Category Archives: Discipline

Why Now Is So Important

To begin with, what happens now is the primary predictor of what will happen next.

Take this a step further, and what you do now will play a huge role, if not the primary role, in what you do next. What you hear now will effect what you hear next. What you see now will effect what you see next. How you are and where you are tomorrow will always point back to now.

We need to get lost and found in the now.

Lost in the sense that it’s the creative playtime where our art is thought, designed, crafted, and given to the world.

Found in the sense that our focus is locked in because we know that ‘now’ is the line that connects us to the next dot.

We’re artists. We’re givers. We’re dot connectors.

Now is here.

Now is the time.

Now is what we’ve got.

People always want to know what’s next. I say we get to know our nows (that’s the brave and tough work), and what’s next will naturally show its face.

Tagged , , , , , ,

The Badge of Responsibility

We can’t really put our thumbs on what responsibility means can we?

At one point in our lives it means keeping our room clean. At another point it means that we “consistently” go to class. Later it comes to mean that we’re punctual with our appointments and commitments. And then eventually it means we pay our taxes (on time of course).

The problem here is not that this is a bad way to define one’s responsibility. The problem is that it appears to not make the responsible one happy, but make the one whom they’re responsible to happy.

If I kept my room clean, mom and dad were happy. If I went to class, the professor was happy which equaled an ‘A’. If I make it to the meeting on time, my boss is happy so maybe a raise is in the future. If I pay my taxes I can sleep at my house and not at Club Fed. See, if I call you ‘responsible’…chances are you somehow made me happy. Responsibility, as we’ve come to define it, feels more like blackmail doesn’t it?

This isn’t are argument against The Man or a plea for you to only think about you. Yes, be punctual. Yes, pay your taxes. Yes, provide for your family. But let’s call it what it is…being polite, obeying the law, and leadership.

I’m here to argue that in the midst of our timeliness, promptness, straight A’s and clean rooms we’re not responsible enough. Or put it another way, we’ve neglected responsibility in too many non-negotiable areas.

Our responsibility, at its root, is to our dreams. Our responsibility, at the core, is to leave this place different from how we found it. Our responsibility is our music….which is two in one: your gift to the world and your fulfillment.

Only you can write your music and there are few things that take the amount of courage it takes for the responsibility you’ve been given.

Bravery be with us and help us earn the badge of responsibility.

 

 

Tagged , , , , , ,

Now That We’re In The Ocean…

…one must become a a pirate.

In an ocean of a billion tweets, a million products, and thousands of brands and ideas how will you navigate these wide waters to find what you’re truly after?

You will successfully navigate these waters and waves by choosing a pirate mentality.

Pirate the ocean for meaning.

Pirate the ocean for metaphors.

Pirate the ocean for depth of relationship.

Go wide in these waters. Raise your sails. Make your mark. Make a splash.

Just know that what you’re looking for is probably twice as deep as it is wide.

A pirate, by nature, obsesses over the subsurface activity and the hunt of buried treasure.

We can all learn from this.

 

Tagged , , , , , , ,

If you don’t make a difference…

then what do you make?

Full disclosure, I’m not sure of the exact answer, or if there is one specific answer. But it’s probably, metaphorically, some form of noise. Something unnoticed. Something lost in the mix.

A life that makes a difference is one that points or leads in a way in which people or things are not the same after being encountered to it.

Your music is the difference you’re here to make.

Noise bounces.

Music sticks.

Finally, The Game has a name: Change.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,