Resonance Episode: Waitin On Joe (Steve's song and it's lessons)

In this episode, Steve, Randy and Mike delve into the story behind Steve Azar's song 'Waiting on Joe,' exploring its personal significance and the impact it has had on listeners over the years. They discuss themes of patience, leadership, and the journey of pursuing dreams, emphasizing the importance of waiting for opportunities while actively working towards them. The conversation highlights the emotional connection people have with music and how it can serve as a source of comfort and reflection in times of struggle.

Takeaways

The song 'Waiting on Joe' was inspired by personal experiences and relationships.

Morgan Freeman's involvement in the music video significantly impacted Steve's career.

Music can serve as a powerful tool for healing and connection.

Patience is a crucial virtue in both personal and professional life.

The journey of pursuing dreams often involves waiting and perseverance.

'Waiting on Joe' resonates with listeners due to its relatable themes of loss and hope.

The importance of storytelling in music enhances its emotional impact.

Leadership requires understanding the balance between action and stillness.

The creative process can lead to unexpected opportunities and connections.

The metaphor of a river illustrates the constant change and flow of life.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Transition to Music

01:07 The Story Behind 'Waiting on Joe'

09:59 Impact of 'Waiting on Joe' Over the Years

16:56 Patience and Leadership Lessons

22:24 The Power of Stillness in Leadership

24:25 Understanding Action vs. Motion

26:56 The Importance of Stillness and Patience

31:39 Navigating Life's Crossroads

34:56 Embracing Impermanence

38:57 The Dynamic Nature of Change

43:39 The Resonance of Music and Life

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Resonance, the podcast for leaders that unpacks the power of song, silence, and strategy.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

We believe the great leadership begins with deep listening, not just to others, but to the still small voice within.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's not just about being a successful leader, it's about being soulfully aligned as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

In a world moving fast, resonance invites you to pause and reconnect with purpose, people, and possibility.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too. Cause song has a way of saying what words cannot alone.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is Resonance. Resonance, resonance. Welcome everybody. We're back here at Resonance, the podcast. Steve Azar, Randy Harrington, and myself joining you here today. As you can tell from Steve and I, today's Ash Wednesday, so we're recording this one on Ash Wednesday. And uh today what I want to do is we're gonna shift a little bit. We've talked a lot about some of the things going on in the world and leadership and all those kinds of things over the last few episodes. But what we're gonna talk about today is we're gonna move now and talk a little bit about some of Steve's music. And uh we're gonna start today with one of my favorites, Waiting on Joe. But before we actually get into the song, Steve, I know that you had a uh uh a very familiar face do the intro for that song in the music video. Morgan Freeman joined you and uh has a really interesting kind of conversation to kick off the music video of Waiting on Joe. So let's start there and let's talk a little bit about maybe maybe kind of tell us the story of how you even got Morgan involved, but then a little bit about the message that he had in the intro to that song.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

So that's the song I was writing on piano, first song I've ever attempted on piano, and I was just messing around, and I was really sort of poking at my brother who we worked together, and Joe was always two hours late, whether he would he'd never admit it, but two hours late, and I was always two hours early, and we worked together for 20 years, so you can imagine you know the pool and cool. And uh, and so anyway, I was really messing with him, and then that was all it was, verse one. But as I was sort of driving one day, and I started thinking about the opportunity that well, first the opportunity for the dream that I was working on, and I had so many near misses, so many times it got so close and I was so let down. And when I was growing up, I took that hard. So when when I got so close and I was in the record label and I thought they were gonna sign me in New York or LA or Nashville or whatever, I really I took it personal because I knew it was gonna be another year before I ever had a shot at getting back to them, right? The door was shut for a while, wasn't closed forever, but so I started thinking about opportunities of anybody who's graduating high school or getting out of college or or just going straight to work. And sometimes because obligations getting in the way, or they just want to go to work, or sometimes those things that we all hold dear to us, these passions and things that we're sort of loving when we're growing up, they get shoved aside sometimes for a lifetime, right? And sometimes when you retire, you get to go back and revisit painting or writing or, you know, doing this or that. But life gets in the way. So to me, that so Joe became that thing, that opportunity for the dream to happen or not. And then, and I felt like we were at a crossroads there in my life and as a career. And then finally, my uncle Joe was the mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi. I was nine years old when he passed at 33 years old of a long battle of cancer. At nine, from a nine-year-old's perspective, 33 looked like it was, you know, it was sad, but I I it looked older to me. Sure. And as I passed 33 and I and I wrote, and I had my own two children at the time, and the third one on the way, was when I realized, man, I really want to be Michael Joe wasn't around for his son. And he was five years old when he passed, and my oldest son was five. And I just started thinking, man, I just want to be around to see all this and what them developed. And so Joe, the cancer, the train became the metaphor for the cancer. And I started thinking about people, you're hearing about people getting hit by trains in my hometown when I was a kid. It had been a long time since that happened because the train stopped really rolling through. But those things happened. And and then I realized, I said, I was cutting the grass one day, and the chorus came to me. And I went, oh my God, it's a song. So I really didn't think it was that good. And it was so personal to me that my I recorded it all on my own in my little studio with a little stupid little box. And I played it for my producer, and he said, Steve, this is this is what we need. And I said, What? And he goes, I said, You're crazy. So I just left it. All of a sudden, I get a call from the head of Mercury Records, Keith Steagall, who was, you know, Zach Brown, uh, Alan Jackson, all these, he's a phenomenal producer. The last guy in the world I thought I'd get a call from. Seriously. And he said, What's this Wade Known Joe thing? And I said, What are you talking about? He goes, Rafe played it, my producer played it for him. I said, I was embarrassed because it was me making all the noise. It wasn't big producers and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And he goes, uh, in big studios and all that, and I mixed it myself and playing piano, and he's a piano player, and I'm like, this is ridiculous. He goes, No, this is what you had to do. This is the greatest thing that you've ever done. And this, you finally let me know who you were. And this is going to be the beginning of you realizing who you are, and you're we're signing you. And I went, Are you kidding me? So, long story short, we finally have we we get on the label, and I don't have to be meet on Monday, does his thing. It gets way up to number two in the charts, video goes number one, and and it's doing great and all that. So, following up and waiting on Joe, Morgan had moved back to Charleston, Mississippi, and we had this stupid idea. I said, I gotta write a narrative that's gonna explain what was going on because it's not linear. The song isn't about one thing happening, it's multiple things. And somehow I've got to let Morgan at least express patience, express those things, those dreams that because they matter so much to you, and you may never get to hold on to them or do them. And uh so I wrote the narrative and I just sent it with the song thinking I'd never hear back. And we did hear back, and Morgan loved the song, he said it mattered, and he said that he wanted to be in the video. And since then, of course, Morgan and I have become friends, we've done a lot of stuff together, and what an ultimate wonderful gift for me for him to do that. The video goes number one, it was up for a big award and all that stuff, but the bottom line was I mean, for him to do that, it really uh it changed the what do you call it? Give me a give me a one, I thought just the direction trajectory, exactly, of my entire career. My entire career. So what a gift, right? No kidding. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

It was elegantly too. Very elegantly done.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Um shot in our hometown, around our whole town in Clarksdale, where Morgan had opened Ground Zero Blues Club. Right. So he was on the rocking chair in front of the club. So we we we did it that played a show that night, and but the church and everything that you saw, Jim's Cafe is where my country uh trail marker is, all those places, that railroad track, all those things, those are the visuals in my mind. And guys, in my first attempt in the mid-90s, they had some girl on skates sprinkling magic dust to one of my songs because I had nothing to do with writing the video treatments. And I said, after that, I said it's never gonna happen again. You write the song, you need to write the video treatment. I started deciding I'm writing everything. And then we're gonna, we don't need somebody to do that ever again because it had nothing to do with the song, you know, and the emotion behind it. So I wanted this to be as real as everything that was on my mind because I felt like it had to be. Of course, we turned it into more a linear thing, but Morgan's message to me said it all and summed it all. If you don't know the story, it works. If you do know the story, it works. Yeah. Right, yeah. So you can watch it twice. Yeah, exactly. Well, what a what a gift. Man, what a gift. Oh guy, what a wonderful man. This man is beautiful, he's a great soul, great guy. Still producing as we speak. You know, we were on the golf course one day, and he said, uh we were talking, and and he had his first success when I had my first success. We were both 37. I'm pretty sure that that we were around the same age, but I think we were both 37, or maybe he was 38. With he was easy reader on electric company. And he said it took so long for it to finally start making, adding up and and being able to really uh know that you had a real career in front of you forever. Right. It took me that long too. And I was like, because we were always, you know, you had you had both feet in, but you were, like Morgan said, we were struggling, you know, because you you'd go through phases with different musicians for me, and then they would they would literally die off or literally do something crazy or whatever. It just couldn't last. It just didn't last. And then you found yourself again with nothing. And then you had to re-sort of restart. And he had a lot of those similar things happen in his career. So Morgan said, I'm not stopping now. And I told him, I'm not stopping now. So it was interesting that we both sort of shared that same feeling about it took us forever to get there, and we were working hard, but now that it went once it officially happened on a big enough stage to last, and you'd have to keep working at your craft to keep it going, but at least we were put in a situation where now it's up to us to continue to work. What the the the the highway has been paved.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

