B.C. woman’s decision to give up on dreams leads to unexpected career

“Follow what’s in your heart right now”: Adam finds out how giving up on a dream led a woman to realizing an unexpected career.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — As Sara Magal strums on her guitar, teaching herself how to play a new song, she recalls the child she once was, struggling to read music.

“My mind would be stuck,” Sara says. “It was insane.”

Although she loved making music, and could learn to play any song by ear, Sara was told that if she couldn’t read or write notes, she’d never be able to make it professionally.

“I felt like a loser,” Sara says. “I thought, ‘Was something wrong with me?’”

By the time she was diagnosed with ADHD, Sara had stopped pursuing her passion.

“So, I studied business,” Sara says. “I became an architect.”

For decades, music was relegated to being a pleasant pastime played in private, until friends kept encouraging her to share her talent, and Sara finally found the courage to perform in public.

“I was a little nervous,” Sara says. “I felt a little embarrassed.”

Until the audience responded by clapping a lot.

“It was very good,” Sara smiles.

It felt so good, Sara made a bold decision.

“Give up on your dream!” Sara says that when we are thinking about getting somewhere we stop appreciating where we already are. “So, I’m enjoying now.”

Now she is sitting a park, practising a song about realizing your potential.

“A shiny promise, fresh and new, is hiding in the depths of you,” Sara sings, before explaining its meaning. “It’s about rising up and unchaining the child inside of you.”

Then, Sara reveals what happened after stopped focusing on her childhood dream of being a professional musician and just appreciated the pleasure of making music, like she did as a girl.

“The more I got (free from focusing on the future), the more (opportunities) came up,” Sara laughs. “It’s the irony.”

She started being asked to perform so many times, on increasingly larger stages, that Sara is now celebrating 15 years of making music professionally.

“So just follow what’s in your heart right now,” she smiles.

And along the way, like the lyrics to the song she’s singing says, “unchain the rainbows that replace the rain.”

“Because after the rain,” Sara smiles. “There will always be a rainbow.”