When you look at something while listening to music, the thing you’re looking at takes on stunning new meaning. Music creates mood. That’s why great music is key in film and key in the communication of a message.
Music also implies story. Both music and story require the passing of time for them to even exist. Music is completely incoherent if all of the notes of a piece are played at once. Music only has meaning when notes are spread out over time and played in rhythm.
May I make an odd suggestion? Make sure that you have a strategic adviser that’s either a musician or someone who “gets” music deeply. Here’s why:
Music is art that is directly tied to time and process. What’s happening at any given moment only makes sense in the context of what has already happened and what will happen.
There’s movement. There’s change. There’s direction. There’s preparation. There’s fluidity. There’s purposeful tension and dissonance… that resolves. There’s story. And there’s meaning in it all.
Sound like something your organization needs? Music people get it. Have them write your song.
Focusing on something you don’t have (but think you need) can be a dangerous, common pattern. The pattern is to identify something you lack and use that as an obstacle that prevents you from doing what you really want.
With an obstacle identified, we feel better. No harm done, right? No harm except that nagging sense in the back of our brain that we really should be doing something differently. Not to worry: most people come to terms with it over time.
I do this. I let obstacles to a task, a passion, or a goal serve as excuses to not attempt them. It’s not a fear of failure. It’s a fear of not having a perfect process.
This is stupid.
Chris continues:
Fortunately, many of the obstacles we perceive are not really obstacles. Many of the things we think we need are unnecessary.
Isn’t that true?
Some of this is tied to thankfulness. If I were to be more thankful for what I have, I’d be more prone to go do something with it. Instead, I wait for something – often the perfect, measurable, replicable, neatly-wrapped, guaranteed-outcome process – and I have an excuse for inaction.