How has Waiting on Joe surprised you all these years later in terms of its own life journey? It's got its own personality out there, and and how do you reflect on that?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Well, I've had a lot of stories along the way. I can't I have this bracelet I wear every once in a while. I was showing I went to a military base in Clarksville, Tennessee, to do a show, and it was a sea of people out there. I remember that. But backstage were these four guys, and they were in uniform, and they said, Hey, Steve, we wanted to meet you at my meet and greet, and we wanted to give you something. And it had five names on this bracelet. Four of them were included, and one of them not. And they said, before we went into battle, all five of us would listen to Waiting on Joe. And they lost one of their friends, and he's obviously owned the thing. And I said, How can that impact like that? We started, we started getting back then there was no no way of shooting emails to each other, not not really yet. It was 2002 or three, so it wasn't like we were getting real letters. Right. And Gwen, my wife Gwen created a book of a lot of these letters from people, how waiting on Joe affected their life. And there were so many different ways that it touched people that I was like, how could that song do that for them? And and uh it was so touching. And there were loss of family members. They were literally named Joe, but there were so many other things that people were able to put it, insert it into their pain and their sorrow. And for some reason, the song, as sad as it seemed and was, it helped them get over their pain. And every one of them had that same message. So that over my career, it's been that way. And people hear it for the first time. Obviously, with my my resident show for Viking now here in Greenville, Cruise Line, it's up there on the wall when I before I come out, it's Morgan doing the intro because it's it's it's what created me, you know, and created the the me that the honest me. It was set the path forward for me to go, that's what I have to do now and be now because that's who I am. And so it has been, it's a very moving moment in the show. People are always gravitating toward it. I get to tell the story of it like I'm telling now. And it's an honest thing, it's real. There's nothing made up about it. It's great to be able to have the time and not be at the mercy of a clock and know that I get to tell this story. And with every song I'm tell that I do about Mississippi and about my roots and all that, their own part of the show and a few hits mixed in with a few hits. But yeah, I can't explain. I just got a email the other day about waiting on Joe. They said we had never heard it, and it was the most impactful song they've heard in the last 30 years of their life. And they said it was like medicine to them, and they've been listening to it over and over, and every time they listen to it, they cry, but then they get happy. And so this was just last week. And I'm going like, you know, I've had grown men cry on my shoulder at the show because of that song. And well, it was a big part. I they would bring it up, but there was other things about the show, but I'm going like, I mean, it's like it's just so beautiful to me. Guys, if I could only explain how did this happen, you know, I was working really hard. Wade Known Joe wasn't each verse was never a thought. It just blew out of me, right? Until the chorus sort of came to me. And then that was more of a thoughtful thing, like going, oh, I guess I'll put that there, then it's gonna make all of them connect. But I still saw all three verses totally separated from each other. And that's why I wanted to do the narrative. Once Morgan did the narrative, like Shawshank Redemption, the song actually made sense to me uh both ways. Right. You know, like it just the it's it's the gift that keeps on giving. I liked it, it keeps me going when I hear people who are moved by it. I mean, and in their own way, they're using it.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, you know, I think it's a really good testimony of how video can can complement uh and and I think the other piece that I always like to pull out about your music is place is so important.

