By Mike Walter, “Multi-Op Corner”
We are between my two favorite Holidays: Thanksgiving and New Years Day. They are my favorites for a few reasons, not the least of which is that they are non-secular so anyone of any faith can celebrate them.
They are also polar opposites. Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to look backwards; to assess the things we are grateful for in our lives and to, well, give thanks.
Hopefully you celebrated last week with a house full of close family and loved ones and you over-indulged (just this one day).
At some point, I hope you made a mental list of the things you are appreciative of and allowed yourself to really enjoy those things.
As an industry peer I’m sure you’ll agree with me that our industry in one of the things on my list every year.
I’m grateful that clients understand the value of good entertainment and that my talents have been able to provide me with a very nice lifestyle. I do something I love and I make a good living doing it. If that isn’t the definition of The American Dream I don’t know what is.
New Year’s Day, as I said, is the exact opposite. We look forward on this day. Many people make resolutions (not me — I have a pretty strong negative opinion of resolutions that you may have read about on my personal blog last year).
And if not specific promises, most of us will focus on the broad strokes of setting goals both personally and professionally for the year to come.
But I think the main reason they are my two favorite Holidays is that they signal the beginning and the end of one of the craziest and busiest times of year for so many Mobile DJs.
Holiday parties in December have certainly tailed off in the last few years but it still remains one of the busier months and for us it’s the rare opportunity to book mid-week work.
We’ll perform at the random Wednesday night Holiday Party or Thursday night Christmas party (funny how some companies call their year-end celebrations different things; we even have one that calls it a Winter Celebration – talk about being Politically Correct!)
And what has happened for me in the past is you get so deep into work mode, DJing 4, 5, sometimes even 6 nights a week all the way through Christmas and then top your month off with a huge New Year’s Eve celebration, that by January 1st you just collapse and veg on the couch all day.
Not that that’s a bad thing, every DJ is entitled to sleep late and lay around all day every once in a while.
So this year, assuming your December is packed out, set your sites on New Year’s Day. Rock as many events as you can in the meantime. Hand out as many cards as possible, impress as many guests as you can and generally be the traveling entertainment show.
And by the time you get to January 1st, bask in the warm glow of a job well done. And then enjoy that unique Holiday like you never have before, glancing ahead at 2013 and what promises to be another great year.