I need to get this out as I have an issue with saying the word “Bro”.
I don’t use the phrase “Bro” when addressing guys, especially to those whom I’m super close to. I just simply can’t bring myself to say it. I can say “I love you” to them (sparingly), but I just can’t call them bro. I simply can’t. I don’t even call my real brothers “bro”.
Somehow, “I love you” is not difficult to say because in my mind it’s how I should treat everyone. Showing love to another is like going above and beyond to help others. To support them, to outpour, to give. But “bro” comes along with so much more texture, meaning and mutual expectations in my mind.
To me, “Bro” is way too intimate. It’s a phrase that agrees to fully expose yourself to one another. To have no secrets. To share all unfiltered thoughts, not judge, to be there for the other with no strings attached. To take on long term responsibilities and become even more than family. I don’t think I can. It’s too big a step for me.
So for those who do call me “Bro”, don’t worry, I know you don’t overthink like me, but I just want you to know that I can’t call you “Bro” back.
If I Ain’t Got You cover by Scary Pockets featuring Kenton Chen is my current favourite Cover
Remy Kouakou Kouame is my current favourite Lindy Hop Dancer
Oh my oh my… :) we LIVE for things like that. The fun… the FUN so evident that it shows in faces. The smiles, the joy, the laughter lol… all real, all 100% lit, all bringing us to our happy places synonymous with celebration and orgasms.
We all desire to feel this high, this adrenaline, this unspeakable place that we want to always be in. No judgement, no boundaries, no stress, no nothing that we don’t like and every every everything that we love. With the people that we like doing the things that we love!!!
How? How do we sustainability be in this state when the expectation and reality gap is so real. There is work to do, there are expectations to be met, there are responsibilities, there are challenges, there is REAL LIFE. WORK LIFE! BILLS!
At my age, I’ve managed to come across quite a lot of people from many nationalities, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. My conclusion is that we more or less all want the same thing. We want to love what we do with the majority of our time.
Some think being rich is the way to get there, so they pour their lives into their career and do what it takes to amass wealth for themselves.
Some think doing what they love is a personal indulgence, hence only pursue their passion in their free time or delay their desires to when they retire.
Some think their professional self and their personal self needs to be two seperate personas. A constant work life balance. The need to constantly balance the demands of the office and the home, the pay master and the self.
BOY OH BOY. Do I have news for you!
Best summarised by a mantra within our office “Put everything you are into everything you doâ€. Let me break it down.
“Put everything you are…â€
Know who you are. What you like, your passions, your desires, your effortless self. The most comfortable version of yourself loving to do the things you like to do. The song you sing in the shower, the silly faces you do in the mirror, the lame jokes you tell your loved ones, the little funky celebration dance step in your home. WHEN are YOU most YOU? Now hold that thought… that YOU… NOW BRING IT!
“…into everything you doâ€
We all have the same amount of hours in a day and we all have many things to do. Work, Learn, Contribute, Family, Exercise, Eat, drink good Wine, Rest, Pray, Play, Party, Kiss and Make out and more… Is work the most important? Is family the most important?
That’s where I think most of us get tripped up. We separate our lives into these mutually exclusive bubbles and we try to balance work and life. We have these separate personas, with separate efforts, with different degree of who we truly are, we then try to play this tiring balancing game and we hate life.
Put everything you are into everything you do
Here is the good news buddy! There is only one YOU. There is only one NOW. There is only one HERE. So BRING that ONE YOU to the NOW, to the HERE! Put ALLLLLLL that YOUness of YOU into EVERY EVERY EVERY NOW HERE THING you do.
If you think like that, you will be like that and you will be you always always love every single second of life.
We want to feel happy, feel excited, tickled, confident, feel good, luxurious, valued, needed and loved. That’s what we are consuming online on social media as we flick thru our feed with social media dopamine hits. The more we feel, the more alive we are, the more human we think we are.
Theme parks makes us excited, Movies bring us on an emotional rollercoaster, different genre of Music lets us have different feelings on demand.
There is a pronounced trend over the past decade and especially in the past years that Brands are tapping into this economy of feelings to make you feel a certain way with their somewhat long form storytelling videos and slapping on their logos at the end of the film. They want to relate to you sufficiently, trigger your emotions to get you to like their videos, related to the personified you to get you to share their content with your friends. Convince you sufficiently to like their brand and purchase their products or subscribe to their services.
Some Brands just want to develop communications to make you feel a certain way sufficiently so that you will buy their stuff.
Some other Brands have great conviction on their purpose and world view and are consistent in the products they develop, the service they offer and provide cohesive communications in their marketing.
So in this economy of feelings, consumers get all the feels through the many branded content brands make and at the end choose for themselves what brands they want to buy into that makes sense to them. Brands who are just tapping into consumers feelings on the other hand might not get real customers if the wonderful feelings they deliver thru their communications are but empty promises as their product and services fail to deliver.
We are all consumers, we all have feelings and we have our money in our pockets. Don’t insult us, we are not stupid.
I’ve been struggling for a big part of my career trying to figure out why some thrive in chaos at the workplace while others simply hate how the office operates and have to conjure up lots of energy just to coexist with their own team mates, other departments and even management.
A lot of people say it’s a ‘fit’ thing. Chemistry. But what is this fit? What is this chemistry? How can we spot it early? What does it even look like?
Earlier this year while visiting one of our office in the region, I was invited to join a manager’s appraisal as he had a dotted line to me. I obliged. He was an experienced, talented and dedicated staff. He really likes the company, but had legitimate complaints too. His main gripe was around the organization not having a clear articulated structure, no clear communicated direction. He felt as if it was all reactive, everyone is winging it, all improvisation.
Then it struck me.
There are 2 kinds of musicians. Those who love the freedom and improvising to the mood in a Jazz band and those who feel more comfortable to excel in a big scale structured symphony orchestra.
A Jazz player will hate it in a symphony orchestra, while someone who have confidence the whole team have clear scores to a music piece won’t do well in a Jazz band.
The Jazz Band
Heyday Jazz Lounge
I’ve been in a Jazz band type company for the longest time and I love it. The organization is fairly flat, bosses allow you flexibility and lots of autonomy to bring on your own initiatives and provides you support.
Everyone has a clear role, but sometimes we can mix it up. Who says the double bass can’t be the lead? Who says the the bassist can’t do some percussion on his guitar? Who says the trumpeter can’t suddenly break out in dance?
Similar characters in different teams work well together and have that unspoken syncopated understanding with one another. There is trust that others will commit and deliver, there is fear also because sometimes you have to do your solo and everyone is depending on you. However there is support and forgiveness, mistakes are brushed aside because the show must go on and we are all having so much fun anyway.
The Symphony Orchestra
Photo by Gwundrig on Unsplash
There is a conductor. Everyone have scores in front of them, the performance starts on time and everyone has a specific role at a specific time with specific intensity.
Each committing to their precise parts and after multiple practices then comes performance time. There is confidence in the team as everyone have perfected what they needed to do, everyone is a specialist, they commit to what they set out to do and they don’t try to change the plan halfway. When everything is executed as planned, it’s a symphony that gives you goosebumps and there will be high fives all around later backstage.
Talent
If you feel you are a promising talent, a diamond in the rough, someone who can achieve much, then quickly figure out if you fit a Jazz band or a Symphony Orchestra and find the right type of organization to flourish in. Most likely you will have similar seniors, structures that fit your ways of working.
But if you ain’t got no talent and not practicing your craft to become better consistently and just want to cruise along and take a ride along the success of others, get out of my band and trust me, you can’t hide in a symphony orchestra either.
