Franklin Taggart's Unconventional Life Blog

If you're experiencing any lack or scarcity in your life or business, here's an experiment. It's based on a process therapist and speaker Barbara Sher used with encounter groups and other audiences for many years. The experiment is simple. Get very clear on the opportunity you want. Write it down or record yourself describing it in as great a detail as you can. Identify any obstacles you perceive as being in your way. Then ask your community to help you find it. I'm interested to see how this goes for you. Of course, I can't guarantee anything, but I find it remarkable how frequently this process works to help people get what they want. The opportunity I want is to help two people who have been in business for one to three years who are finding their businesses difficult to maintain and sustain. I'm especially interested in helping people if their struggle has anything to do with marketing their products and services. If you or someone you know fits this descrip...

This is a long one. Interrupt your attention deficit and read the whole thing. Thanks. In December 2003, my wife, Monica and I welcomed a baby girl, Sarah Grace. The months leading up to her birth were filled with excitement and anticipation. Both Monica and I were at an age where we thought we’d never be parents, so we were both surprised by the possibility, and we couldn’t wait for our baby to arrive. The day she was born we were greeted with a reality we weren’t prepared for. Sarah was born with a chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18, an extra chromosome on the 18th strand of DNA in every cell of her body that would make it more likely than not that she would die. Despite the challenges, she fought for every moment of life that she had. The days in the hospital are kind of a distant blur now, but there were hours in the NICU spent with my hand through a hole in the incubator giving her as much human contact as the machine would allow. Signing a Do Not Resuscitate order...

Yesterday I drove up to Laramie for a music party honoring the life of Mark Booth. I only met Mark a few times, all memorable, but this story is more about his son, Michael. I can't easily forget the day I met Michael Booth; mostly because it's a fairly typical experience for people who grew up in Wyoming. Wyoming is more like a huge small town than it is a state. Sports teams travel as much as four or five hours to play rival teams. With a population of around 500,000, depending on the boom/bust cycles of the oil and mineral industries, there aren't many people per square foot, so everyone knows everyone, or at least they know the name. When I lived in the DC area I worked at the world famous House of Musical Traditions . They were kind enough to give me a job to get started with my life in a new area having just arrived from Nashville. One fall day I happened to randomly choose to wear my University of Wyoming sweatshirt to work. That same day happened to be the ...