Resonance Episode: The Myth of Balance and Why Rhythm Matters More

In this episode Steve, Randy and Mike dive into the significance of rhythm as a core element shaping our personal routines, organizational success, and overall well-being. Discover how understanding and cultivating rhythm can enhance productivity, reduce stress, and deepen your leadership impact.

Takeaways:

• The intrinsic connection between music, work, and daily life
• How rhythm builds stability and consistency across personal and professional spheres
• The influence of monastic principles like aura et labora (prayer and work) on modern rhythms
• Practical tips for establishing intentional routines and rituals
• Insights from African tribal music on rhythm linked to work and travel
• The importance of seasonal and cyclical rhythms over the myth of perfect balance
• The dangers of activity without purposeful rhythm, including the role of sleep and recovery
• How to recognize out-of-sync moments and reset through intentional pauses
• The impact of rhythm on creativity and innovation in teams and organizations
• Personal stories illustrating the power of rhythm in life and career

Chapters:

• 00:00 - The connection between headphones, music, and personal rhythm
• 01:12 - How monastic traditions integrate work and prayer through rhythm
• 02:43 - The significance of daily routines rooted in reflection and stability
• 03:57 - Building rhythm through intentional repetition and monks' practices
• 04:50 - The predictability of routines and their role in handling life's curveballs
• 05:27 - The necessity of stability to manage stress and external shocks
• 06:08 - The value of weekly planning and preparedness for maintaining rhythm
• 07:00 - Sleep, rest, and recovery as critical components of rhythmic balance
• 08:50 - The fallacy of work-life balance; instead, focus on rhythmic cycles
• 09:49 - Recognizing and embracing seasonal rhythms in business planning
• 11:00 - The importance of preparation and sequencing for synchronized effort
• 12:26 - How rhythmicity underpins musical performance and group dynamics
• 13:22 - Insights from military teams on speed, purpose, and rhythm in action
• 14:35 - The role of tempo and dynamics in creating harmonious team performance
• 15:46 - Staying in the groove: how rhythm fosters trust and effortless coordination
• 17:00 - Lifelong musicians and artists exemplifying disciplined rhythms
• 18:06 - The impact of the click track and personalized timing in music recordings
• 19:23 - The significance of out-of-sync signals and the need for realignment
• 20:07 - The challenges of remote work and artificial disruptions to rhythm
• 21:33 - Leaders' role in creating space for rhythm and downtime to boost creativity
• 23:00 - Closing thoughts: rhythm isn’t a one-time fix but an ongoing practice

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This is Resonance, the podcast with leaders that unpacks the power of song, salads, and strategy.

SPEAKER_04 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_04 0:27

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

SPEAKER_02 0:33

We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too.

SPEAKER_04 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.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Hey, I am pretty fired up about this topic. I hope you will be fired up about it as soon as you hear about it, but you can't hear about it until you hear who we are. We've got Steve Azar, amazing human, amazing artist, and you you know who he is. And we got Mike the Monk Guy Feral. Uh also. He's keeping us grounded. And you have no idea. Mike does so much to keep this whole show on the road. We would be wandering cats were it not for uh the noble feral. Anyway, so uh here we go. Our topic today is going to be something that it you should feel in your soul. It should be something that just happens every day. You work your day through a rhythm, you have a sense of rhythm in your heart and soul, your heartbeat is a rhythm. Everything around you, when you start paying attention to it, is a rhythm. There's the sun and the moon, there's all kinds of things that are keeping time all around you. And so rhythm ends up being this powerful tool that is a part of our humanity and it's also an extension of our leadership capabilities. That's what we're talking about. And it's gonna be pretty exciting stuff because what we know is high-performing organizations have figured out rhythm. And we're gonna talk about why. But let's start with the place where I love it. When I find the music that I love, it is almost always connected at a rhythmic level. It's sort of that bass line thing. One more quick thought. On Apple Music now, you can go and there's an AI slide in your Apple Music where it'll say, What do you want? Make a playlist right now. And I could say, uh Steve Azar and Fleetwood Mac, and it'll go. And not only will it put that together, but it'll link the songs based on rhythm and tempo. Wow. So that when you listen to it, it feels like it feels like there's a DJ that pulled those things together. Or I could say Fleetwood Mac, uh Steve Azar at a crawfish boil for 30 people, and it will then bring in Cajun influences. So so this is what I'm talking about. We're talking about, but how's it doing it? It's doing it with rhythm. It's syncing with rhythm. That's how important this is. Azar, you play every instrument in the band, but you gotta know that rhythm is what? Is it a backbone? How does rhythm sit in your mind? Yeah, that's a big question.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

That's a that's a loaded, I mean, that's a very large question. I need it synced down to something, but you know, the first thing you think about in rh is rhythm is the guy back there holding down the beat. Um, and you you always want a drummer that uh and a bass player. So that you think about those two guys back there and you want them uh to be in perfect harmony. Meaning they live in a pocket. In that pocket, the drummers just he's he's late, but he's right on time. There's something about that. How does that happen? Because it catches it just there's you're just just ever so late, but it's right on time. It's it's the craziest thing. But I play a lot of guitar. You want a drummer that's sitting back, you want a drummer that's sitting back on the beat, not laying on top of it. And what it does is it puts this thing, magic dust, already starting, man. You got emotion. We're swimming in it, and we're drinking whatever they're serving, and we're eating whatever they're cooking. And when they have that groove thing going, then uh the rest of us just try not to screw it up. Uh, I'm very rhythmic when it comes to my own thing. So I grew up around Eugene Powell and who was Sonny Boy Nelson and uh uh just a lot of great blues guys, Sam Chapman, Lil Milton, list goes on and on, of these guys that were capable of sitting with their guitars, and all they would do is make it sound like there were four of them. And they played with the a cheap Sears, beat up harmony, whatever it was, guitar. It wasn't like the top of the line Gibson or Taylor or Martin and all that, and it sounded like an orchestra. And it was because their rhythmic patterns and what they did and the way they hit the guitar with their hands or the way their feet were doing this, they're hitting the ground. There was so much going on that you could close your eyes and still, you just felt like there was almost a band there. And that is so you take that into a studio, and that could be a really good thing. But if you're doing what the drummer's doing on your guitar sometimes, maybe you don't need the drummer to do that anymore. Because so you've got to figure out rhythmically and what makes sense as well is oh, I'm already doing that with my hand hitting the guitar. Maybe the drummer wants to insinuate that, or maybe it's the worst idea in the world. Maybe he needs to go halftime and he needs to be bucking the system a little bit to make it even more rhythmic.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

So uh the country music for a long time, they they really didn't like drummers, you know, um bluegrass in particular, but I mean at the Grand Ole Opry, wasn't it kind of a big deal when drummers were finally inside the music?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

I mean, it's you go there, I'm not just saying the Grand Ole Opry. Um, it's an amazing experience, and I've gotten to do it many times and every time grateful. Uh, but it is sort of a silent, uh, silent place to play music. Um, and it you you sort of feel like you're in church. Yeah. I mean, that's so you're you're more reverent, and you're more the idea of rock and roll in churches.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

That's a that's a great observation. Uh because that was always a little weird when I I remember uh in the 1970s that became a thing. Uh what? Oh having a rock band in church.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They started doing it, and there's been bands that came out of that that were really successful, but yeah, but still, though, you play to a certain dynamic, I guess. You're dynamic, everything you do, certain volume. I mean, just be literal volume compared to playing in Madison Square Garden where the amps were on 12. You know what I'm saying? Then like we were ready to roll. And uh, or 100,000 people. Now, I'm kidding about 12 because you still have to have respect on stage. You want the you want the sound engineers out there beyond your stage to be able to turn everything up and let it be that rather than you being so loud that they don't need to turn you up, then that defeats the purpose of all that production out there. So you want to that that's an important thing. I know we're getting off the beaten path a little bit, but I'm I'm gonna say this. There's been certain songs in my life when I feel like they're hypnotic to me that I've written. So my song Sunshine, it never leaves this place. And it can almost put you in a trance. When I'm playing it live, I have to not dissolve because every time it kicks in and we go there, it lays in the same place from start to finish. It goes, but you just can't leave. The you can't leave it, you have to stay there. And I when I originally were writing the thing, I tried to go up in an octave and tried to do some things vocally, and I realized even the vocals can't go anywhere. I need to have a conversation, and it needs to match the feeling of everything that's happening.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

And I'm gonna have to go back and listen to the bridge of sunshine again. Yeah, I can't listen to the bridge.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

So, Steve, Ann and I danced to Sunshine at our son's wedding. That was our request for our song to dance at our son's wedding a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

So what was what was the rhythm like for you? It was perfect. Seriously. Yeah. Oh, that made Monday. That made Monday.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

