Bored.
Paint possibility. Seek solutions. Make the music that remedies.
Ashton.Gustafson
Pause by the orchid. Listen to the bluebird sing. Be love.
Monthly Archives: April 2013
We make music because…
It helps make sense of it all…
It’s the only remedy in a world of noise…
It splashes on us fulfillment, experience, and meaning…
It’s our ‘why’…
It says what words cannot…
It’s bigger than ourselves…
It’s forever mused, but never mastered…
Forgetting to Praise the Scribbling
Below is my daughter’s first attempt at her personal art.
I love this.
I can only wonder what she sees here. An ‘A’? A cursive ‘s’? A yarn galaxy? The baton path of a conductor during Symphony No. 5: Adagietto? Or perhaps her color coded map at 2 years old?
I see hope. I see her at the MOMA. I see her finding a metaphor. I see her trying to say something.
And so I must praise, promote, and ask for more scribbling…for it is the yes given now to the scribbling that will lead to her to masterpiece(s) later.
When is the last time you praised the scribbling of your followers?
How or why would your followers ever give you an ear if you never praised them at the get-go?
Think. Pause for a moment. Allow this to be heavy.
How much incredible music have we missed because someone was told they weren’t musical in music class?
How much jaw dropping art have we missed because coloring outside the lines never won best in show at elementary school?
Emerson says it better than I ever could…“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Waltzing In Constant Pursuit of Opportunity
Opportunities birth opportunities that birth opportunities.
If we can get this, we would want to smile a lot more, shake a lot more hands, and connect a lot deeper and quicker in our newly formed relationships.
Key word here is want. When you’re aware of the serendipitous nature of opportunity it makes you aware of the possibility it holds and makes you want to see it come to fruition and partake in its fruit.
The waltz of business is to a song called connect the dots and you’ll find that each dot leads to a bigger, better, and more meaningful dot than the one you’re at now.
#LTMP
Defining Need.
Business school did a great job of pounding into our heads that we were to leave, go find a need, and find a way to fulfill it.
The challenge now is in wrapping our hands around the ever-evolving definition of need.
We’re finding that the further we travel up Maslow’s pyramid the more difficult it is to put our thumb on and fulfill these needs.
Could it be that the postmodern entrepreneur’s role and responsibility is to build lodging at the top of pyramid for his customers and co-workers?
I think so.
Experience, connection, and meaning has to be the aroma, sound, feeling, and taste of whatever we build from here on out.
If you look around, that’s where we’re as hungry as we we’ve ever been.
Ashton.Gustafson 
