Collaboration is Hard - Here's How to Learn How to Do It Well, with Songwriting as an Example

Collaboration, as it turns out, is not as simple as many may believe. It's a skill that needs to be nurtured, developed, and perfected over time. This holds true in various aspects of life, and one unexpected area where collaboration shines is in the world of songwriting. In this blog post, we'll explore how collaboration plays a crucial role in songwriting and discover valuable lessons that can be applied to other fields as well.

The Power of Collaboration in Songwriting

Solo songwriting can yield decent results, and an individual can produce some good songs. However, to create truly great music, collaboration is required.  Great music, often considered a masterpiece, can only be achieved through effective collaboration.

It's not just about co-writing lyrics and melodies but also working together on arrangements and collaborating with musicians and vocalists.

Learning from Daisy Jones and the Six

The television show "Daisy Jones and the Six" portrayed the co-writing process accurately. It demonstrated that collaboration is a challenging endeavor. Trust is the foundation upon which successful collaboration is built. Learning to trust your collaborators, their ideas, and their expertise is an essential part of the process. This is a work of fiction, loosely based on Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. It's a good show. 

Practice Makes Perfect

Collaboration is a skill that requires practice. In the world of songwriting, songwriters actively seek out songwriting groups to hone their collaborative abilities. These groups often provide prompts and encourage members to work together on a song. It's through these experiences that songwriters learn not only how to write good songs but also how to collaborate effectively.

Letting Go of Control

One of the most critical aspects of collaboration is being willing to let go of control. Collaborators must be open to sharing their ideas and embracing the fact that their project may take a different direction than originally intended. In fact, you often have to let your project get torn apart and put back together in a different way.

I find it's helpful to remind myself that I can always revisit my original ideas at a later time. I'm not losing anything; I'm simply opening myself up to other ideas. I'm adapting, evolving and learning something new.

Embracing Revisions and Experimentation

Songwriting is a craft that often involves writing an entire song only to extract a single line that can be used to create an even better composition. This process reflects the importance of experimentation, openness to being wrong, and a focus on the final product over personal ego. Sometimes, the best ideas come from the most unexpected places.

It's Okay to Write Crap

Lastly, it's important to understand that it's perfectly okay to write subpar material. In fact, writing less-than-stellar songs is a valuable part of the learning process. These "less successful" attempts serve as stepping stones to better work and contribute to personal growth and development as a songwriter and collaborator.

Conclusion

Collaboration is indeed challenging, but it's a skill worth mastering. Songwriting exemplifies how learning to collaborate effectively can result in exceptional art. By seeking out collaboration opportunities, practicing the art of letting go, embracing revisions, and being open to experimentation, individuals in any field can enhance their collaborative abilities and, in turn, achieve more remarkable outcomes. So, whether you're a songwriter or a professional in any other area, remember that collaboration is a journey that leads to greatness.

Stumped by Emotions

How do you define stupidity?  My friend - Kalai - stupidity just means you were stumped by your emotions.  What do you think?

The right way to vent emotions

Dr. Leon Seltzer wrote a wonderful article about venting your emotions. Ways to do it so that you don't hurt others in the process.

Here is the link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201404/the-do-s-and-don-ts-emotional-ventilation 

What I like about his article is it is all about conscientiousness. You are considering how your behavior is affecting others and taking care to make sure you don't inadvertently cause harm to another person.

His advice - chose who to vent to carefully. Is this confidential - or not? What are your listener's limits? Don't overstep them. 

Make it clear - you are venting and get their permission to vent to them before you start. They might be having a bad day themselves and not be capable of listening effectively in that moment.

Should you vent to the person who frustrated you?  Well - one of the reasons to vent privately is to help let go of your frustration so that you can think rationally about what you want to accomplish. 

What is the best tactic. How can you politely address the problem so they will listen. If you vent and attack - the likelihood of the person who frustrated you - listening - drops to close to zero.  Venting to others can help you develop a strategy that might actually work to address the problem.

Do I succeed at this all the time? Nope.  Do I need to take this advice from time to time? Yes. Recently - of course. Has the problem resolved? Nope. In fact, something happened today that was frustrating and unprofessional. But ... I am taking corrective action to minimize the problem while still responding in a professional way as much as possible.

Wish me luck.  

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

A Humanistic Leadership perspective on Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace. Why is it important and why you should care about it as a manager.

1. What is emotional intelligence?

To me – this is about how you deal with other people as people. In order to get work done you probably have to work with another person. That person has their own stresses, desires, fears and hopes and insecurities. In order to work successfully with them, you have to manage their responses to your requests so that they are inclined to help you. Someone with good emotional intelligence understands this reality and knows how to deal with it effectively so that they can get the work they need to get done completed with as little stress on the people doing the work as possible.