That was my request. I wanted sunshine for us to do our dance. So that's very good. All right, so now I'm gonna shift gears. You guys have kind of talked about rhythm, but the other piece of this today is the myth of balance. And you know, and and I know, Randy, you have had lots of folks that you've worked with, and you can't hardly read anything today without this idea of living life in balance and work-life balance and all of this kind of stuff. However, I would say that probably 90% of the people that I've worked with, and especially of the successful leaders that I've worked with, would tell you that work-life balance is a bunch of BS. Um and it really isn't so much about balance as it is rhythm. And as I look at it from a Benedictine perspective, you know, rhythm is built into every single day in a monastery. You know, seven times to prayer, uh, working at the same time, eating at the same time, all of those kinds of things create a rhythm which builds success uh in the monastery. And so it's not really, you know, if if they were worried about work like life balance, they'd have have half of them say, well, seven times to prayer, that's too many, you know, uh, or you know, I want to I want to work when I want to work. I don't want to work at this particular time every day, you know. Um that's not how it works. And I think I think great leaders find that rhythm is so important because we have uh a time or a season. I, you know, uh one of the clients that I work with, um, they they break their year up into four different seasons like a farmer would. Uh and they, you know, they they plant and they cultivate and and they water and they and they harvest and you know, and so they've created this rhythm that they do every quarter uh that's kind of based on that thought. And so uh understanding that at sometimes, you know, um that time of of harvest is when they're busy as heck, they're trying to finish out the year and get as much stuff in, and they're not a whole lot of balance there, you know. Uh, but it's great rhythm. It's rhythm that happens constantly uh as they go through their year. And so uh it really is uh an interesting way to look at things from a standpoint of, you know, this idea of, you know, when I wrote that first book, it's the the strategic planning process creating that rhythm of quarterly uh or six-month time frames or seasons that you work through. Um and I think that that allows you to build rhythm in your business, it allows you to build rhythm in in how you your teams work and how the things happen within the business. So um rhythm, I think, is really important. I uh this idea that everything should be in balance, I'm not sure that that's all that healthy. Um because I think that uh, and you guys know this, there are times, Steve, you know this from from you know, if if you're coming up on the Delta Soul Classic, you know that there's not a whole heck of a lot of balance going on there in that, you know, six weeks before that tournament, because there's a whole bunch of stuff that's getting done, and you know, and Gwen's driving Gwen's getting driven crazy by you know hotel rooms and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it's it's that kind of thing, I think. Yeah, yeah. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Recovery recovery is important, by the way. Exactly.

unknown 12:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

So I use it for art of that rhythm. Yeah, I use a slightly different terminology, but I think we're talking about exactly the same thing. Um, I talk a lot about pace and purpose and the relationship between those two things. So, you know, to to your point about Delta Soul, it's like, well, if the purpose is to make this amazing event happen for these amazing people, for this amazing charity, then by God, I can I can give up some sleep, I can give up some comfort, I can do whatever it's gonna take because that goal is gonna be what drives the pace. The purpose of that eclipses and it and it dictates the pace. It says this is what's gotta happen. And on the other hand, if uh to you, I love this. One of the reasons I like your seasonal idea is that oftentimes uh I see people believe that fast is always good.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And it's really interesting because one of the very first places I heard this was with uh when I started hanging out with uh SEAL team officers. And I was with a guy, I had not met him before, uh, and we were eating lunch in San Diego. We went to just some little deli in San Diego, and uh we had sandwiches, they came in little plastic baskets, one of those places, right? And I'm watching this this man across from me eat a sandwich in basically two bites, you know, just like grrr. And uh I said, and I was being I don't know, I was kind of like wow, but I said, uh, good was your sandwich good? And he looked at me just finishing chewing and he goes, high speed. I didn't know what to make of it, and so a little bit later on I heard somebody else drop the phrase high speed, and so high speed means great in SEAL team language. If something is high speed, so a sandwich is high speed if it's good. So this is how this is how important speed is to these guys. I mean, it's just like this is central to the way they value anything good is going to be high speed. But these are also the people that say slow is smooth and smooth is fast. But they understand that pace, if you're learning something, take being excruciatingly slow and doing it is going to teach you the technique first.

unknown 15:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

And this is where anybody learning anything has struggled with this. But this idea of pace and purpose or uh uh aligning you know, to that that we're back to that Benedictine principle of the goal, the the the almighty purpose of Del Grande, what do we call it? Uh he says something different, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Uh he doesn't use it because your your purpose is uh your uh yeah what your higher purpose is higher purpose higher purpose it's just higher purpose and higher purpose like say it again higher purpose vision, higher purpose vision, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And no no del Grande is never in that.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

So you know, uh you think about this, you talk about rhythm, and you talk about staying in time. Tempo is a very important part of the whole scheme of your tempo can't vary, it just can't. And so your dynamics can. You mean meaning you can you can come down when the singer's singing a verse, or you can, you know what I mean, like the you know, different levels. So your dynamics, it becomes it's it's interesting because it becomes a group effort, it's not an individual effort. I'm telling you. It feels like when you do it right, we talked about this on our last show about the noise and all that and signal. But the bottom line is everybody is in sync when they're playing and dynamics, but it never feels like you're doing it, it feels like we're doing it. And so that that's important. Second of all, when you you talk about um your seasonal, well, touring is seasonal. Right. Uh come off the road in December and you don't get the road back until March. You got a lot to do, but boy, you come up the mountain, you get voice rest, you get family time, you get you recharge. At the same time you're making another record and you're, you know, or recording or writing and doing this stuff. A lot of times you had you'd be writing on the road, so you'd you'd make up that time while you were out there. But I'm telling you right now, there was a system in place and a rhythm to your year. Exactly. And and when you were doing it that way, now you look at somebody like B.B. King and Willie Nelson, and I don't think they stopped touring. You know, B.B. King did not stop touring. He'd still be touring if he was with us. Willie is 93, and he just tours, and he keeps making records, but he just does makes records probably in slots of touring because he is a guy that has to play live.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

And he wants to do it. It's like breathing to him. You know what I mean? So uh you can imagine the rhythm of life and the rhythm on the road for for him is not seasonal. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

I remember I love this idea then that rhythm is something that you know you can cast around the whole year. Certainly, I think uh I we may have mentioned this before that Microsoft was very powerful to me because they have a very strict rhythm of the business uh that that we've talked about, that where this is if you're work at Microsoft, you know what the deal is, uh, you know, month over month, what's happening. And that's very powerful to have that that sense of focus. I had an experience that really blew my mind uh some time ago uh when I was working with a guy that was teaching me guitar and we were we were doing some recording stuff, and it was the very first time I had practiced and worked on this song for a good while, and then we went in to do this little lay down this thing in a studio, and I was introduced to the click track, the dreaded click track. I had to record and you got to have it. You've gotta have it. This is what I was told. You've gotta have it. Well, I thought I was prepared for this experience until the evil click track reminded me that I had absolutely I was I'm missing a gene in there somewhere. Something's wrong. I got I got the the wiring wasn't right because you just had the wrong let me tell you what.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Let me interrupt you here. Please. Because you had the wrong click track for your rhythm. Well you've got this, you've got a built-in rhythm yourself, and you need to hear it a certain way. So there's you can add percussion to it, you can do this, but the click, click, click it. Some people cannot you it's just it's not rhythmic enough to be rhythmic with.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

And so you are I you have just healed something in me, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

I could create a clique with you for you that would be your own clique. It would literally be your own click. Oh and it would be built off of how you interpret that, and it would take all the pressure off and you just play. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Well, because I when I left that session, I remember uh my wife said, you know, well, how did that go? And I was like, Well, I'm I've always thought of music as a hobby, but now I'm thinking of it as like a you know a lame hobby.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah, this it's not really fair because there's some bad clicks that nobody can stay to. I mean, like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I thought you had a bad yeah. Well, thank you for that. I I uh I mean it's it was worth the whole cost of admission for this thing for me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

I totally without making it up. I'm gonna make create a click when we're together. Okay. Your click and nobody else is gonna know it and understand it. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

So this is it though. The the thing that makes that metaphor interesting to me is if you are out of sync with the rhythm of the business and you feel it, there is nothing more awkward in the world, especially if you're trying. I'm trying, man. I'm trying to get in and on and this is another thing where I think remote work really is hard because right, right.

unknown 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Yeah. I mean, I you know Zig Zig Ziggler used to say, don't confuse activity with accomplishment. And uh, you know, that that out-of-balance type stuff where you're just running on the hamster wheel, that's that's uh activity. That's not necessarily accomplishment, you know. Uh I think the you know, I think the other thing, Steve, you made a great point of this uh coming off the road. You know, you've you've been on the road for however long it's been, but now you need some downtime. And you know, I think one of the things that leaders miss is that they drive their organizations, they drive their teams, they drive their people, but they never really understand that sometimes you got to hit the pause button and let people catch the breath. Sometimes you really have to give them the opportunity to just say, okay, can we just pause for a second and catch our breath here before we move on to the next thing? And uh there are not a lot of leaders that I've worked with who really understand that concept because they're drivers. They constantly are driving. And so uh I think that's where this idea of rhythm can be so helpful because if you're doing things in a particular rhythm, you build right into Into that rhythm, a little bit of that downtime or that restoration or whatever you want to call it. Um, and and I think that also fuels creativity. I think it fuels creativity and it fuels innovation because when people are burnt out, um, you do not create an environment that you can innovate in. Uh, and so really understanding that idea that you're allowing in that in that rhythm of the business, you're allowing that time to, you know, for people to to kind of pause.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Let me explain to you the rhythm of the road. When you get out, you sleep at odd times because you just got to sleep when you can sleep. Because the bus and just the variables, but so when you get home from touring and it's not the end of touring season, it's just you're there home that week for a few days and you're cleaning your clothes. It's tough to get into any rhythm as far as physically uh feeling 100%. You get a lot of colds, you get a lot of allergies, you get all this stuff going on. You're on a bus. Sometimes it's too hot, too cold. You're always around germs and da-da-da, all this stuff is going on. But with with all that said, um, at 11 a.m., I'd get my day sheet from my tour manager. It would tell me everything that was happening that day. If I could have even golf, if I had a time to play nine holes or hit balls, uh working out, da-da-da-da-da, all this, when was sound check, when was meals catering if you were there, where we were going to do, all this stuff, right? And then when you play the gig, when the gig started and when your meet and greet is, and when you're how you how long signing autographs was always uh a couple hour window afterwards, and then you'd get back, showers and everything, jump on the bus, head to the next town. The bus driver gets picked up, he drives through the night while we while we try to sleep, but it's hard to sleep after you got a lot of momentum. Yeah, you know you've been, you know, it's uh it's it's an it's a a high. It's a high. So anyway, getting into that rhythm and then going home was extremely difficult for me because I wasn't getting voice rest. And my voice events eventually took its toll. And a lot of, you know, sleep is as every bit as important as anything you can do for your body, especially your vocal cords. Right. So it caught up with me, the rhythm, it didn't matter how rhythmic we were, we were out of balance. I was personally out of balance. Right. And then after I had throat surgery, I was put on the way it had to be for me to be able to get my voice strong and just keep it strong forever. And then we realized that if I'm talking, doing something for 60, 70, 80, 90 minutes, I gotta take 20. And it that had to be the rule, no matter what. And once I started doing that, it was amazing how I was able to continue the rhythm rather than be out of sync and out of balance.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Sure, yeah, yeah. Boy, there's a lot in what you just said, man. There's a lot there because uh, you know, the idea of forcing yourself to take time, but then your body just not really letting you do it or circumstances because you were you were coming home, you were a parent, and so what are you gonna do? You're gonna be there for your kids, you're gonna try and couldn't wait to do that. Yeah.

unknown 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

But you're not getting the rest. It's not like you're coming home and getting treated like a a royalty. You're there at you're going to the basketball game or you're going to do the whatever because that's your job as a as a parent, and you're trying to shove all that in there. Extremely, extremely difficult to do. Critical. I think the other piece that's interesting to me is that your body was finally like, nope, sorry, you've got to stop. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

There's a certain amount of adrenaline that was there when you got home, but but then there was a crash coming. The crash was coming. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. The rhythm. You know, it's almost like in life in general, can you find a place where you can maintain rhythm? And when you when you start to get out of sync and it just doesn't feel right, your body doesn't feel right, you're not accomplishing anything, you're not writing a song worth a dang. You're you're uh not sounding as good as you should, you're not working with your group as good as you should, your organization as good as you sure should. That's when you have to take the time off, probably to reset and and revitalize yourself, get yourself back to where you to in shape.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

When we go and look into the the history of this idea, what we find is that uh uh it's and look it up, there's some fascinating stuff out there on African tribal music and how music in African tribes still, but certainly back in the day, we're all about going from one village to another or accomplishing some tasks. So, for example, if you're gonna build a house or a hut, they had the 27 songs you sang when you built a hut. And they had to do with there's a song for the foundation making, and it's gonna have a certain rhythm and and tempo to it, and maybe even some language about how to do it, because that's sort of baked into the music. So, for what we understand rhythm to be, if we break that word apart, we understand rhythm is connected to kinetic action, that rhythm and work are tied together, or rhythm and travel. And so if you were gonna go walk three miles to the next village, there was a series of songs that you would be able to choose from that would be some more fast tempo, some slower tempo, depending on what you were trying to achieve or do. But the tempo was gonna be kept for the group to move together as a group. So, why was that important? Well, if you're 25 people and you're walking three, five, ten miles through African bush, keeping up with your whole group is very important. And so, this idea of call and response and musical interactions between subsections of the group, that was a thing. It was also for safety. So, this idea of music really being woven into work, I think, is uh a powerful thing. So we were talking about this idea that work and music are really tied together, and it occurred to me, uh I I was just at the gym earlier today, and a hundred percent of the people in the gym had headphones in. And it was it was and it didn't it it took me a second to kind of have that moment as I'm putting my headphones in.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Yeah, yeah. You know uh and everybody's looking for their own rhythm and their own thing to get them to get them through.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

It it's this weird, it didn't used to be that way in the gym. It you know, uh usually the gym was had a vibe where they were playing some loud music in the gym, but now nobody wants that. They they want to hear their own. Uh and I if I go to the gym and I don't have my headset with me, I will leave. I will go away and go get my headset. I mean, I'm not gonna I I that's how addicted I am to that sense of music. And I have playlists for it, I have the whole nine and uh, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Well, it sounds like you're the same thing you just told us about, you know, the certain songs for the foundation. It's exactly that. Yeah, it's exactly that. That means that makes all the sense in the world to me. That gets you through it, and it probably gets everybody in sync.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Uh, and and of course, yourself, if you're by yourself with the music and you're working out, you want to be in sync. You want to be in rhythm.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, it's motivating, it's pulling you through.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

What about like stipunk principles?

SPEAKER_04 29:22

Well, and and it's interesting because Benedict talked about this 1,500 years ago. Uh only he called it aura et labora. We can't begin in prayer, aura et labora. So uh only their idea, you know, if you think about it, even today, if you go to a lot of uh Benedictine monasteries, the prayer that they do is all chanted. It's called Gregorian chant, it's music. I love it. Oh, yeah, and and I listen to that's their music, that's what they do, and they do that seven times in some places seven times a day, and that's their rhythm. That's and and and that ties that work and that prayer together uh as as part of what they do. It's just the whole rhythm of the day of their life that that happens. And so is the word for prayer. It's a Latin word, a Latin term. I want to go there.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

I want to go visit.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

O-R-O-E-T-L-A-B-O-R-A. Aura and labora.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Okay. All right. Sounds like a vacation to me. Uh let me let me ask you this. Uh, like with stability and intention, I'm staring at these words right now, and rhythm's rooted in reflection, work, rest, and purpose. We don't so where do those muk monk principles come into play with rhythm?

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Well, rhythm, rhythm builds stability. And and that's the one thing that I that it's important to understand. When we create rhythms, uh, for instance, for me, uh, you know, I spend generally 40 to 60 minutes every single morning in prayer and reflection and gratitude. And when I skip that, my day goes all to heck. Um and uh and I've found that out, and and I've and I've really been intentional about that, uh, especially over about the last four years. Uh, in fact, if I look over at my bookcase, you know, I do journals as part of that, and I've got a whole stack of journals that I've done over the last you know four years that are all lined up on the all lined up on the bookcase. So that's how I build the rhythm. And I think any time that you can find, and I know Steve, you do some of that in the morning as well, you know, any time that you can find that type of thing that starts a rhythm gives you that stability. It gives you that groundedness, and you have to be intentional. You have to do it. Um, and you have to do it consistently. And so that's where those monk principles come into play. Uh, and if you look at the way uh the monks have done this for 1,500 years, um, it's brilliant in how they do it. And and a lot of a lot of uh organizations, especially a lot of organizations that still embrace the Benedictine tradition, still build in that idea of aura et labora. They still build in that idea of work and prayer.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

So you got me thinking about the things that we can that we can make predictable. So the things that are are predictable in the mornings are those things work out, pray for me, then get copied, get things situated, what da da da. Then for some reason, I'm able to handle curveballs better because I set a tune to the day, and I can just and you're gonna get curveballs in your day. Yeah, absolutely. But I think if you can start in sync with what you're what you know gets you going, right, uh you can handle those things better. It's interesting. Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

And I and I think even, and and we'll keep the baseball analogy going, even thinking about it from a standpoint is when I've got that stability, when I've got that that built into my day, not only can I handle curveballs, but I'm not gonna swing at them in the dirt. You know, I'm I'm I'm not gonna when when somebody comes at me or says something or I see something on social media or you know, something goes negative, I'm not gonna swing at that junk in the dirt. I'm gonna let it go by. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

That's very interesting. I I typically my my rituals are late night. I started I start at about 9 30. They go right up to my bedtime. But what I've discovered as I age is that now I'm bookending that with a morning session. Oh. And so I'm seeing them, I've never been a morning person. I'm still not exactly a morning person, but I am now getting up and it is the first thing I do. We've done this show at eight in the morning in your time. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

No, go ahead. You have. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

You've been very impressive. That was the one that we turned off the video on. Yeah. Yeah. No, but go ahead. So so what's that like coming out of it? Like ending your day with it, and then waking up to it.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah, uh, that's that's exactly to me. It's it's I feel like it's a luxury cruise because um that time in the evening it for me is uh is regenerative. It's the time when I I kind of do some restoration. And so I'm doing the same thing you guys are doing. I'm sure it's just mine looks a little more yoga-ish than than than maybe you're doing, but that's that's okay. And and then when I wake up in the morning, what I've discovered, it started with getting up in the morning and feeling like, okay, now I know I because I worked so much on my hips or whatever it was last night, I'm gonna get those kind of loosened up again. So I might go do five minutes of yoga, that's how it started. But then all of a sudden I start sitting and then I sit and I do a little, then then so now I'm sort of but I don't does I can go quick. That was the other thing I discovered about the morning. In the evening, I sort of enjoy just languid time. But in the morning, I'm like, I can just kind of click through it. It's more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Are you able to shut down what you need to shut down and revise or bring back what you need to bring in the forefront when you're in this situation when you're meditating?

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Exactly where I'm at, because I'm in a I'm in a weird spot. I think I can, but the data on my sleep watch says I can't.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

So I I think I'm doing just fine. But then I get up in the morning and it says you had an okay sleep score because of all the times you woke up last night.

unknown 35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Well, then I look at the thing and I was up not once or twice, or like eight times, I'm somehow waking up in the middle of the night. And it was, I'll we're on a adult show. I would used to be, I was like, I gotta get up and take a leak, right? So that's not an unusual thing. But then I started uh uh there's this thing product called glycine. And what it it's it's I highly recommend it. It's uh it's a you can buy it over the counter, it's a thing. But what it does if you if you are having that issue, it just basically tells one little part of your brain, you'll be fine. Don't you don't need to send the alert signal on that. It's not like you're gonna wet the bed or anything like that. It's a very, very subtle thing. But it that made a huge difference for me. I I could quote unquote sleep through the night, but I'm still not sleeping through the night. So sleep hygiene. Your body gets used to sleep hygiene is a thing, man. And it's yeah, I think it's because my body is on alert and has been on alert for 25 years, and I think that's calm. I'm what the doctor would call super stressed, right? So I've been so stressed for so long that when I think I'm relaxing, I'm still stressed.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Right. Yeah, right. You've just been yeah, you've been swimming in it your whole your whole career, and you just, you know, you you've been in the deep end with sharks, and you just sort of feel like the sharks are dolphins now. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think, yeah, that's that's normal. And so uh one of the things I'm looking forward to in retirement is and this is what my doctor has told me. My doctor has said three weeks into retirement, you're gonna be sleeping, you know, zoning. And I I hope so. But the one thing I also know is that my sleep hygiene is terrible, except for the the yoga piece before bedtime. I'm yeah, you know, I have too many screens at night. I I'm not there's a lot of stuff I ought to be doing that I'm not doing.

SPEAKER_04 37:33

Yeah, yeah. You know, the other the other rhythm, the other rhythm that I've built in over the years, and I've been doing this for a long, long time. You can always find me in my office on Sunday nights. Uh I'll always spend an hour or an hour and a half in my office on Sunday night mapping out the whole week. So I know exactly, okay. This is how he does it, right? I I do this with sales training as well when I when I work with salespeople, is that how many times do you walk into the office on Monday morning and it takes you the first two hours to figure out what the heck you're gonna do, either on Monday or the rest of the week, you know? And you know, I have found that in that rhythm that I've built on those Sunday nights, I'm able to sit down, I'm able to kind of map out the whole week. So I can go to bed, I can, I can sleep well, and I can walk into the office on Monday morning and say, okay, here we go, you know, and uh that works well for me. And I think any time that you can you can kind of feel it, and one of the things that I think is important with this idea of rhythm is preparation. And preparation I think is vital because when we're not prepared for whatever it is we're doing, you know, when we're not prepared, that immediately triggers stress and anxiety. And stress and anxiety will knock you out of rhythm faster than you can even imagine. So it takes you out.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Takes you out.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Yeah, you know, and and I so I think that whole idea of preparation is really, really important as a part of creating your rhythm.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

It's interesting you talk about your Sunday night. As structured as I am in the morning with what I do, I find comfort in working in the cracks. So I and I gotta tell you, it's like little okay, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. Gwen prints out my sheet, but she's starting to do that now because even the calendar got a little overwhelming. I said, I'm never overwhelmed, but I'm a little overwhelmed because I got projects and music projects I gotta have done by such and such date, and da-da-da. I'm playing live and there's a lot of things, a lot of things going on. And um so I she started printing out the list and it helped me, but I noticed that I'm really good in between the cracks of like preparing for my future radio shows in a Mississippi Minute. Uh you know, you know, there's just a lot of things that I do that I have to get done, and I don't do it at a set time, it's just in the cracks of my day. Sure. And it's core comfort, it's sort of comforting, but I don't know, I can't explain it.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Well, no, I think it's you know, this is let's go back to cooking for a second. One of the big things that changed for me in the kitchen was never wasting time in the kitchen. So, yeah, I've got stuff over there, I gotta wait for that water to boil, and I've got this stuff over here that's gonna, but there's four minutes now where I got nothing to do. So I can go wash that pot. I can go clean off that cutting board, I can go, and this is what you're talking about. You're kind of working in the seams, yeah. You're there to make the pasta sauce, right? But yeah, but now when I finish my pasta sauce, the kitchen is clean, and maybe I'd even rearrange my spices a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

You need to have a talk with my bride right now because she didn't clean as she cooks. I clean, I do that. It's a developmental step. It will come to her. She doesn't, she doesn't, she likes to just do it. No, I mean listen, my uh Gwen lives to cook. So Celia's a chef now because not just me, because of Gwen. I mean, this has been uh this has been a total dual parent thing that she saw and watched and fell in love with at the age of two, and she's always uh loved that. So both ways work. I I'm more like you are about that, but I'm not gonna I'm not going in and messing with the spice thing. That Gwen does that. She likes to organize spices, so she'll she'd be the one to do that. I clean as I go, but guys, is it not therapeutic to cook? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

Oh, absolutely. I'm on I'm on Team Gwen. I don't clean up till afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

But it's but the the it's one of the most therapeutic things to hear the Holy Grail, the to hear the Holy Trinity, I call you Holy Trinity, hit the pan in hot oil. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's one of the greatest. It's like it has a different, it's a different song every night. Yeah. But it's familiar. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 42:03

And you can't wait to hear it. Or the sizzle when that big steak goes into that cast iron frying pan. Oh, oh.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

I think this is a good one to end on a let's go cook. It's in this thing.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

I ordered that.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

I just had that on burgers the other night. It's fabulous. Yeah, that's really good. I had the gunpowder seasoning with you guys. Yeah, you recommend it. Yeah, that was what on earth is that? I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Thank God it comes in like a four-gallon tub. Let's say let's don't let's don't give it too much love because they're not sponsoring this show yet. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:43

All right, Randy, bring us home. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So, you know, this whole idea of rhythm is uh it's just a part of your life. And the sooner you recognize that and you start seeing it in your work and in your physical life and in your family life, and then to Mike's point, when you start getting preparing for it, uh you're gonna do a whole lot better. Don't follow me, follow Mike on this one. Uh and and and the and the and the Benedictine principles. Learn some Gregorian chant. That'll be your homework for now and the next one. Because there's nothing will get you calm better than uh 30 minutes of Gregorian chanting. But anyhow, uh rhythm is everywhere. You just got to wake up and find it. And then people got to wake up and find us. And where do they find us?

SPEAKER_04 43:28

ResonanceLeader.com is where you can find us. Uh, we're also on all of the podcasts. And uh, you want us to come in live and uh work with your team, work with your organization, uh, we would love to do that. And uh you even get us uh get us live and in person. Who knows? Maybe we'll even quick cook for you. So uh until next time, uh we will see you later and thanks for listening to Resonance.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Take care later on.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Thanks for listening to Resonance. Find us at Resonance Leader dot com.