friendly or hostile? You need to get this right.  With a friendly world view you’re going to radiate that feeling out-word, and people become coconspirators, and they help you in some way. Even if they are less than friendly, they are still helping you in someway. You get a refection of how your feeling inside. In a friendly world, you will also help others.

Most of us know very few things, and we don’t know what the future will bring. Everyone nods there head, like they understand, but very few people act like that, and live like that from day to day. Instead they take the dream that they have, and demean it. They focus on everything that could go wrong if they were to try it, when they don’t have any reason to know that things will go wrong. Very few people give equal time and energy to the thought of “what if everything were to go flawlessly” or “everything will work out just as it should” – how about that idea! How about following your dream, and following it, because it is your dream!

What I always keep going back to is,  the only thing I can do for you is to make myself happy, and only thing you can do for me is to make yourself happy. If your not doing that, you are holding humanity back. I firmly believe that, and the only way we are going to evolve in a meaningful way,  is for people to start listening to what it is that they truly want to do, because anyone who has that “knowing” and they don’t follow it – it’s wrong – to themselves, to their abilities, to everyone around them, and to humanity as a whole. They are holding back – like they have a fire that could burn at a 1000 degrees, but they don’t know what will happen, so they only live at about half. It’s the most hideous thing people can do. There are so many people who don’t know what they want to do and they search and they struggle to know. So if you are a person who knows, it’s up to you to own it, to pursue that dream. Because you don’t know how it will affect the world.  You need to fulfill it, and realize that your doubts and fears are your traitors. Find a prison cell to put them in, or find a way to get rid of those things that you’re afraid of, because someday we will look back at these things that we didn’t do.  I’m a firm believer that our fears of today will become out regrets of tomorrow. Stay in the presence of what you want to do, you will radiate enough positive energy that things will start to happen. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the rest of us, because you need to fulfill your purpose. I think humanity has been held back enough by people who have felt a purpose or calling and turned their head the other way for whatever reason – you have to listen to your heart, you need to pursue your dream. I have a lot riding on convincing you of this, we all have a lot riding on convincing you of this.  Its the only way that this world will move on in a better way.

We have to remember that before anything was invented or achieved no one thought that it could be done. The airplane wasn’t invented by a group of people sitting around saying how it was impossible to fly. They said -how, is it possible. For whatever strange reason, they were compelled to find a way to fly people in the air from point A, to point B, safely. Think about what everyone must of said about that dream. Everyone must of thought that they were insane, but they had to say, I’m going to find a way to make it happen. For some strange reason they were compelled to figure that out. Thank God that they did! Your dreams are the same, even if you don’t think they affect someone else, or people, on a global scale – they do, its a domino effect… every thing you do, every kind word, or every time you inspire or make someone happy, it keeps going.  You don’t know who it inspired, and who they are going to inspire, that passes it on to someone else, every time you make someone happy you don’t know where that energy is going. Thats what I would tell someone at the crossroads…

Dan thanks me, for sending him the questions and listing to his 40 min audio response, and then tells me he appreciates me, all the while I’m sitting here in awe, listening with gratitude, and thanking him, for his inspiring story.

Dan begins his summer tour soon…For More of Dan Coyle – Links

Website: www.dancoyle.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/dan_coyle

Facebook: http://bit.ly/dcXazX

Weekly Podcast: http://bit.ly/bxq1Zx

iTunes Digital Downloads: http://bit.ly/a8gfta

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Love,

Goldi

www.GoldilocksBlog.com

Wanting us to create/live our “just right” lives…