Photo by @AngieLMV 

3 failures in the past 3 years: 

1) Having a project completely on your own: With no partners it is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. What started out as a great idea one day, and me thinking- oh it’ll TOTALLY be easy and just blow up right away…. WRONG! Making something an overnight sensation is NOT a realistic thing, and doing it on your own makes things even harder. You have no one pushing the project along with you to the masses- just yourself, and you have no one helping you produce and create contect- just yourself, and you have no one creating designs and props- just yourself, and you have no one splitting the cost with you- just yourself… which leads me to my next bullet point.

2) Costs: It is SOO expensive to start a project. Okay well let me re-phrase that. It’s hard to start a project and run the project the RIGHT way. Everything is costly. You can only pull so many favors from your friends. In the beginning, sure people want to help you get it off the ground and help if they can and if their skills could and can be helpful, but then a time comes where you just can’t keep running to your friends for help. And your friends are not the right people who have the sort of money who can drastically help you anyway. Which means you have to fundraise. But do you know how hard that it? I do- which is why 90% of everything I’ve done has been out of my own pocket… I can’t remember the last time I did something or bought something nice for just myself.

3) Getting overly excited: Your project is your baby. This is my everything. I’ve put my blood, sweat and tears into the project. And when I would get good feedback from a school or a teacher, I would start to think even BIGGER. How can I make this project even better than what it is? And that’s a great thing to think, but you have to be realistic because everything takes time, money, patience, and hard-work.

3 Accomplishments in the past 3 years:

1) On my own without having a booking agent (someone to help me find lists of schools, call those schools, book the show, and follow up with those school afterwards), doing all this on my own, I have performed the show 56 times which is a total of reaching over 25,000 children.

2) On my own, I have written ALL the lyrics and music (with the help of my boyfriend also a musician) and I am working on releasing my first Album for the program this upcoming September. Along with writing all the music, my songwriter skills and abilities have grown a CRAZY amount over the years and now I truly consider myself a songwriter as well.

3) When a performance has ended, I usually hear the kids singing a song or two from the show, typically the theme song of the program, and they are ALWAYs calling after BTTY the bee- my program’s mascot!

It’s always a ride through some highs, some lows and in between we’re waiting for the coaster to move somewhere but it’s stagnant till it pulls back into the station. The point of this metaphor is that life is constantly moving. So you gotta make moves along side it or you’ll miss out because of fear. The pros will always outweigh the cons and will feel “oh so good” when you get passed the crap. When you’re living a life you’re designing and doing it with LOVE it makes it all worth it.  This led to the BTTY teams’ success, because they didn’t give up, they kept riding with the deep drops and the fast inclines. The rewards weigh out more than the 100 faillures because all It takes is that one moment to change it all so you can live your life exactly how you want it.

To follow Ashley Tobias aka Tobi and Btty the Bee in their adventures and where they’ll be performing next join them on IG @BTTYtheBee