“It was great to be alive. I was 19 years old and was on the radio in a small town…” Following your dream gives you the freedom to try anything else in your lifetime.
Aspiring to be a radio DJ at 12-years-old; at 19 Delta’s Larry Amstutz realized his dream only to leave broadcasting a relatively short time later.
The heartbreaking decision to leave his dream career puts him on a 40-year path towards “finding his groove” and contentment.
Finding My Groove published by Friesen Press, takes you on a journey across Canada and across time. People yearn to fulfill their dreams and yet don’t give themselves permission to do so. Through a conversational style, the author demonstrates that it is okay to chase that dream, even if in doing so it becomes apparent at some point that there is something else that really is your purpose. Permission to try and fail, to live and learn, and to love, be heartbroken and love again is shared through personal stories.
“When I was 12-years-old and dreamt of being a radio announcer, I had this mental image of myself wearing a white shirt and necktie, sitting in front of a microphone, wearing headphones in a radio studio in a skyscraper…” decades later I “…found myself working at my office in a skyscraper in Vancouver…white shirt and tie included…” (although now working in the financial sector) “…as I swiveled in my chair and looked over the lights of the city it struck me that I was living the scene I had imagined for myself when I was young,” he said. “It was a profound moment for me, and I was moved; transported back to my younger self in the logging camp so far away.”
Amstutz grew up in a Vancouver Island logging camp and in small towns on the Island; worked in forestry, mining, and other resource sector jobs; and studied and worked in radio broadcasting, his childhood dream career.
He left those dreams behind to move to Toronto and climb the rungs in department store merchandising, human resources, and training; entered the financial sector back in B.C.; and found his “vibe in the not-for-profit sector. Now married and retired, the he lives in Delta with his wife Trisha, their terrier Gus, and a collection of acoustic guitars and his prized Vintage 60’s Fender Telecaster.
Finding My Groove is available for order from most major online book retailers including the Friesen Press Bookstore and Amazon. The eBook is available for Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and GooglePlay.