2. How can it lead to bigger salaries?

People who are good at working with other people and getting other people to work with them tend to get more work done. They have good reputations since people like working with them. They also know how to ask for the salary they want and need without fainting or without being a jerk about it.

3. How can it lead to more job satisfaction?

The nice thing about being nice is that this skill is a connecting skill. People who work at seeing their co-workers as fully human worthy of respect – feel more connected and less conflicted. This leads to better feelings of job satisfaction. A lot of times people think taking other people into account in your planning is hard work. After all why should you go out of your way to make sure other people feel good. The answer is you do this for you. Not only will being nice help you slide through life better, you will feel better about yourself if you do it. When I give trainings on this topic I present a stressful situation and ask – if you respond to this stress by sharing your stress with others and getting angry – how do you feel?  Now – how about if you respond to your stress and the stress of others with compassion for yourself and others – how do you feel now? The answer is everyone feels better if they manage to respond to stress with compassion. It also yields better results. So double plus good.

4. What industries are EI most important in?

Any industry that requires you to interact with your fellow humans. But especially customer service as that is the field where you are most likely to deal with cranky people who are having trouble and really need someone to hold their hand.

5. Why does emotional intelligence matter?

Every single person on this planet requires the assistance of other people. The most effective way to get that assistance is to be nice to them. This requires us to not act selfishly but to instead consider our impact on the other person so we can tweak our behavior to maximize the positivity in the other person. This is what enlightened self interest is all about. Helping others to help yourself.

6. How can you measure your EI? Your employees?

You can track how often you get frustrated with others and respond negatively vs how often you respond to stress with compassion.  Over time, you will see an improvement in outcomes and relationships when you do this.  Most people tell me that they see an immediate improvement and this become self-reinforcing though it still requires conscious practice.

With employees – the more this is practiced the less interpersonal conflict you would expect to see. You would see more collaborative problem solving then butting of heads. This should also translate into less employee turnovers and complaints.

7. Other Thoughts? 

Emotional intelligence can be learned and practiced. It’s a mindset of valuing and respecting other people that sets this positive feedback loop in motion. This is why philosophic training is so helpful. The problem isn’t simply that a skill set is lacking. We have to understand why we should do this and more importantly – how to think about it so that we actually do this and reap the benefits from doing it.

The best course I have on this is my in depth program - Living Made Simpler. It is six hours long and will take you on a philosophy journey to help you better understand your own responses so that you can more effectively interact with the people around you.

http://humanisthappiness.com/

The emotional benefits of accepting reality

The price of rejecting reality is high.

I have a course I teach called “Reality based decision making for effective strategy development (see https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/  for details).  Failure to accept reality means your plans, whatever they are – are likely to fail. Sure, you could get lucky, but I’d rather be smart and strategic than lucky. Smart and Strategic tends to yield better results.

The problem with reality is that it can be scary.  Accepting reality means not always knowing how things are going to turn out. It means confronting uncertainty and the unknown. It means accepting that despite all your good intentions and strategic approach and smarts, you still may not succeed.  That’s reality.  And it sucks. I’m not going to lie to you about that.

But this post is about the emotional benefits of accepting reality. Why on earth am I telling you how scary accepting reality is?  Because – despite how scary it can be, accepting reality is emotionally satisfying. It really does help your mental health to remain grounded in reality – even when reality sucks.

Here is my rule. You cannot solve your problems until you acknowledge you have a problem. And as long as you aren’t solving your problem, you will continue to have a problem. And having problems sucks. I would much rather confront my fears so I can confront my problems that stick my head in the sand and hope for the best.  Again, I could get lucky, but sticking my head in the sands means I don’t see the dangers coming and I can’t protect myself from those dangers.

I am a Humanist. I refuse to leave my fate up to fate. I am a proactive doer. I can get things done. I can change the odds in my favor. I refuse to hope for the best. Not when I can be doing something constructive to create positive change for myself.

One of my favorite quotes is “If you are going through hell, keep going.” From Winston Churchill.  Accepting reality is scary. But staying stuck in a living hell is even scarier.  Accepting my present reality is an act of courage. It puts me in a position to change my current reality and make a new one. Accepting reality, however bad it may be is empowering. And being empowered is good for your emotional health.

Don’t let fear hold you back

Fear has its place in our emotional toolkit, but it can immobilize us too. Learn how to have a healthier relationship with fear.

I have a theory about life.  To me, life is an exercise in learning to overcome fear.  It seems that every major lesson I learn has to do with overcoming fear.

Fear that I am inadequate. Fear that I will be hurt. Fear of change and fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear of other people. Fear of love. Fear that nobody likes me so I may as well eat some worms. You get the idea.

Some of this fear is rational. Some isn’t. Having been a victim of a stalking, I think some fear is quite rational. I read the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker and it really changed my life. I came to understand what fear does well for me and how it can get out of whack and what to do about that.