unknown 13:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

And so there's really this profound sense of vibe and location that you get from the video. If you haven't seen the video, by all means go check it out. It's well worth it. And then the other piece that I like about it, though, is that feeling of sad story that is resolved by community, that is resolved by by the compassion of the people in the restaurant and and just those the the sort of slow-mo montage of experience of tragedy and this fusion. It's like as tragedy unfolds, so does the potential of family and community and everything else. And you really see it in the video, and I think that's that's when uh when when the ball went over the fence in that video.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

You want to hear something that to me as I look back on it all, and the gift that keeps on giving, like to Strach, our son, oldest son, the filmmaker. We moved back home. So Strach was in the video at five years old. He played my uncle's son, right? Or, you know, or or or Joe's br Joe's son in the video. Long story short, all those years, there were all these people in the video that were doing the theatrical thing here, right? And when Strach came back and moved here, they gravitated toward Strach. And all of a sudden, he's in all these films, like these short films. He's winning the Tupelo Film Festival and the American Film Festival, all this stuff. And these guys, these people are in his video. But then when he made his movie and he brought real actors in, he used them again. So he was in the waiting on Joe video with them and then turned the page forward all those years later, and they're in his movie that's on Amazon Prime. It's like it's like, how could that happen? And we weren't living here at the time. You know, we had moved here years later, 10 years later after the video was shot, we moved back. But I always think that, man, was that all just meant to happen? And we were sort of we were walking into the future for him. And I just think that that's just the the way life works when you get to live enough of it.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And Mike, I know you you picked this song too because it resonates in in a uniquely benedictine way, doesn't it? It's it uh Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

And you know, it's it's interesting. I I I love the idea that we're constantly waiting. You know, I mean, Steve and I have our ashes on our head, you know, today, and we've been to Mass this morning, and uh Lent brings us that time of waiting, of preparation, you know, as we get closer to Easter. But what's interesting with the song for me is the fact that that it's that message that says, I'm gonna continue to wait. I'm gonna continue to wait, I'm gonna continue to wait. And how many times I think so as we as we transition this to, you know, the idea of leadership and and and people, how many times do we not wait? How many times do we do we give up? Do we lose patience and go chase something else? Um, you know, and and miss out on opportunities and those kinds of things. And so I think, you know, the what really resonates to me in the song is this idea that that we're gonna continue to wait. Uh, we're gonna continue to have hope. We're gonna continue to to look at this idea that says, sooner or later Joe's coming. And, you know, and yeah, I'm aggravated as heck that he's not here, but I'm gonna continue to wait. I'm gonna continue to have patience. I'm gonna continue to to pursue hope that he's gonna be here. And I think that that's that's the message from a leadership perspective that I look at to say, what is it that that we're doing today that maybe we're not having patience with? That maybe we're we're not waiting. We're ready to say to heck with it, we're moving on, we're we're going to the next thing. When in reality we should wait and we should hold out hope because there are some things that are happening that we can't just walk away from and go to something something.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Y'all know that patience to me was my most difficult virtue to uh really.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

That's completely surprising, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Knock me over with a feather. But the fact is, I end up writing about it, and I've written about it in other songs too. I wrote about a bunch of songs about the waiting process and then and then how hard difficult it was for me just to help my myself. But then waiting on Joe came out, and that was the one I'd been waiting on, pardon the pun. But you say all this and you talk about this, uh it's patience is a difficult thing for a lot of people. And especially when you're in a workforce, probably, you know, with my guys and my band, and and there's a lot of things that I'm going like, guys, we gotta be on we can't be late for things. We can't be, you know, that is as just simple as that. Be on time. Right, right. And I I feel like I I feel like it's very rude to not show when everybody else is showing. So especially, I mean, you imagine the drummer doesn't show up on stage where everybody's we're going on stage, where's he at? Is he in the bathroom? What's going on? Right. Like you should have taken through that earlier. So, so but but I just think, don't y'all think that patience is even in the workplace, even with your family life, anything you're doing in life, isn't it a hard one? Isn't that a hard one to just to use it?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah, absolutely it is. I mean, I don't think there's any question that that the idea of patience, I mean, you know, it's it's certainly something and I look at it from a standpoint a little bit differently. Steve, you look at it from a standpoint of somebody not being on time to do something. I look at it from a standpoint of patience being waiting and allowing for time to happen versus versus you know, getting, you know, somebody's late for this or that or yeah, and we all get aggravated with that. I don't think there's any question about that. But the idea of letting time play out, the idea of having the patience.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

