Congratulations. You released Michael McDonald’s ‘Soul Speak’ a week earlier. Through your efforts, Michael was able to debut three singles on three separate radio formats. Good stuff. The album debuted to a solid 30K in unit sales. What’s next?

I’m certain there are great plans in place to boost album sales and the visibility of this record. I would hope new singles are being considered for release at radio. Here are two singles I believe will do quite well for Michael:

Enemy Within – AC (Adult Contemporary)

This single should be introduced prior to “Higher and Higher” slipping from the Top 20 at AC. Late Spring/Early Summer would be a great period to ship to radio. This track shouldn’t have any problems breaking the Top 8 at AC radio.

Only God Can Help Me Now – Urban AC

We noted what Michael’s labelmate, Kem, could do with smooth, slow grooves. This track is no exception. Certainly, Kem and McDonald’s voices vary in range and style, however, this track would fair far better than “Love TKO” is doing at the moment. This should go to radio within the next month or less to maintain his presence there.

What’s your next move, Universal/Motown? Let’s keep this engine humming. You have the resources and budget. Do not fall asleep on this album. This is a strong album with much potential.

Money or your passion? It’s a pretty simple question. Do you focus on what you love, or making money? Do you risk screwing up over expressing your passion? Currently, I am between a rock and a hard place. I’ve received a lot of feedback in the past few days about what my focus should be in the coming week and it leaves me feeling confused and misguided.

I know that money is essential to our survival. And, certainly, I could use a good amount of it right now to get back on my feet, realize some goals, etc. However, with the opportunity that is before me, I am not convinced this is the moment to focus on money. If I shift my focus away from the purpose of this opportunity, I run the risk of looking foolish, while diminishing a new form of credibility I’ve never had to date.

I realize there are many people who want me to shine in this new opportunity and leverage it in a way which produces income. I’d like nothing more than that to be true, especially given my current position financially as a self-employed individual. However, I am not certain that this is the opportunity to focus on how to make money. In fact, it’s not even about me. I’m simply participating. If I go into this thinking about how to make money, I am almost certain something will backfire.

However, if I go into this with my heart focused on the purpose, I believe a new world of opportunity will be realized without even attempting to make it happen. It’s a tough situation to be in at this point, and while there are no guarantees, I feel more comfortable following my heart rather than what could flush my pockets with cash.

Somehow, I believe everything people need to know will come across in the delivery of what I love and why I’m inspired by the individual I’ll be speaking about next week. The opportunity in itself is priceless and I can only hope to do what I believe is right, which is sharing my respect for a phenomenal individual.

I recently shared with friends and family the news that I was invited by ABC News to be interviewed for a forthcoming piece they’re working on. There’s a good chance it will be for either “20/20” or “Primetime“. I got the word just three days ago.

Due to the nature of things, I’m not quite prepared to discuss the details, as they are still in planning. However, what I can confirm is that I’ll be in New York City next Tuesday to do an interview. And, it’s about one of many of my great role models. An individual whom, like myself, is extremely passionate about embracing our dreams and imagination.

I am greatly humbled by this opportunity. I am grateful to ABC News and its staff for allowing me to participate. If approved, I will broadcast my activities live here via my live camera so that you too can share in this new and great experience.

Amazon just announced several new features for its EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) service today (learn more about it here and take advantage of my 10% discount on consulting services as mentioned by Amazon). Among them are static IP addresses. Here’s the e-mail announcement. For more details, read their recent blog post:

This is a quick note to let you know about some exciting changes with Amazon EC2. We are happy to announce two significant new features – Elastic IP Addresses and Availability Zones – which help you to run reliable web sites and other applications within Amazon EC2.

Elastic IP Addresses are static IP addresses designed for dynamic cloud computing, and now make it easy to host web sites, web services and other online applications in Amazon EC2. Elastic IP addresses are associated with your AWS account, not with your instances, and can be programmatically mapped to any of your instances. This allows you to easily recover from instance and other failures while presenting your users with a static IP address.
Availability Zones give you the ability to easily and inexpensively operate a highly available internet application. Each Amazon EC2 Availability Zone is a distinct location that is engineered to be insulated from failures in other Availability Zones. Previously, only very large companies had the scale to be able to distribute an application across multiple locations, but now it is as easy as changing a parameter in an API call. You can choose to run your application across multiple Availability Zones to be prepared for unexpected events such as power failures or network connectivity issues, or you can place instances in the same Availability Zone to take advantage of free data transfer and the lowest latency communication.

With these two new features, it now easier than ever for you to isolate your application from common failure scenarios and host high availability web sites in Amazon EC2.

For more information on how to best leverage this new functionality, please see our Feature Guides for Elastic IP Addresses and Availability Zones.

Sincerely,
The Amazon EC2 Team

For the past three years, a pretty nasty storm has raged within. I’ve rallied against all the things I’m passionate about in a very harsh and abrasive way. I’ve lived many days depressed, frustrated and uninspired. I developed a love/hate relationship with women of my generation, and railed against those who couldn’t see life as I do, etc.

I basically became a monster hiding behind his anger to protect his heart. The one thing I’m passionate about is love and giving. They are my two most prized assets. Unfortunately, I allowed one too many unfortunate experiences to ravage my happiness, and over time, I lost my desire for love and happiness overall.

I have reached a point in my life where I realize it’s now time to return to love and to focus on solutions — Rather than my pain and that of the world’s. Changing the tone of my view of the world is important to change the tone of others. If I am angry and frustrated, how will I ever accomplish inspiring others to do great things?

So, I have some goals in mind. I have an idea of how to approach things. The journey won’t be easy, however, it’s something I must do. I have to return to the person I once was before I allowed other people to change me for the worse. By returning to love, solutions and inspiration, I can once again live a healthier and happier life.

I hope you will join me on this journey.