This picture of a very little "DJ Sofia" dropping beats and singing into the headset still makes me smile. She has always loved listening to tunes and her passion for song has already taught her some great lessons.

Just before summer vacation, she came home and declared "I signed up for music share in class." I was a little thrown, since she hasn't taken lessons for any instrument. Lesson 1: Raise your hand and take a risk. If you wait until everything is absolutely in order, you may never start. Turns out, she was all set to put herself out there and told me she was going to play the harmonica. Remember, she has never played the harmonica. The kazoo? Absolutely. But, not the harmonica.

We talked about the responsibility of practicing and had a terrific chat about what that means. Lesson 2: Let people know you value their time and attention.  If you're going to ask people to engage with your performance, they deserve to see you've been working on something worth listening to. We found a simple song and she got to work. Searching some YouTube videos provided her with easy instruction for newbies and helped her be independent with this project. She was completely electric in being able to do this on her own. This lesson was more for me than it was for her. Lesson 3: You have to bake your own cake. This is something my parents used to say to me... "we can give you the ingredients, but you have to bake your own cake. Your successes are yours and your failures are yours." So, I can support her and believe in her, and she needs to believe in herself too. Because, at the end of the day, she's the one who has to do the work.

On the day of the music share, she told me that she was super excited but also nervous. I said, "That's a great way to know that this is important and means something to you. You've practiced hard and you're ready. Now, go have fun." Best life lesson of all.