If you bake bread, you are patient. Exactly. The bread is gonna do what the bread is gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

But you ever since I've been especially you, Mike, in the monk principles and all that, you don't think that I've not seen the other side of patience with you? And and Randy as well. Y'all been you've taught me another whole side of it that I've that I have not thought about, but I have you I have learned to use. And I have. And I yeah, as somebody that loves to be in the kitchen and cook, that that patience is awesome. How long it takes to do everything right, right, you know, and watching it all come together, but you're but you're getting to see progress, you know? Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

But sometimes but you know, sometimes you are and sometimes you're not. I mean, you might be cooking something that should have been done. I mean, even the Thanksgiving turkey, for God's sake, you know, this thing should have been done in three and a half hours, and we're four and a half hours into it, and and it's still not done. You know, what the heck is going on here?

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Well, so so take us in the work world, guys. Randy, start you want to start take us when you're going into uh one of your clients and you see that they seem to be in a hurry, uh jumping the gun, you know, getting too fast on things. If they would have just waited this and that things, those those things may have come to fruition.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, yeah. So I I studied, I say studied, I was an apprentice to a guy about a thousand years ago. I believe his name was Byrne Ho. He was a facilitator. He's no longer with us. Interesting guy. He was one of those guys, Mike, who would facilitate a session. He had a tackle box that had markers in it, and he was that guy, you know, with the flip charts.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Never met a white board he didn't like.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

So I go up with him and he was gonna hand off a client to me, and I watched him work with this client, and I swear to God, we were in the room for four hours with this board or senior team or whatever they were, and I think he said maybe five words the whole time. It was remarkable. He would maybe put a question up there, and then he would just sit. And I was floored by the whole thing. I was just like, oh my gosh. Well, suffice to say, I think he sat a little too much. But I did figure out, like five years, seven years later, there's something, there's a difference between being patient and being still. Absolutely. And that is that's a subtle but very powerful thing because when you're still, then other stuff comes out. And usually it's more authentic and it's more real. So if you're really trying to understand a group or you're trying to lead, you're trying to get the mind of the people that you're you're engaged with for whatever reason. Stillness is this superpower, man. And leaders that can scroll. Switch it on and off like that, they it's it's just remarkable because they get still and then all of a sudden truth comes out, you know? Right. Yeah, bubbles up. So I think when you begin to appreciate that, it changes tempo. It allows you to modulate tempo. Yeah. It gives you a counterpoint. So boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Stop. Really stop. I'm really struggling right now. Right? But that's because it's so when you want to but by stopping, you begin to understand action. I'll let me lay one more bombshell on you. Kenneth Burke made a big distinction between two words, action and motion. Motion is the planets in the heavens. Motion is a leaf falling off a tree. Motion is the waves on the beach. Motion is what happens without intention. Action requires intention. And so I've seen a very powerful person at Microsoft would say something like, let's get the motion of the room first. Basically, what he's saying is, what's actually going on here that isn't about us causing it? What is the environment we are going into? What is it's like when you walk on a boat. You adjust your footing to the boat, and after an hour or two, you're walking just fine. And then you get off the boat. Now you're walking like an idiot because that's what's so this idea of motion and action, I think, is really an important thing. Motion is a way for you to get in touch with place, with vibe, with orientation. It allows you to fit in to the world around you, to co-emerge with the world around you. And then action is clear because it it is driven exclusively by intent. What are you trying to do? What are you trying to achieve? What is the effect you expect to get? I was on a call yesterday with the person and they were furious at an employee because the employee had sent out an email to all of their customers, thousands of people. And her question was, Why what what did you expect to have happen? And he said, Well, I I wasn't sure. It's like, okay, this is this is this is a bad thing, right? We have to undo this, we have to reel this back in. So the the point I'm trying to make is when you start talking about patience, what you're really talking about is patience in a system. You're talking about cause and effect. And one of the first things you can do is just pause all of the intentional stuff for a second and then stop and look, wait and see. I like to tell the story that the my wife and I scuba dive. I'm the the laziest scuba diver in the world. I will I will get in the water, I will go to the little place I want to go by the little reef head or whatever it is, I will get as still as I can possibly be. I'll slow my respiration rate as slow as I can make it so I can get more bottom time, and then I just get still. And then the fish come to me. When you're scubain around, you don't see squat, fish are gone. You're just this monstrous thing snorkeling around there, you know? But when you get still, they will come to you, and it's freaky how they will come to you. It's like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

