Hilversum, 20 November 2019 — Bored with your music? Then level up, together.

It happened in Manila.

I got bored with the piano and guitar, which I had played for decades. The search was on for something new to excite me. To my surprise, it was the saxophone that found me.

Having played instruments since age 6, I knew the basics of music and the practice that I needed to become proficient with my new-found love. And… being a perfectionist, all that practice happened in private.

My breakthrough on the saxophone did not, however, come from practice, although that helped to build the foundation. No, it came from something else: something that so many Filipinos excel in!

I was invited—and warmly encouraged—to start making music with others, performing in gigs on stage and doing the necessary practice rounds together on Saturday mornings.

It was learning and enjoying to play music together that helped me level up as a musician.

This week, I realized that the same thing happened to me on my leadership journey.

Only when I mustered the courage to engage with others and make myself vulnerable and open to learning, did I make significant progress. And fun it was! See the pic below of my bandmates and me at the Asian Development Bank, quite a few years ago.

How can you apply this in your life and leadership?

Here are three concepts that you can explore to experience the same where you are.

Jam — whether you play a musical instrument or not (yet), the experience of jamming with others who have a similar interest is something you don’t want to miss out on. Music Moves Life is one of my mottos, discovered through experience. Not playing a musical instrument yet? Well, as I learned in the Philippines, it’s never too late to learn. And nowadays, the amount of support you can find online is unprecedented in history. So you don’t have any grounds for excuses, really.

Mashup — to me, this is like performing a new song that you create together with others by mixing vocal and instrumental tracks from your mates, the other band members. Based on what I learned online, my definition of Mashup is “Fusing inputs from two or more sources into something worth performing and listening to.” Like Jam, you can apply this to your music-making and use it to learn and practice leadership together with others, or any other ability for that matter.

Collab — a contraction from Collaboration and Laboratory, we adopted this term for our Community of Leaders where we focus on working together and experimenting with new and better ways to get proficient, productive, and successful in our leadership. The key is that we do this together with others. We form Collabs (small teams of 4 people in the workplace) to learn and practice leading a positive change together in our workplace. We also use Collab to describe our activity of collaborating and experimenting.

So, there you go, three ways of advancing your leadership with the powerful metaphors that the world of music offers you.

And don’t forget to make your own breakthrough in music, whatever the level is you’re at now. It will move your life and leadership forward. Whatever your age, it does take some courage, and that’s so essential to developing your leadership too.

If you’re interested to learn and practice how to Jam, Mashup, and Collab, our community of leaders may be a good fit for you. Visit Grow3Leaders to request your invitation.

Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment.