From 3 to 33 Lessons God Taught Me Through My Three Year Old.

Hello friends,

My name is Troy Horne. I am a husband to a beautiful, brilliant and talented lady, a father of an extraordinary three-year-old, and an entrepreneur . I have had a pretty fun and blessed life. I have toured the world with my music in one form or another. I toured the United States opening for The Steve Miller Band, and I toured Japan and Europe with an acappella band called The House Jacks. I starred on Broadway in the cast of RENT. I also appeared in Forbes magazine when I was 24.

I plan on doing that again, God willing.

I was a part of a television show called Firebrand T.V. for a hot second. I have been fortunate enough to have my music placed on soundtracks for film, like the Tupac Shakur documentary Thug Angel (QD3/ "Somebody owes me money!"), The Real Cancun (New Line Cinema/ "They cut my song from the soundtrack but kept it in the movie - long story"), All About You (Faith Filmworks / "Really Great People!", and various television shows (Weeds, America's Next Top Model, Blah Blah, Blah.

So what?!

Everything changed this year. This year I lost family and friends like I have never lost them before, some of them young, all unexpectedly. It was like all of a sudden someone woke me up and said. "Hey, Troy! Uh, just thought you should know, ummm, you're about halfway through your turn at life and, uh... you should probably do whatever it is you wanted to do, uh.... NOW! "Are we there yet?" took on a whole new meaning, if you know what I'm saying.

There I was, standing on stage, in what was conceivably a career highlight moment, and all I could think was, "What the hell am I here for? Why am I on this planet at this time, in this place, in this space, under these circumstances?" So I left the show, because I felt it was what I was supposed to do, and I started to ask: "God, what is this all about?"

And you know what? God started to answer me. Not in that big, authoritative, James Earl Jones voice, or in the calm soothing Morgan Freeman voice. No, not even in the dry yet comedic George Burns voice, but in the high-pitched gentle voice of my three-year-old son. The lessons kept coming. Sometimes every day, some times three times a day, and sometimes nothing for weeks.

Either way I thought I should write them down. Kind of like my own little Conversations With God. Then I thought, how cool would it have been if he (Neale Donald Walsch) had blogged when he was getting all of this information? What if people, hell, the world could have been a part of the process? So I thought, if this is one of those moments, lets put it out there.

And I thought, If this stuff is helping me, maybe it will help someone else. So from this point on, I am writing it all down. I hope that it helps you as much as it is helping me. If you have any such conversational moments or have any questions about mine feel free to write. Lets share this stuff.

Okay, so my first lesson was - Let Go of the Mouse.

After I left the show a little panic slowly set in. Why, you ask? Well, It was kind of funny. Not funny-haha, funny-weird. As soon as I told the RENT producers that I did not want to renew my contract, the producers of the T.V. show decided that they did not want to renew my television contract. You know, the whole "Okay, now what?" moment. The "What did I do?" moment. The "WE'RE GOING TO STARVE, OH GOD, WHY?!!!" moment.

So, I started scrambling to do everything that I knew how to do. Went on every audition, called every connection. Nothing! Started doing voice over auditions. Nothing! Applied for every office job on Monster. Nothing! Then one evening, I was playing with my son on the computer.

He was playing his favorite video on Noggin and all of a sudden panic broke out ,as it will with three-year-olds, and he became frantic. I asked him what was wrong. He told me "I have to get back to the groundhog video." "Okay," I said, "Calm down and let me help you." I began to reach for the mouse, and the most interesting thing happened. He pushed my hand away and said, "No, no, I can do it." So, being a dad of the "Let him learn because it will make him smarter and more self-sufficient" era, I took my hand away. After a few minutes of mouse moving and more frustration on his part, he said to me, "Daddy help me!"

So I reached for the mouse, only to be pushed away again before my hand could even touch it. "No, no Daddy, I can do it," he said. So again I took my hand away and watched him push the mouse around the screen pointing and clicking on every button but the one that he wanted. It was pretty difficult to watch. The button was right there, and a problem that would have taken me two seconds tops to fix was driving him further and further into three-year-old frustration land. I saw him navigate to pages that took him even further away from his intended goal. It began to get upsetting even for me. The voice inside my head was going crazy. "It's right there! A little to the left. No, back. To the right. Down. No, now up! Ughh!"

That's when God spoke to me and said "That's what you are doing to me." "Ohh, Crap!" I thought. God continued. "You asked for my help, yet every time I begin to help you, you grab the mouse. You push my hand away. You apply for some job you don't want. Pay to be a member of a group that will help you get to some place you don't really want to go, only because you think "I have to be doing something - I can't just sit here. I can't just trust that this God stuff is really real and that I will be okay." So when I try to help you, you push my hand away and you say, "No, no I got it." And you surf the web/life going off in every other direction and taking yourself further away from where you want to go. Where I want to help you go. And believe me just like you see clearly where your son wants to go, and you know it would take you two seconds to direct the mouse point it and click it and get him there, I see where you want to go and it would take me two seconds to get you there. If... you let go and let me do it.

Now for those who know me and for those who are getting to know me: That is hard. I never sit still. I am always looking for the next thing. "Push! Push! Push!" is my motto. But this time I think I am going to listen. My wife would think that's a miracle in and of itself. Ha! Think about it.

Let go and Let God is what they always say. Wayne Dyer says amazing things happen when you let go. So I think I am going to give it a shot. What do you think?

P.S. If you have any stories about letting go and how it turned out, I would love to hear them.


Yours in Success,

Troy