It's interesting. You know, it's interesting you talk about this idea of action and intention. Benedict talks about moving with composure. Moving with composure so that we constantly are moving and we're aware of this movement and we're doing it intentionally. It's not just some reactive thing that we're doing. It's not just going off willy-nilly and chasing something. We move with composure in order to maintain that idea that when we need stillness, when we need that time to just quiet and stop, if we're moving with composure, it's easy to do that. You look at the Benedictine idea of rhythm and the way that their day unfolds, it goes from prayer uh to meal to work to prayer. Uh, and and it's that moving with composure, understanding the rhythm of the day as they go through that, so that everything is done intentionally, but everything is done with composure. It's not, you know, it's not coming off the rails.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

You know, with martial arts, in katas or forms, in between, let's say a front kick and a sidekick, you might have three steps. Well, all three of those steps in between are all equally balanced. There's no point in the movement, if you're doing it correctly, where there is an imbalance because there's vulnerability at that point, right? And so this idea of moving with that sense of coherence and integrity of intent all the way through everything, I think is a very powerful thought. And it's the same way of saying, you know, if you've ever worked in a restaurant, I believe that the the quality of the restaurant can be measured by what happens when the restaurant is closed, as much as by when it is open. In other words, how one of the one of the my favorite moments of watching a woman uh who was a restaurant owner, she came in on a Sunday morning early ahead of her weight staff and and her cleaning staff because she liked to clean the kitchen first on Sunday morning. And I was talking to her and I said, Why are you here? And she goes, This is church. And she's just, she's just cleaning, cleaning this, you know, the the silver tops and whatnot. And it was a beautiful thing to watch because that was her moment of stillness. That was, and so the quality of that restaurant to me was her being there at six and o'clock in the morning for a 4 p.m. service that day, cleaning before everybody else got in. That's what's going on. So, anyway, all of this stuff that we're talking about, though, is it is the space that allows something to happen. It's the stillness that draws attention to the action. So it's these counterpoints. And as a musician, this is what waiting on Joe is all about. It's hitting those tension points again and again, both in the heart and soul, but also musically.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

For you guys, business wise in y'all's world, for me personally, and for me, with a lot of my friends who were on this journey and having to be patient, but working. So, so let's get back to this. You gotta be working while you're patient. I mean, if you gotta get better at it and you gotta keep doing it because you gotta keep doing it, and you gotta be both feet in, both arms in, heart, soul, mind, everything. You cannot be going like this is a side thing, not to attempt to do it forever. You just, you know, maybe some people get away with it, but 99.9999% uh do not. They can't. So I've always seen it as now that I get in hindsight in my life in the rearview mirror, there were so many places in my life and my friends' life in our business, that we came so close to stopping and turning around and going home. Yeah. But then you were such at a crossroads, you didn't know you were there. So you didn't you don't know that that just past this spot, whether it's straight ahead or the left or right turn, whatever it is, just just past this. Like you're talking about this this much was so much waiting for you that had to happen in your career to advance it. And it it gave you hope, for sure. And you're going, man, if I'd have stopped, or man, if I'd have quit. What just happened? And a lot of times it definitely was I could feel it, that it wasn't in my hands, and that I was trying to plan my grand scheme of my life out in front of me. And I had like it was written down. And uh most of that stuff that was written down didn't happen in my timely fashion, right? But a lot of it did happen to me, for me personally, in God's plan. So that's you know, the faith that I believe in. And and I've seen some things that happened along the way that maybe gave me even more faith each time I got to that pivotal point when I go, I didn't stop then. Maybe on the other side of this, tomorrow morning when I wake up, there's gonna be a a major highway that in in my career that's been paved, and here we go. And dang it, if it didn't happen every time. I didn't realize how much highway I was gonna have to go through before I started having the success, before I wrote waiting on Joe. I mean, there was a lot of track behind me, you know, but as I could go from gravel and potholes and just bad pavement and all that, and once you got this big, beautiful highway that just got paved, you know, with the big, beautiful lines, in my mind that's how I saw advancement when I when I was off of these bumpy roads. And um, that's how I saw my career. I literally saw it as a highway. I gotta get on the interstate where you can go 80 and you can, you know what I mean? And and you're you're not gonna hit boom, boom, boom, and your car's gonna drive so smooth, and which was reflective or or you know, sort of my life would be so smooth. And um, so looking back, and a lot, a lot, a lot of my friends have had, we've had these discussions and go like, can you believe that we were all on the same path at different places on this, you're talking about this highway and looking for that perfect I think I can agree a thousand percent that impermanence is the nature of of the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

