ACTivity/ Singing Your Song

Photo by Martin Meissner at A/P.

Ubud, 21 May 2025 — What is ‘Your Song’ to send Love into the world with your unique talent?

Story

It happened ten years ago. The vision of coming out on stage to perform for a live audience became a powerful metaphor for leaders to get out of their comfort zone and show up with their unique talent. Singing Your Song on stage is a challenge that leaders take on when they work with us at TransformationFirst.Asia. A challenge that goes way beyond music.

Last weekend, we were mesmerized by the performance of JJ (Johannes Pietsch) as he came on stage and won the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel. The son of a Filipina mother and an Austrian father, he grew up in Dubai. His song of unrequited love crossed several boundaries, which is what our world needs more than ever for collaboration.

Two more songs inspired us for leadership this week. First, another unrequited love song that takes us back three millennia when it was recorded in the Book of Songs (Shijing), China’s ancient collection of soul-stirring poetry. And then, a third song moved our hearts in the Young Bridging Leaders (YBL) Challenge last week. It challenged us to live with “a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make,” while warning us that people can say that this “all sounds crazy.”

Challenge 

After all that triple musical inspiration, several questions come up. First, what is ‘the song’ that you will be ‘singing’ for the world, on stage, showing your vision and using your talent? Second, how to overcome the limiting beliefs that threaten to sabotage the prospect of your on-stage performance? And third, how to develop your unique leadership talent—Your Song—in a trusted, systematic process so that you can confidently perform your talent on stage anytime?

Your ability to discover the answers to these three questions is what we care about in our leadership coaching work. Some leaders discover it through exclusive one-to-one coaching. Others by getting team coaching with their corporate teams of leaders. Meanwhile, collabs of leaders are also growing their abilities together in our international community of practice, where they work together on specific leadership challenges. 

Meanwhile, the enduring popularity over millennia of songs about unrequited love demonstrates that we have more work to do on communication and collaboration. In leadership language, this is about learning to inspire a shared vision beyond our own. And even a shared vision is not enough to succeed. Leadership is a social process. We need to align our strengths with those of our partners—in work and life—and learn to show up daily with our individual commitment for collective success.

Question 

What makes the three song examples in this story stand out? It is the deliberate practice that went into creating them. From the anonymous ancient Chinese poet who penned: 

By the willows of the Eastern Gate,

Whose leaves are so thick, 

At dusk we were to meet; 

And now the morning star is bright.

To the artists who challenged us to live with “a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.” And to JJ, who encouraged us not to waste love but to share it widely in the world. So, what is ‘Your Song’ to send Love into the world with your unique talent? It’s time to stop hiding your unique talent behind self-limiting beliefs and stories. Let us know your response. We love to hear from you and work on it together.

P.S. We were excited to hear from a leader who already shared that ‘her Song’ is to explain complicated things in a simple way to help others understand. She has performed that talent ‘on stage’ with her students. What about you?