Let the Music Play - Ashton Gustafson (Entrepreneur, Author, and Speaker)
Ashton Gustafson is more than an entrepreneur, writer, and speaker; he is a life musician. In his Paper Napkin Wisdom, Ashton says to us: “Gather your instruments and let the music play.” Ashton’s kind of music doesn’t require musical training; it’s a life philosophy he lives by. He defines instruments as your values, passions, talents and beliefs. They are the things that define you and shape your actions.
Ashton’s use of ‘music’ as a metaphor for success is far-reaching and fascinating. We can make noise, he says, or we can make music. Noise is easy to make but there’s no structure to it and it isn’t overly useful. Music is different, music is intentional. There is a structure to music, a harmony to it, but it doesn’t happen without patience and work put into it.
In the same way you have to tune your instruments, Ashton says we have to tune ourselves to our metaphorical instruments. Are we aligned with our core values? Are we playing to our values in a way that creates music or noise? When we collaborate with other people, do their instruments compliment ours or is there a disharmony there and if so, can it be reconciled or are we simply playing different songs?
Ashton’s believes that one of the best parts of the ‘music’ metaphor is that it’s about success on your own terms. It allows you to define success by your own standards. Music is subjective; you can’t really define what is ‘good’ music is because everyone has their own definition of ‘good’ music. The same is true of success; what I define as success may not be how you define success. How do you define success? What instruments are you working with? How can you use those instruments to play to your own personal music?
Ashton’s message is important because it’s more than a metaphor; it’s a reminder to be active. As entrepreneurs, we’re busy people. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the day to day issues and let ourselves stray from our core values, but by thinking of them like instruments, we can remind ourselves to tune them, to hone them, to practice them, and definitely to use them. To take the same meticulous care of our values as we would a prized music instrument.
An instrument doesn’t make music or play by itself, nor do our values create success without us there to actively implement them. When is the last time you tuned your instruments? Are they in playable condition?
Listen to the conversation with Ashton here:
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