When you gather people for a cause, those people invest their time to join. That means instead of doing one thing, they’ve chosen you. When people choose you, serve those people by honoring their time.Oh…At the same time, when you choose yourself, honor your time.

It’s entirely out of your hands.Wait for it to return to know if you should change your technique.For now, enjoy watching it work.

In Seven Brief Lessons in Physics, Carlo Rovelli writes, “Genius hesitates.”That statement is elegant and deceptively simple. Here’s how I interpret it:The most wise people - think Lincoln, Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Laozi, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, etc., still their minds and watch what happens. They allow life to get ahead a bit and then react.If we allow life to get ahead, in addition to reacting more effectively we’ll also see that life rhymes with itself.In the 1720s, a guy named John Blunt of the South Sea Company (a joint-stock trading company) found a way to increase its profits by trading government debts (which were massive after the 1718 war with Spain) and create a craze around buying shares of debt. The scheme worked’ish - tons of people bought debt (including Sir Isaac Newton). But others started to get ideas and create their own form of debt financing which caused Blunt to influence Parliament to pass the Bubble Act of 1720. Shares starting being sold at £100 and topped out at £1000/share. Then, the bubble burst. In September of 1720 many people (including Sir Isaac Newton) lost vasts amounts of their wealth realizing that there wasn’t substance behind the scheme. It is written that Newton would lost so much money that he would get visibly ill at the mention of finances later in his life. Why this story? The real estate bubble of 2008 was not the first time in our history that humans threw their money into bad investments and influenced by short-sighted thinking. Most interesting, John Blunt and company built their idea on what they saw the French do (thanks to the work of the exiled John Law); and if Blunt, the King, and Parliament only allowed life to get ahead of themselves they would have seen the ruin that it brought France. History rhymes. It rhymed for the French and the English, and 288 years later it rhymed again for those that lost their wealth in 2008. If you allow life to get ahead of you, you not only improve your ability to react - you also get to see her rhymes.

If the work that matters to you actually matters - then you won’t be working, you’ll be playing. And when you play, play so hard that your muscles fail - to the max. Inspired by sore fingertips that last night played their asses off.

Lessons from the bandstand:Bands often have “regular” members - people who play with the band all the time. When the “regular” can’t make a gig, a “sub” is called. Being the “sub” is the ultimate form of service. What makes a good “sub”?You blend in - make the band members think the “regular” never left, you become “part of” the team.You leave an air of mystery about you - you keep your best stuff inside because your job is not to show off, but to play your part… though on occasion you drop some little gems here and there to pique your bandmates’ interest.You fail, adapt, and learn ultra quickly. There were times when the band leader would call songs that I didn’t know and had to learn on the fly - that’s the gig. Fail, learn, and apply your learnings ultra fast - nobody has time to wait for you, and nobody is coming to help.What makes a good “sub” is what makes a great team member. You adopt the posture of what it means to be on the team you’re on.You leave an air of mystery about you - do your part and always hold a little back.You fail, adapt and learn ultra quickly - not letting yourself get stalled by mistakes, because they will happen. I’m always impressed and humbled by how much music teaches and shows us what it means to contribute, lead, and be serviced by strong performing teams.That said… I left the best part of being a sub out… the best part is when you get invited back.

Good and useful advice is a result of your good character - it’s forged from your learnings of what works and what doesn’t.That said, good character is not built from good advice.

“People of real strength are as rare as gold, and if you find them, you should respond as if you had discovered a treasure.” - Robert Greene, “Laws of Human Nature”But what does “real strength” (of character) mean? What does it look like? How will we know? How do we become that person? Be open to new ideas, ways of doing things, and types of people.Maintain your composure when life throws its worst at you.Welcome chaos and ambiguity with equanimity.Be accountable and keep your word.Extend your patience.Be your own best friend, be comfortable in your skin.Focus on the greater good - what’s good for the goose is usually good for the gander - be thinking about the gander for long term best results.Are you all these things? I doubt it.Am I? Hardly! The point is that we’re not firing 100% on all these things all the time. Rather, our goal is to get incrementally better each day. But there’s another point… find and work with people who do demonstrate these attributes. Select your next employer, partner, friend, or small business to patron based on the strength of the person/owners character. People like us want to be around others like us.

“Where you arrive does not matter so much as what sort of person you are when you arrive there.” Seneca, Letters to Lucilius XVIIII’ve arrived in many places… and I can say, I haven’t always arrived as the best person. I have also left for many places thinking that a change of scenery would make all the difference, but I’m the same troubled person at my destination as my origin.Deal with what’s in front of you where you are now. Only then can you enjoy your vacation.

Sometimes their hands are tied;Sometimes they wish they could do more;Sometimes it’s a matter of politics; and perhaps,Sometimes it’s a matter of bravery.Whatever it is, sometimes it’s easier to assume the best intentions of others than to assume the worst.

“Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.” - Seneca, Letters to Lucilius LXIIIAnother lesson from the bandstand… anything can happen at any time. The guitar players string could break, the singer suddenly misses an entrance, or it rains. One way to deal with the problem is to frustrate yourself - Why is this happening? Why didn’t the guitar player change their string? Why is it raining now, of all days? Why me? Another way to deal with it is to prepare yourself. How will I respond if the singer misses their entrance? Do I know my part well enough to cover someone that has to cut out? Oooh, the weather looks bad, how will I react if the rain comes? How many stressful moments throughout the day could be made more relaxed if we prepare for them In advance?Annoying roommate? Each morning, imagine all the worst things they could do and visualize yourself coming out on top. Traffic on the freeway? Consider leaving earlier and taking backroads; you might be driving longer but you won’t feel “stuck”. Work email? Commit yourself to not checking your email on your phone, and, have email be the second thing you do once you get to work - have the first thing be the most important work you can do.Try it out and see if it helps.People Managers: an effective exercise to do with your team is, before launching a big project, gather around and (you - the leader) say, “okay, imagine we have this crystal ball in front of us, and this crystal ball is showing us how this project will fail, what might the crystal ball be showing us?” Let your team brainstorm up what the crystal ball says and write the ideas down. Finally, start planning for how you’ll avoid that BEFORE kicking off the project.