Barry Casson has had an interesting career.  He was a drummer for Chuck Berry & The Drifters.  He's been a professional photographer & videographer with thousands of his photos printed in papers and starting the Victoria Motion Picture School.  With a wealth of experience in many interesting worlds, Barry has also moved into public speaking and his talk today is 'who you were meant to be'.
 
While a group of Rotarians aren't his normal crowd for this type of talk, the point was not lost on us.  Forbes Magazine did a survey of middle income earners and 65% of them were unhappy in their job.  A passion of Barry's is to use his life lessons and strengths to help people try to find their best potential instead of looking back over a 40 year career and not being happy with your life.   Barry swears by a form of disciplined daydreaming that helps you focus what you really want to make it happen.  Every morning, if you take a blank piece of paper and write down 20 ways you could improve, it puts that thought into your subconscious daily and that is a strong 'drug' for you and your goals. 
 
Barry himself was a successful drummer but really idealized photography and learned out of interest.  He wanted to work for a paper and get his pictures out there and had an intimidating introduction face to face with the editor of a big daily paper.  He said he was so scared and the interaction didn't seem to go well but he had one of his photos in the paper the next day.   Success buy just putting himself out there and asking. 
 
In film, his most demanding job was recording "Lost in the Woods" an educational program about kids in the woods and how to be safe if you're ever lost.  It was a huge success once it was out, but getting it made was a huge challenge and Barry didn't think it would happen.  It did happen seemingly only when Barry turned his own approach around.  Seeing 1200 people screen the film on the first day in two seatings was one of Barry's proudest moments and it was immediately taken up by the National Film Board.