That if you if you're going through a tough time, it's gonna change. If you're going through a great time, it's gonna change. I mean, those are the things I have taken away as as big lessons, it's like uh there's a it's a I can't remember exactly where the term was. It's I want to say it's India Indian, but uh the the word is anitya, and it means more or less this too shall pass, in but in a in a like with a gong behind it. It's like, you know, no matter how rigorous what you're dealing with is, it's changing, it's dynamic. And so one of the places where I feel like there's power in the world is when you are able to be still enough to see the small changes that are taking place around you. And, you know, when you have that moment where you stop and you see the hummingbird on the on the hummingbird feeder, or you stop and you notice, wow, that that flower was not here this morning, and I'm now out here this afternoon, and there it is. So all kind of stuff is going on all the time. I'm just not aware of it, I'm not perceiving it. And so when you can take that step back and just like really appreciate how dynamic everything is, uh, you know, by the way, it's just shake it up real quick because it is and now show it. Yeah, there we go. Look at it. Yeah, you got to give it a good kitchen. This is this is a nutritional shake in the morning. But um, at some level we could say, and we would be correct, that this bloody merry mix is actively being bloody merry mix right now. It's busy right this second, biochemically. Yeah, be it's ready, you know, it's ready to go. And if I don't know what the expiration date on this is, but in 15 years, 18 months. Okay, but we'll give it 15 years, and we'll say 15 years from now, maybe it wouldn't be quite as good as it is today. Although with the right amount of vodka, it probably wouldn't be a problem even then. Boom. But my point I'm trying to make is that even though we don't see something being, it is being, and there's something remarkable that happens when we allow ourselves to slow down and watch nature in particular do its thing and take care of itself and and and you know change the continents and do all the things and the orbital patterns of the universe. The key here is dynamics, impermanence are where you have to. That's those are the scenes you have to work in. And that's the story being told in Waiting on Joe. That's the story with the railways. That's the story with the river, that beautiful scene at the end. And I that wasn't lost on me either. That connection between those two modalities and the profound nature of the Mississippi River there. But but the life happening in and amidst all this motion again, all the all the stuff that's going on out there that we have to fall into and fit into.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Mike, let me let me just say this at the river. There's something that happens to me that the my my temperature, uh, I I get real still, as you keep telling you guys talking about, when I go out and I see the river, and not only get right about it, I've written so many songs there or because of it or about it. Something happens to me. And I know water does things for people. They go run to the water, to the beach, and all this and stuff, but water can be violent as well, and so can that river. So, but it's mysterious to me, but it's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed, and change is constantly happening, like you bring up. I've never thought about the flower about to bloom and all these things that are about to happen. Um Mike, that just wanted to just go there for a second before you before you jump in.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Well, you know, I think I think there's a couple of distinctions here. Number one, there's a difference between stillness and inertia. Yes. Two very different things. You know, I had the opportunity a hundred years ago when I was in the Air Force to work on the SR-71 Blackbird. Oh, man. And, you know, this this plane was incredible, but when it was sitting on the ground, it was a wreck. It was leaking fluid all over the place and that kind of thing. But you get that thing up in the air going Mach 2, and all the seams would seal up uh and and it was sleek and it was a bullet going through the air, you know. But it needed that action. You know, Einstein says nothing happens until something moves. And that idea that says we take that stillness, but then we take that stillness and move. So, Randy, you're three steps in the in the martial arts. That three steps is is sort of that stillness aspect, but then you move to the next action, you know. And I think that that's the thing, the difference between inertia where we're paralyzed, you know, we talk about analysis paralysis, and we see that with leaders all the time and with people all the time. Yeah. But when you're at stillness, stillness is is something that says, I know that the next thing that's gonna happen is action. But I'm gonna take that pause. So, you know, you guys have heard me talk about Stazio and the Benedictins taking that pause before they go do something, whether it's prayer or work or whatever. That's that that's that moment of stillness, but they also know that with the rhythm of the day, something else is gonna happen after that. We're not gonna just sit around and think about doing something and be paralyzed to do something. We're gonna actually move to the next thing. And I think from a leadership perspective, it's really important that we understand that what we're not what we're not suggesting a leader should do is sit around and ponder something all day. What we're doing is be caught, what we're talking about is being cognizant of what's going on around you. Exactly. Be cognizant of what it is that you're dealing with, take that moment, take that pause, and then move on to action because nothing happens until something moves.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

