In A Music State of Mind
Jun 28 2009
The entrepreneurial journey is full of interesting twists and turns. Even the most successful entrepreneurs I know struggle with what success means. I was recently meeting with a two time successful (multi-million dollar exits) entrepreneur, and he said after a few months we’re all back to our miserable selves and looking for the next thing to do. It’s funny how many people I interviewed for the Success Profiles sort of said the same thing. They would achieve or fail in one thing and then it was on to the next with something to prove.
Are we ever content? I’m not sure if it’s an entrepreneurial trait, a mid-life characteristic, an MBA grad fate, or something else. But as I continue to tweet about and reach out to my contacts about finding a good home for Babble Soft, I find myself turning to music as I have often done in the past during times of transition. There’s something about music that pulls out the emotions in me and lets me process them in a way that can’t be processed in silence or even with close friends.
Since I started taking yoga last year, I’ve seen the benefits of certain meditation and quiet times but music – the combination of words and instruments – pushes buttons in me that make it OK to to feel things that intellectually my mind tells me not to feel. The mind just says focus on this task, get it done, and move on. The mind doesn’t want to be bothered with stuff that affects the heart and soul. Music reminds me that to be human is to feel because other humans are singing about their life transitions and it reminds me how kind of normal some of these feelings are. And sometimes we need to give ourselves the space to feel and really listen to what our body is telling us instead of just our minds to make the best decisions. Instead of feeling isolated in silence or the sometimes deafening noise of two kids incessant chatter, music brings me softly into the river of humanity.
So some of the music I’ve been listening to lately is by Billy Joel (hence the title of this post), Indigo Girls, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Michael Jackson (mostly because of his recent death), Sarah McLachlan, and oddly enough Book of Love.
May the music be with you…
Author: Aruni | Filed under: entrepreneurship, music | 2 Comments »
What a nice post!
Lately several people have mentioned this to me too…that seemingly very successful people never are satisfied with their success. I think this goes back to the fact that most of us seem to “do” in order to “be” (e.g. if I make lots of money THEN I’ll be happy) when in fact, according to the Landmark philosophy, the real answer to life is to “be” first and then do (e.g. be happy and then do whatever you want to do without having to hold on to an expectation that doing “that” will make you happy – because you already “are” happy!). Sometimes this sounds counter intuitive but I think it is right on.
Your comment about music being a pathway to feeling and our humanity is so appropriate. I can empathize with you in that we spend much of our lives in our heads trying to “figure it out” when perhaps we should sometimes allow ourselves to float down that “river of humanity” that you so nicely point out. If music does that for you then that is awesome!
@Erin – I don’t think that if I make a lot of money then I’ll be happy. It doesn’t have to do with money really.
Music is written by people who are often unhappy and that’s how they express their unhappiness. 🙂 They also express their joy.