A follow up to the Yo-Yo Ma quote.

I can’t learn easily from some speakers.  I don’t get their message if they’re not congruent with their body.  Or actually I get a lot of messages, some of which I don’t want.  G.W. Bush was like that wasn’t he?

I was brought up with a lot of music, mostly classical.  The forms and dynamics are part of me, and this transposes to speaking and conversation.  One melody and a counterpoint maybe, a duet, some deeper resonances.  A Bach fugue will take you off on one tack and then bring in a couple more voices and get you into a whole universe, and then wind the whole thing down back to home and the original theme, or not!  You go in there, follow along and your mind gets sort of transformed, surprised, soothed, enchanted and so on but you usually end up back where you started.  Seems like good conversations are often like that.  And so is a good lecture.  And of course, themes stay with you, you’re forever changed.  It lives in you if it takes.

So what can I do with this information?  these experiences? for what I’m trying to do, teach, coach, help people transform and grow.

Well…………..I’m blessed with a very subtle Northern Ireland accent, actually an Ulster accent.  It can be sing-songy, but is definitely musical.  And it tends to get people’s attention.  So I have an in and a vehicle, I think, that maybe can open the channels for learning.  And if I can make my message interesting, appealing or compelling – play the music well – then I can certainly get people to think about things in ways that can change them for the better, whether their problem is physical, emotional, creative or spiritual.

Now that I think of it,  I just love going to work and am getting better at it.