I love beautiful lyrics. When I coach singers, I get the most joy digging into the lyric of a song to understand the character’s world. No different than analyzing a story. Mirel Wagner’s “No Death” paints a vivid picture of a person dealing with death. Mirel’s words paint a picture of a person potentially dealing with the loss of a loved one, and the loss of pride that comes from losing someone. I never considered “pride” an emotion associated with death. As I think about people in my life and how I might respond to their death, I speculate I may feel my pride hurt. Perhaps that’s where my sadness may stem from? I may morn the loss of that person no longer in my life. That I have lost. That I should expect that person in my life forever. Perhaps that’s why writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius all have a central theme of accepting death as a natural part of life. I’m not a morbid person, and I hope this post doesn’t leave you down. Rather, I hope this post piques your interest in Mirel Wagner, check out Mirel’s song below, and challenges you to appreciate every moment you have on this earth with people that much more. HT to Brian for the song recommendation.

At some point in your life, I hope you’ll have the experience of looking back at your work from 10 years ago. Yesterday I reviewed my work from Carnival Cruise Lines, nearly 10 years ago now. I see ideas and products and ways of leading that shaped me into the leader I am now; some things I wish I maintained. I also saw things that I would have done differently. On the whole, the experience touched me. How far have I come? How much did I forget or lose? And now that I see what I forgot/lost, how might I bring back the best? What am I still doing today that I did then? For all of what I am now, I am thankful for what I was.I enhanced the trip down memory lane with “Waga kado ni”, from Chiyomi Yamada & baobab’s new album” “Songs of my land”.

The construction of music fascinates me — still. Making music is this beautiful melange of ideation, critique, trial-and-error, intuition, knowledge, technical skill, craft, and luck. The skills required to construct music are the exact skills you want on a team. I am still thankful that I spent a majority of my career in professional music — most of my lifespan. Among many things, I learned the most from being a musician. It, in some way, is who I am.I got inspired to write this post after watching the behind scenes video of Yasmin Williams new album.

When you have that energy that propels you to near infinity… realize that’s not natural. Nothing natural lasts forever.

“Quit while you’re ahead.” - John Brady

I asked someone what behaviors they value in leaders they admire. The answer:ListeningEnablingHumblingListening makes sense to me — it’s a behavior thought leaders in the Linkedinosphere write about all the time. Click baity articles that read “the #1 thing you need to do to win the C-Suite” all about being a better listener. I believe listening to be so simple yet so absent in our world — the people who do it well mastered an ancient art.Enabling, as we discussed it, means to enable possibility. To make situations and events so much better that people are enabled to output their best work. Humbling — admitting mistakes. Being confident enough in one’s self to admit errors, failures, and how they’ve learned from it. Enabling and humbling are behaviors that I also admire in leaders. They are behaviors I wish I saw more of in people… generally speaking.

Thinking about craft today.I defined craft as: “The action of applying your skill, knowledge, and invention to create something is craft.”I often read thought leaders write about how we should obsess about craft. If we’re obsessing over an action, we’re not actually doing the action. We’re thinking about, reflecting on, learning more about, planning how to… but not actually doing.If you want to obsess over your craft, then do more. And after each do stop and reflect. Pull learnings forward, make improvements, and do it again.

I appreciate Dan’s daily blog. I especially enjoy this thoughts from the other day, being a first-principles-first type of learner. What type of learner are you?“If we rote learn a set of prescriptions, we aren’t thinking for ourselves. Solved tasks will be easy, but any new terrain will feel overwhelming.On the other hand, if we’re armed with a set of principles, we’ll have a way of thinking that is malleable to the moment and will help us traverse the unknown.” — Dan Cullum, “Principles and Prescriptions”

I canned tomato sauce last night instead of writing a blog post. My thoughts on canning:Every action counts.The future is not discounted — we do every action now because we are 100% preventing some form of mold or bacteria that could kill me.The future may be overrated — I envision all of these ways I will use the tomato sauce now. Will I still want to eat these things next month?The output is only as good as the input. Quality matters.Patience. If you want a thicker sauce, patience. Time is a great mixer of things.

If art is a result of the function of processing every experience of your life while not making art, then it can be said that what you do behind the scenes matters more than what you do in performance.In the same way, you - now, are the result of everything mistake and great decision you’ve made up to this point. It can also be said, how you think and what you decide behind the scenes only gives you returns when it’s not to show up and act.

I believe this song may speak to you. Be it in seeking peace, be it in the observation of the absurdity of life, be it in wild antics, or because you happen to love a diner.