‘Nuff said.

I recently met Michael Jones, a famous pianist and leadership educator who has spent a lifetime at the intersection of music and leadership. He told a story from years ago of a stranger who came up to him and said: who is going to play your music if you don’t play yourself? It was at a time when he was planning a more traditional life as an organizational consultant. This single question re-directed his lifetime career as a pianist.

Whether we are social activists, business leaders, writers, entrepreneurs, consultants, each of us has our own music. The challenge is society gives us immediate rewards to tell someone else’s story, not our own.

I recently was honored to be interviewed by No Country for Young Women  on my work in next generation leadership for companies and individuals. What resonated with readers most was my sense that young leaders need to stop idolizing certain power players like Sheryl Sandberg or Oprah and putting them on a pedestal. Rather we need to do our OWN unique work in the world. As Nilofer Merchant said to me, “Until we own our onlyness, we can never own the agency to create change / innovate.”

For each of us, we were put in this world to do our own work. The beauty is that sometimes unexpected life experiences, such as a question from a stranger, leave us with the real question. The key to showing our gifts is our own aliveness, to feel most engaged into what we are doing. It’s when we feel, this is who I am, this is why I am here. Living life is about the sense of aliveness. When we are most alive, we are most in our gift. The analytical world promotes how we do it, and what we choose to do needs to come from a deeper intuition. When we are following our own aliveness, what guides us is a thread more than a plan.

So, who is going to play your music if you don’t play it yourself?

To start playing, here’s an exercise for you from the Domino Project: When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.

When we network with individuals to get a new job or business deal, we often ask: what sector have you worked in? What was your rank / title? What skills to do you have to offer based on your prior experience? All of this thinking is based on past patterns, and influenced by systems that encourage each of us to take a certain type of “role”. Getting a business card or becoming a Linkedin contact does not build trust or a real relationship.

Its all simply because we often do not ask the right questions when we network. We don’t tap into what the other person really wants to do, when you let go of and fade out the way our system encourages us to network for Facebook friends and business cards rather than to build trust. What about asking: When have you had your greatest accomplishments and why? What does success look like for you? What work environments do you thrive in? What type of people do you want to be around? Why did you choose certain roles? What challenges did you face? What do your challenges call you to do now?

There is a complete shift in thinking when we ask different questions. Many MBA students talk to me about how networking provides the ground to meet a lot of people, yet networking does not delve to the core with someone else, nor does it inspire. It may be conducive to getting a referral and it will rarely get you a commitment. In order to build relationships, we need ask difficult questions, and be willing to truly listen.

So the next time you are networking, while you may have a specific goal in mind let the relationship drive what the partnership might stand for. Explore one another’s interests first, instead of telling someone what you want and letting them decide if they want to join up.

Let’s start with the definition of the word fellowship according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

fel·low·ship n.

1.a. The condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, or experiences, as by reason of profession, religion, or nationality. b. The companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms.

2. A close association of friends or equals sharing similar interests.

3. Friendship; comradeship.

4.a. The financial grant made to a fellow in a college or university.b. The status of having been awarded such a grant. c. A foundation established for the awarding of such a grant

There are large-scale myths that surround how people think about themselves and their work when applying to fellowships. Most major award structures are set up to reward individuals. Some of the most famous fellowships: MacArthur Genius Grant Winner, Rhodes scholars, and  TED fellows all award one single person. Most of the time, these individuals were not alone in their ground-breaking work. They teamed up with many others along the way, partnering and collaborating to come up with great ideas. The word fellowship embodies this comradeship, yet the awards structure ends up creating a individualistic view of accomplishments.

In the workplace, company’s evaluation and promotion practices encourage an assumption that employee’s time is dedicated to a company. Yet time is not infinite, it is scarce and shared across employees.

What if there were more fellowships that really promoted and incentivized team building? How do we change the award system and build the awareness that we need help and to acknowledge others? What if this shift could promote the collaborative leadership to design the most important work of our time?

As I sat on my computer trying to write my blog post for today, I kept blanking and freezing, avoiding getting started because I thought it wouldn’t be good enough. Then I realized I had my whole orientation wrong and needed to stop trying to be perfect. It’s about getting better every day. I seek to dream, innovate, and develop world-changing ideas. So I need to do what I am most fearful to do and live my experiments out day by day. That’s how we improve: in small daily increments.