Why to > How to.
Instructions that inspire.
Why to > How to.
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Why to > How to.
…the momentum begins.
When you know ‘why’ you are here, you immediately make movements to find the instruments that will lend themselves to your music.
You’re not here to build a facade and you’re not meant to be a carbon copy of another.
Be the hands, the feet, the eyes, the words, and the soul that only you can be.
Today, may you waltz through these ‘why’s’.
My wife and I have three year old girl that lives with us. There’s no doubt you’ll come to know her one day, but for now let’s just call her Story.
Story has many talents, but one of my favorite talents she has is her patent-pending ability to use words that start with a ‘L’ and pronounce them as though they start with a ‘Y”.
Some may call this a flaw to correct, but to me it’s flare to celebrate.
Who said you can’t make funny faces with your music?
Who said keep your tongue in during a slam dunk?
Who said flowers were supposed to be painted right-side up?
Leaders, take a yook and yisten to the flare of your followers.
One’s mean, median, and mode is not what they were sent here to illuminate with.
In search of the modern-day dream of its time, Mark Twain headed to Nevada from Missouri with his brother to mine for gold. The year was 1861 and for two weeks the two of them hopped from stage-coach to stage-coach across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Imagine this.
Imagine no air conditioning. Imagine the smell and shake of the stage coaches for days. Imagine no cell phones. Imagine no iPad to occupy your time for 14 plus days of travel to dig, live, and find ‘the dream.’
Now imagine the anticipation. Imagine the stories Twain had heard about others finding gold. It’s safe to assume, the closer he got to the Nevada line, the more robust the anticipation grew. Imagine each stage-coach becoming more and more full with people chasing the same dream. You can almost hear the choir-like chants for gold cant’ you? And remember, there was no Las Vegas at this time to fall back on if he was unable to find gold. It would be another 50 years until the city of Las Vegas would be incorporated. Truly, this was the Wild, undiscovered, West.
Long story short, Twain made it Nevada and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug.
No gold.
One of my favorite quotes is from the book of Twain: “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why.”
If there’s TiVo in Heaven, I’m hopeful that one day I can see the see the scene when Twain slammed the shovel one last time into the side of a mountain and simultaneously felt and found that it was himself that he was really searching for…not the gold. That was the day and moment he figured out why.
I hope and pray that you’ve had a similar moment.
Happenstance eventually got him to San Francisco, by way of Nevada, and there begins the story of Mark Twain and the man we know as the father of American literature.
The great pianist Edvard Grieg once remarked on the purpose behind the creative energies of his music saying, “it is to build dwellings for men in which they might feel at home and happy.”
You can keep your cards close to your chest and even hide your thoughts from us, but your music or your noise will always expose your “why”.
This is the question that should find its way to the front of every Monday: “Where’s my ‘why’?”
Ashton.Gustafson 