Tuning Your Instrument

In your life, career or business, you are your biggest asset,
your own instrument of success. You are also your biggest liability. And how you
show up every day, with your colleagues, friends, family or clients, is a huge
factor in determining your overall level of happiness and success.
So tell me, how much attention do you put into tuning your
instrument?

If you were a world-class musician you would never think of
performing without tuning your violin, guitar or what have you. The sour notes
would be noticed immediately and detract from your performance. Thus musicians
always take the time to tune their own instrument and then tune to the orchestra
prior to a performance. How about you?

In your life, career and businesses, I am sure you have had a
few experiences where you felt in tune with yourself, your surroundings, the
task at hand, and things flowed almost effortlessly.

And I am pretty sure there have been many other times when the
sense of struggle was so palpable, you may have felt you were playing off the
wrong sheet music.

If you do nothing to proactively prepare for each day or tune
your instrument, it will not take too much (stress, conflict, unexpected
developments, etc.) to tip you into a far more reactive mode. And feeling a
little off-key or behind the rhythm, you are more likely to appear impatient,
intolerant, unsympathetic, distracted and generally self-focused. This of course
is going to be noticed and have an impact.

Taking the time to tune your instrument, to get more present,
in-sync, will not immunize you from life's challenges. But it will ensure you
meet them with the greater creativity, trust and the resourcefulness needed to
be your best, under any circumstance. And this will also have an impact. (A very
positive one.)