NORTON

what you want is not enough. Vision without execution is hallucination.” — omas Edison. Well said, Mr. Edison.

e fth lesson for today is this one, hope drives purpose, purpose fuels passion, passion primes the pump of performance, and performance delivered equals results. At the end of the day, it is about what we accomplished. What was the outcome of our e orts? Who did we serve? Who did we help? e de nition of success di ers for everyone, yet every de nition of success will have some form of measurement of results. Earl Nightingale teaches a

LETTER TO THE EDITOR State should stop scammers

Last month National Consumer Protection Week kicked o an e ort by law enforcement o cials across the country to shine a light on the most prevalent issues impacting consumers. According to the annual report published by Attorney General Phil Weiser’s o ce, Colorado has its hands full when it comes to combating deceptive behavior and abusive business practices as consumer complaints and inquiries have skyrocketed 28% year over year. One issue that has plagued Colorado, in particular, has been impostor scams, and it is something that our public o cials should be addressing head-on.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost $2.8 billion to scammers in 2022, an 8% increase over the year before. Phone scams were particularly harmful, with victims reporting a median loss of $1,400. Colorado has the unfortunate distinction of being ranked fourth in the nation for the most reports of impostor scams per capita. ese predatory schemes range from scammers pretending to be a liated with a prominent business to tricking the elderly into sending money to scammers under the guise of helping their grandkids out of a jam. As someone who has had a long e change to our nearly two dozen publications gives them a cohesive feel, and combined with a change to a more compact size in printing, allows the news content to take center stage, as it should. lesson in his program e Strangest Secret, he says that we do not achieve success when we become rich, we achieve success rst by believing, doing the behaviors, and having the right attitude that leads us to our success. e best way to get started on your way to getting things done is to create a list of all the things you are hoping for. Make room for hope, give hope a chance, and watch what happens.

Two years ago this week, our publications became owned by a new company, the Colorado News Conservancy. Its mission and purpose are right there in its name: to conserve local news, keep it in local hands and keep it vibrant. We recognized that folks get their news in di erent forms, not just in print, so this is just the rst stage in a project to demonstrate our commitment to innovation and progress.

How about you? Are there areas of your own life, personally or professionally, that can bene t from an infusion of hope, purpose, passion, performance, and achieving greater results? I would love to hear your story at gotonorton@gmail.com, and when we can begin with a little spark of hope, to ignite the res of purpose career in law enforcement and has spent time educating our seniors on how to avoid being the victim of scams, I am particularly concerned about this issue. Cases of elderly scams in our state have been welldocumented and authorities across Colorado have warned residents about these exploitative o enses. While impostor scams have the potential to be nancially devastating for any Coloradan, they can be especially crippling for elderly residents living on a xed income. e AG’s o ce needs to dedicate resources to combating these scams. Cracking down on fraudsters is much more impactful than some of the other issues AG Weiser is pursuing, such as political tussles with tech companies. While those battles might grab some ashy headlines, ghting scams like these and recovering stolen money can actually have a profound impact on the lives of everyday Coloradans. ank you for your continued support and loyalty to our publication. We believe there are better days ahead.

Let’s hope our top law enforcement o cials recalibrate their focus and give these predatory scams the attention they deserve.

Kevin Edling of Centennial is an Arapahoe County resident and retired Denver police o cer who now speaks to senior citizens on fraud awareness and other criminal matters in his own time.

We want you to feel proud and connected to whichever of our publications you receive. We hope you will appreciate the e ort and attention to detail that went into this redesign. We welcome your feedback and comments on our new look, and any part of our newsgathering. Your opinion matters to us, and we always strive to improve to meet your expectations.

— Linda Shapley, publisher, Colorado Community Media

and passion, to elevate our performance, results will happen and that really will make it a better than good life.

Norton is an author, a personal and professional coach, consultant, trainer, encourager and motivator of individuals and businesses, working with organizations and associations across multiple industries.

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

At e Alley in downtown Littleton, you might nd a musician who’s so into the music, they’ll get up and dance on the bar.

When a local band surprises the crowd with a stellar performance that no one saw coming, “it just knocks people’s socks o ,” said Mary Riecks, e Alley’s bar manager and a Littleton-area native.

e watering hole on Main Street doubles as a music venue that nds and helps grow local talent — and the shows are free. It’s one of the bars in the metro Denver suburbs that o ers a window into up-and-coming homegrown performers amid a music scene that one longtime bar owner says is growing.

“Twenty years ago when I opened up the bar, there were a few bars around that had live music,” said Doug Jacobsen, owner of Jake’s Roadhouse in Arvada.

Since then, he’s noticed that “all of these di erent bars” now o er space for shows, said Jacobsen, who has friends who perform at spots around metro Denver.

“ ere’s a lot of great musicians here,” Jacobsen said.

Here’s a look at places o the beaten path where you can catch some lesser known — and sometimes famous — music artists in person.

‘Something for everyone’ Wild Goose Saloon in Parker o ers a bit of a di erent environment: It’s a bar but also a large event venue. ey’re both longtime musicians themselves — they perform in a band called Lola Black, garnered play on the radio and toured around the country — and have played Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre several times, Dellinger said. ey take their knowledge of the industry to running the Wild Goose, which was built around the concept of serving as a music venue and has a bigger stage, sound and lighting setup than most bars do, Dellinger said.

It aims to be “Colorado’s version of the Knitting Factory” — a unique, independent venue that hosts local and national artists, said Chris Dellinger, who serves as co-owner of Wild Goose Saloon with his wife.

It’s “kind of like every musician’s dream to own their own venue at some place and time, and we just ended up being able to pull it o ,” said Dellinger, who lives in Aurora.

After opening in July 2021, Wild Goose has hosted some large country artists and “some `80s artists that are still big,” Dellinger said. National pop-rock act American Authors is set to play there in late April.

“My motto always is, ‘If you don’t like the music one night, that’s OK — it’ll be completely di erent the next night or the next week,’” Dellinger said. “So we really try to have something for everyone here.”

His venue tries to get exposure for local talent by letting them open for national touring acts. For the audience, the typical admission cost for a national artist’s show at Wild Goose sits around $25 to $30, but local artists’ ticketed shows can cost as low as $10, and most of the local artists’ shows are free.

Dellinger and his wife have

“snuck in” a performance or two at Wild Goose, he said — they were set to play there in late April with the Texas Hippie Coalition, an American heavy metal band. Keeping classics alive

You might also see Jacobsen, a guitarist himself, playing with a band at Jake’s Roadhouse in the north metro area every now and then.

His bar started o ering live music “right away” after opening near the end of 2003. Sitting in east Arvada close to Denver and Westminster, the venue o ers mostly cover bands and blues, and on Wednesday nights, bluegrass is on tap. Sometimes, artists play original songs, but it’s rare, Jacobsen said.

“Our people come in to hang out, and most original bands don’t have four hours’ worth of original music,” Jacobsen said.

But playing covers at Jake’s Roadhouse is one way to get a new artist’s foot in the door in the local music scene.

“We have bands that come to us all the time that can’t get these other bars to give them a chance to play because they haven’t played anywhere before,” Jacobsen said. He added: “We’re not like that. I know a lot of musicians around town, and we will give a band a chance to play just on the word of a friend.”

He feels that live music is im-