Marshall Ramsey

Back before I was made part-time, my schedule was pretty consistent.  I would get up, read, go to work, develop ideas, draw them and then go home. Some days I’d also speak and do other work in the community. But for the most part, it was consistent.

That got blown up with my career.  Today, I never know what the day will bring. I’m still doing six cartoons a week for the C-L (which is a full-time job in its own right).  But I’m also traveling, speaking, drawing and still trying to be a full-time dad.  It’s stretching this unorganized, right-brained guy all over the place.

I once prayed to become more organized.  Well, sometimes God doesn’t directly grant your wish — He gives you the opportunity to learn what you prayed for.  That’s the case here.  I’m going to succeed wildly.  But I had better get my stuff together.  I need to become way more productive. Things are falling between the cracks.

I have the talent. Now I have to manage that talent.

So it begins today.  Change isn’t easy. But I have a lot things riding on my changing.  I’m motivated. And that’s #2 on today’s to-do list.

Photo by Bre

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of reading a couple of books to a group of kids and parents.  I was invited by Channel 12’s Ellen Skrmetti to join local celebrities Malcolm White, Robert St. John and Louis Bruno at the Mississippi Children’s Museum.  We read books out of The Dolly Parton Imagination Library (which is sponsored here by The United Way.)  What a great program. Basically every kid in three targeted zipcodes (in Jackson, Canton and Pisgah area) will get a series of books until they are six.  It’s an unbelievably awesome program to expose kids to books and to increase literacy.

I enjoyed it because obviously I am all about reading. You can’t read? Well you’re not going to be a Marshall Ramsey fan.  And I’m also all about it because I know that an educated population is the keystone for our representative democracy.  Our love of being entertained and not educated only works against us when it comes to election day.

So I read.  And loved it.  Thanks Ellen for allowing me to be part of such a great program. It was wonderful being able to give a little back to a community that gives me so much.

I’m one of those kind of employees that will lie down in front of a truck for someone who believes in me.  Appreciate the work I do and I’ll move mountains. Heck, I’m that way as a person. Let me know you give a darn and I’ll die in a ditch for you.  Pee on my head and tell me it’s raining? Insult my hard work? Well, then you lost me.

As I plow forward in my reinvention, I’ll remember that in my dealings with other people. I’m going to choose to believe in people who are working with me. In my family. In my friends.  It’s my new golden rule of business. Do unto others as you would have done until you.