#0: Why this book?
Throughout my childhood, I always did the things that were expected of me at school. At first it was because it pleased my parents and then because I was convinced that by always getting good grades at school, I would inevitably become rich and logically, happy. At 12 years old, I told myself I would become a banker. At 27 years old, I found myself with a business degree, an MBA in finance, a high-responsibility position in my dream city, Sydney, and a substantial salary. I had made it! I had sacrificed so much to get there!
At that moment, I realized that I wasn't happy, that all of this didn't make me happy and that when I wasn't working, I didn't know how to occupy myself... I had no passion (ok, except for dancing Salsa!).
What a shock! I then undertook a 180-degree change in my career and life, trying to learn what I liked, my passions, and my desires.
When my son Taiyo was born a few years later in 2010, it continued to reinforce this desire. I realized that I wanted to have free time to spend with him. In 2013, my daughter Saya was born, and she had to be resuscitated after spending more than 20 minutes without breathing. What I experienced at that moment is indescribable, but one thing remained engraved: life is short, it must be lived to the fullest by fully living one's desires and passions. I didn't want my children to make the same mistakes as me; I wanted them to live their passions fully as well.
But how can we identify our children's passions when we ourselves have trouble identifying our own?
How can we help our children develop their passion, especially when we know nothing about the passion(s) they have discovered?
Taiyo has always loved listening to music and playing instruments. Like all other children, I thought. Strange, though, since neither of us played instruments! And then at 6 years old, he asked us if he could go play music in the street for the pleasure of passers-by. At that moment, I thought that he wasn't really like the other children. I had a lot of reservations about letting my son play in the street to earn coins. But I said yes.
And then I discovered the world of music in general and street music in particular. It has been almost 7 years now that Taiyo has been a street artist.
He has matured so much,
He has learned so much about himself,
He has developed such self-confidence,
He has become such a self-taught showman,
He has simply blossomed and has now become a young musician who loves to make people happy with his music.
So with this book, I decided to tell his story with the aim:
To help children and their parents discover their passion for music
To help parents develop and support their children's passion
To motivate music-loving children to start playing in the street for the happiness of passers-by and their own.
All this while developing self-confidence, learning how to live from music without having to take music theory lessons.