I started this conversation - after watching Ambassador Rice (Rhodes scholar, INCREDIBLE superwoman athlete - exemplar of the Rhodes Scholarship Standards) on Charlie Rose - and starting to get to thinking about the USA seeming to take for granted that sportsmen are leaders - exemplars of "using one's talents to the fullest" and musicians as, well not as implicitly leadershippy. To which I say, j'accuse! (mostly b/c I always want to say that and I can't ever find the perfect occasion - so we'll just pretend it fits) Paul McCartney, I'm sure, agrees with me.
He is, after all, my favorite Beatle.
The collaboration and the need to LITERALLY be in tune with your fellows, all of them (there's no offensive winds section and defensive horns section - not in a good orchestra anyway) - these are qualities we want in leaders. So Mr. Rhodes. You may have founded the De Beers diamond mining company (and a country) - but can you croon?!
I wanted to bring this up because a) I went to a high school that had a LOT of musician leaders and I'm a music leader myself (show choir counts) b) I believe in music as a training ground for once and future leaders.
As The Dashed One says - if you didn't blog it, it didn't happen. * I gotta process these thoughts that I've let be free for the past 2 years (!). Bear with me as I learn to value my own musings again. I'm humbled to silence by the great voices around me. But I turn into a sponge first - THEN a sprinkler when I'm thrown into a pond of geniuses - this happened in college, high school, and even learning to talk - I didn't even speak until I was 2, but, as the legend goes - my first word was OWL and many many sentences followed not far thereafter.
* For those of you playing along, it may appear that nothing has happened. There's an internet equation, we're going to call it life busy-ness inversely proportional to blog-business -- and if you can even that proportion out, you're a winner. You're on your way to becoming a Leader in the New School. Which is to say - I have been terrible at this. A lot been going on in the back-channel in my first year in NYC (coming up on my one year appartmentiversary - memories). I'll be kind and rewind a bit soon.