It turns out that, as hard as it seem, you can actually choose to override your fear instincts. It takes a combination of thinking and physical activity to do – but it can be done. Through therapy I learned how to interrupt a panic attack in process. Having experienced daily panic attacks for a couple of years, that was nothing short of amazing.

To me, the technique I was taught is very much akin to the practice of freethought and skepticism. When I feel fear and panic rising, I have to consciously acknowledge it. And, Only then can I do the breathing exercises that help calm me down. Once I am calmed, I can then question myself about why I was feeling the fear and panic. I can’t always identify it, but it always seems that once I do I lose the fear almost immediately. Granted, figuring out what makes me afraid requires me to be totally honest with myself and that can take some time, which is why talking to a therapist is so helpful.

Once I figure out what is making me afraid – I can then decide what to do about it. I have several options. I can confront it. I can avoid it. I can ignore it.  What I decide to do depends on whether I think the thing I am afraid of poses an existential threat or not. In other words, if I think whatever it is might kill me – I avoid it. If I think it won’t – I often decide to do the very thing I am afraid of just to get over my fear.

I’ve come across very few real threats to my life and limb when considering fear. Most often, it’s just social fear. Confronting those social fears has made me rather fearless.

If you find you suffer from fear that is immobilizing you, do something about it. Figure out if the fear is rational or irrational. If it is rational – avoid whatever it is. If it is irrational, confront it.  If you can’t tell or if you are really suffering and really immobilized by your fear – seek professional help! You will be glad you did.

How to recover from losing your cool

4 Strategies for recovering from out of control emotions

It happens to the best of us. We all lose our cool sometimes. Even me! The question is, what are you going to do about it?  How can we best deal with the fact that even with the best intentions, we will not be at our best all of the time?

The goal of a Humanist is to be the best most ethical person we can be. That is easier said than done. Here are 4 strategies for recovering from these episodes as rationally, compassionately and effectively as you can.

•  Make it a habit: The more you practice being a good person, the more of a habit it becomes.  This not only makes being a good person easier, it also means that our instincts will steer us towards better behavior when we are under stress. This is important because it is when we are under stress that we are most likely to behave inappropriately. Make being good a habit and you are less likely to do something stupid when stressed.

• Find Compassion for yourself. Even with the best of intentions, we all have our moments. Forgive yourself when this happens and focus on what you can do to a) make amends and b) avoid a recurrence in the future.

•  Find the root cause of your problem. Do you have a blood sugar problem? Are you trying to control another person inappropriately and getting mad that you are failing? Knowing why you are losing your cool is essential if you are going to get your bad behavior under control in the future. Figure out why and then figure out a plan to avoid these problems in the future. 

• Take responsibility for the future. You might have lost your cool, but that doesn't mean you have to continue to lose your cool. Take responsibility for your actions. That means not only trying to make amends, but doing what you need to do to not repeat your performance. If you don’t take responsibility for your emotions, you will continue to have problems.

Losing your cool is embarrassing. How do you control your angers and/or your fears? What strategies do you use? What works, what makes things worse? 

Fools Rush In

Don't rush to judgement when angry

I was reminded this week of just how important it is to not act on your emotions without first getting more information to find out if your emotions are even valid.

My son just started kindergarten. He went to the same school for pre-kindergarten and loves the place. So imagine my surprise when after the first day of school he was crying about how he doesn’t want to go back. The momma bear in me threatened to come out. What was his teacher doing to make it such a miserable experience for him and how dare she do that! He got three time outs on his first day. He’s basically a good boy and never had any discipline issues last year. Something was wrong.

The rational side of me was thinking, well, my son doesn’t listen very well and the teacher does need to be strong on discipline at the start to get the kids under control so she can teach. I mean, she is the only teacher in a room with 18 five year olds. It’s hard work. So, I told my son to do his best to behave and to give it some time. His teacher might grow on him. In the back of my mind though, I was wondering if he just got a bad teacher and whether I would have to intervene. Maybe she just doesn’t like my son and is picking on him.

And then, yesterday she called me. My son is ambidextrous and she wanted to know if she had my permission to put a mark on his right hand to remind him to use that hand when writing. His teacher seems very nice, funny and with a good sense of humor. She said that he was doing fine. Yes, she had given him a few time outs, but not because he had done anything bad. He was just being a normal 5 yr old boy who is excited to be at school around all those other kids. She just needs the kids to settle down and understand the rules so the class can run smoothly. And yes, almost all the kids have gotten time outs.

Relief! My inner momma bear, who had been worried about her cub and was considering drastic action to protect him from his mean teacher, was able to retreat to her den. Reason triumphed and I was once again reminded how important it is to act on my reason and not on my emotions. And most importantly, not to rush to judgement.