"Even if people say 'no, you don't have any talent' or 'no, you won't earn any money,' I say go ahead and do it. Do it with your whole commitment. Do it knowing that you're the one who wants to do it-it's your choice and your responsibility."
-Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist

Randy Komisar, a start-up guru in San Francisco, used to be a product of this noise. He went to Harvard Law School, and "didn't like it from the day I got there." He went to work in the legal profession until he determined that he had "no affinity or passion for being a lawyer, and needed to deal more with ideas and creativity." So he extricated himself from the pressures holding him back from leaving a "very successful" career, and left. "When you speak to people who have all the trappings of success but are really unhappy, there's a common syndrome: They've crossed a lot of hurdles, but they weren't their own hurdles. They were someone else's hurdles."

So who sets these hurdles up for us? And why do we continue to jump over them? Randy is the perfect example, "There I was on my path, completely unhappy but very successful. I was making good money, but I wasn't one iota closer to happiness."

Determined to bring happiness back into his life, Randy started the process of shedding the noise. "My transformation was not immediate. First I stripped away layer after layer of social bias. I had to deal with my fear that, by not being a lawyer, I would lose something that I had gained."

After living this process, he has an enlightened perspective on what life is really about. "Engage in what truly motivates you now. Don't defer it by wearing a suit and going to work on Wall Street in the hope that you'll put away enough money to figure out what you really want to do. You will never get there that way. I can spout off about this because I made that mistake."

Listening to Randy and others share their stories about how they freed themselves may have saved us from making that very same mistake. We were on the brink of going into medical school, consulting, and the family business. The roadtrip and the stories we heard got to us right in the nick of time. Without that experience, we could have never realized that the noise was in fact just noise-and that we could shed it from our lives and define our own roads. As Howard White from Nike told us, "Everybody tries to define who you are. So are you going to let them define you, or are you going to define yourself?"

The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Several concerts on the Dixie Chicks' "Accidents & Accusations" tour have been canceled after slow ticket sales, but the group says it has replaced them with other dates.

Kansas City, Houston, St. Louis, Memphis and Knoxville are among 14 cities no longer on the original schedule released in May, according to a revised itinerary posted Thursday on the Dixie Chick's Web site.

Other shows, including Nashville, Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix, have been pushed back to later dates.

The North American leg of the tour kicked off July 21 in Detroit. Billboard magazine and other trade publications have reported lackluster sales in some markets, particularly in the South and Midwest.

Group spokeswoman Kathy Allmand said Monday that the total number of North American dates remains the same, with several Canadian cities added in place of the U.S. shows.

The trio released a statement last week attributing the changes to attempts to "accommodate demand" and said more dates might be added next year.

The group also said the adjustments will allow them to promote the documentary "Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing," for the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

"We hope that our fans who were looking forward to a stop that is no longer on the tour will be able to join us at a nearby arena this fall, and we are sorry for any confusion or inconvenience these changes have caused," the Dixie Chicks said.

Many country fans criticized the band after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience in 2003 on the eve of war in Iraq that the trio was "ashamed" President Bush was from their home state of Texas.

County radio stations dropped them from their playlists and have been slow to welcome them back, despite strong sales of their latest album, "Taking the Long Way."