It's an awareness thing. It's awareness. It's about I'm I'm understanding where I am in this complex system that I'm in. And I am in a complex system, no matter what system I'm in. It's weird stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

And you know, and I love your your idea of the river, Steve, because the river's constantly changing. You know, you can go out there right now and you're gonna see something. You can go out there an hour from now and you're gonna see something completely different. You know, one of my favorite places in the world is the north shore of Lake Superior. Yeah. And it's constantly changing. The water is constantly changing it, whether it's calm, whether there's you know, 30-foot waves on it, or whatever the case may be, it's constantly changing. And I think that's the that's the mesmerizing thing of being around water, whether it's the ocean or a lake or a river or whatever the case may be. But we also understand that it's changed, that it constantly keeps moving. Again, it's that action aspect of it. There's something happening and something's moving in order for things to move, to, to change and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

The ultimate patience is watching a towboat pull is the largest, right? It's going against the wind and against the current and all that. And it's just moving so gracefully and just right in time. And from a person that's not on the boat, that's watching it go by, it's like the first time I've ever seen it every time one goes by. It's like you just look, I take pictures or just in my mind, or if I've got my phone, I'm going, how good of a picture can I capture this moment? And pictures don't do it justice. Right. But it is every time I see it, it's like the first time. And you imagine how patient those guys have to be when they're fighting the current, right? And the rivers and all this other stuff, and the river. Anyway, uh it's it's um, I think we gotta wrap it up. But Mike, you want to take us home? Randy, why don't you take us home? I opened it.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

You got it. So, I mean, what we started talking about Waiting on Joe, and we started talking about Morgan Freeman's introduction. And what we discovered from that is that song functions in place, and setting that scene really opened up all the potential of that, that wonderful story that setting on uh waiting on Joe tells. We also found out that Waiting on Joe is a whole stack of metaphors layered on top of them. For Steve writing it, the train was cancer. This this moment in time was a potential of was a measure of your whole career. So when we listen to music, what we're really doing is we're applying our own sense of value and meaning and and spiritual quest into the music. And that's why so many people have resonated so strongly with Waiting One Joe over the years, and they will continue to do that. I'll be delighted that my granddaughter is going to listen to that song in five years ago. That's a great song, you know, and have never heard it before. So what we're really talking about is coming more full human beings through the experience and engagement with music, and in so doing, being more present, more aware, and potentially more still, more quiet, more willing to let the voices around them be heard, but also very clear about action that needs to be taken, right? That's what we're talking about here. Some serious business on resonance, the way we like to do things.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

I would thought I'd be talking to you guys on this show about that, you know, when you wrote it, you know, and these are the these are the little nuggets of love that I get to uh appreciate. I'm very grateful for you guys even wanting to share that. What a day. Resonanceleader.com, right? Uh you can check out everywhere you stream, and and you can also see some of the things. You'll see it right away. Yeah, the video's on my YouTube channel as well and all that. But but yes, yes, yes. And uh so on behalf of Mike, the Mont Guy Farrell, Randy Harrington, and myself, Steve Azar, thank you guys so much for tuning in. Don't forget there is a live version. We get on airplanes and come to you, and uh, it'll be pretty awesome. Yeah, and drink that bloody marriage is pretty good. Later on. Thanks, guys.com.