When I was in grammar school I learned how to play the piano. Not very well because I didn’t keep up my lessons. But during this time and from my deep love of music since then, you begin to appreciate the emphasis and strength that certain notes translated into sounds bring to a song.
Sometimes powerful. Other times soft and gentle. The musical notes that the musician choses to emphasize brings a unity and logic to what we hear. The notes convey a story that is reinforced and expanded upon, by their emphasis, during parts of a song that capture our heart.
What happens when the wrong notes are emphasized? At the wrong time. In the wrong way. Quickly our music turns into noise. Much more random and unclear as to their purpose. The story the musician intended to share gets lost and never appears even though it took great effort to find and arrange the notes she chose to play.
Our attention quickly escapes us for the sounds we hear don’t lead us in a direction. The wrong notes are being emphasized and we don’t recognize it because we don’t know what the right notes should be.
There is no traction or leverage when we emphasize the wrong notes in our lives. What we think is important may not be.
Emphasizing the wrong notes happens to each of us regularly as we live our lives. Sometimes out of being rushed. Other times because we are pulled in too many directions. Most times because we think we know. And always, because our focus is too shallow.
We never consider the risk of emphasizing the wrong things as we do our jobs and live our lives. The musical notes we choose to play when doing our job and living our lives have been with us since birth. We never evaluate if we are focusing on a wrong emphasis in how we use them. Our confidence precludes this possibility.
We need to take the time to step back with intention to look at all of the notes in our music and around the music of our lives and jobs that we create before deciding what notes to emphasize.
Testing what we think needs emphasis with others is a great way to become more grounded and intentional. To practice becoming better at doing this. To begin to understand that when we emphasize different notes, different things become possible.
Finding the right notes to emphasize can bring a beauty, coherence, and a level of effectiveness to the songs we are asked to create that demand we join our mind to our hearts and then share them willingly with those around us.