Get Around the Right People

 A. Who are the right people?  Positive people. 

Research, has found that positive social connection is the greatest predictor of long-term happiness. Welcoming a positive new influencer into your world can be one of the most important choices for happiness you make.

Get around people with goals and plans, people who are going somewhere with their lives and have high aspirations. Get around eagles. As Zig Ziglar says, “You can’t scratch with the turkeys if you want to fly with the eagles.”

And get away from negative people. Get away from toxic people who complain and whine and moan all the time. Who needs them? Life is too short.

    B. Ask for feedback from the right people.  Those who provide honest feedback.

Not the “Do these pants make me look fat?” type feedback. Soliciting advice and criticism from others creates accountability.

For this to work, you will need to convince the mentor, friend, colleague or significant other to whom you’re appealing that you want to know what he/she really thinks. The evaluator needs to know that he won’t suffer any blow-back if he is totally honest. Feedback is key to overcoming blind spots and achieving better results.

Determine which of the feedback could help you get to the goal you want to achieve. Which of the feedback helps fill out the picture you saw in your drawing? The image you want to achieve?
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Excerpted from David Jordan’s article, Five Things You Can Do to Breathe New Life Into Your Program.  Printed with permission from Pro-Motion Music LLC.  David Jordan, media artist, and his wife Dr. Jeannine Jordan, concert organist are the creators and performers of the live organ and multi-media concert experiences, Bach and Sons, From Sea to Shining Sea, and Around the World in 80 Minutes.

Spring performances of From Sea to Shining Sea

From Sea to Shining Sea

Jeannine and David Jordan had the privilege of presenting their organ and multi-media concert experience, From Sea to Shining Sea, to a variety of audiences in Des Peres (St. Louis), Missouri; Moorestown, New Jersey; and Akron and Athens, Ohio.

Invited for a return concert engagement following an audience-winning performance of the organ and multi-media concert, Bach and Sons, the Jordans returned with From Sea to Shining Sea to the Music at St. Paul’s Concert Series at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Des Peres, Missouri and to the First United Methodist Church of Moorestown, New Jersey where the concert was sponsored by an anonymous donor and the Southwest New Jersey AGO Chapter.

The Akron Chapter of the AGO and The Parish Arts Series of Fairlawn Lutheran Church in Akron were co-sponsors of the first concert in Ohio.  The spring concluded with a performance on the Organ Recital Series at The First Presbyterian Church of Athens.  Fifty high school students attended this concert – and for many, experienced a pipe organ for the first time – as part of the University of Ohio Summer Band Camp.  What a thrill it was to share the organ with these young musicians.

Following each of these concerts, it was the desire of the hosting organizations to include a second and even third performance by the Jordans of their unique live organ and multi-media concerts in an upcoming season.  Visit www.bachandsons.com, www.fromseatoshiningsea.net or www.aroundtheworldin80minutes.org to discover why you’ll want to bring one of these unique concert experiences to your sophisticated audience in the coming season. To schedule a performance of Bach and Sons, From Sea to Shining Sea or the Jordan’s newest organ and multi-media concert experience, Around the World in 80 Minutes, contact Dr. Jeannine Jordan at 541-905-0108 or jeannine@promotionmusic.org.

 

What successful people DON’T do

I was reading an article about 10 things, successful people don’t do. It was quite interesting. Here are 3 from the list:

1. Successful people DON’T return to what hasn’t worked.

We should never go back to the same thing, expecting different results, without something being different.  Remember one definition of insanity is repeating what you’ve done in the past but expecting different results.

2. Successful people DON’T do anything that requires them to be someone they are not.

In everything we do, we have to ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Am I suited for it? Does it fit me? Is it sustainable?” If the answer is no to any of these questions, you better have a very good reason to proceed.

3. Successful people DON’T choose short-term comfort over long-term benefit.

As musicians, we know, there simply is not an option to progress without persistence and seeing the long term benefit. We know it doesn’t happen. Once successful people know they want something that requires a painful, time-limited step, they do not mind the painful step because it gets them to a long-term benefit. Living out this principle is one of the most fundamental differences between successful and unsuccessful people, both personally and professionally.

    E. Be honest with yourself.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately identify feelings and emotions, and then put them to use. When you’re interacting with someone, ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? What emotions is this person displaying? Begin this practice by reflecting on one conversation every day and journal the answers to form a habit.

You don’t have to change your life, just change your day.

Staying true to yourself and your goals should not be drudgery. You must view your accountability as a gift to yourself, a voluntary mindset to ensure success, not something you’re force-feeding yourself even though you hate it.

You don’t have to change your life, just change your day.

    F. Minimize Goals to Maximize Payoff

If setting goals is good, setting more goals ISN’T better—so nix that long list of resolutions.  Instead list five things to accomplish in the day.  Put them in order of importance.  Start doing #1.  If you only get through #2, that’s okay because you will have done the two most important things planned for your day.  And, most importantly, you didn’t waste your day worrying about the 100 other things that you couldn’t  get done today anyway.
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Excerpted from David Jordan’s article, Five Things You Can Do to Breathe New Life Into Your Program.  Printed with permission from Pro-Motion Music LLC.  David Jordan, media artist, and his wife Dr. Jeannine Jordan, concert organist are the creators and performers of the live organ and multi-media concert experiences, Bach and Sons, From Sea to Shining Sea, and Around the World in 80 Minutes.

Know What Works for You

   A. What is it that really works for you?

What is it that works when are you really in a flow?____________

   B. What’s your limiting step?

What’s the one skill area that’s holding you back? What’s the quality? What’s the action? Ask other people. Find out what step you may be missing. THEN, get someone who is great at that trait to help you either do it or do it for you.

Conventional wisdom, in the past, said put your effort into learning to do that thing at which you are really weak. That was actually a really weak idea. As an organist, or bell choir director, do you want to spend more time perfecting your skill, or invest time and effort into a trait that at best you’ll be, uh, okay? Right, me too.  Need to be better organized? Ask a person from the Altar guild …carefully, to help you.

    C. Stick to a mantra that resonates with you.

This is one of the most important parts of this whole process. You know who you are and what you can and want to do. If you feel obligated to imitate the music program down the street even if you have no like or feel for it, you will be like too many of the churches in your area, attempting to do something they can’t, don’t want to, and frankly doesn’t work. Chances of success? Not so great.

Here is your change to be authentic, to do what you do really well. To inspire from the core of your being.
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Excerpted from David Jordan’s article, Five Things You Can Do to Breathe New Life Into Your Program.  Printed with permission from Pro-Motion Music LLC.  David Jordan, media artist, and his wife Dr. Jeannine Jordan, concert organist are the creators and performers of the live organ and multi-media concert experiences, Bach and Sons, From Sea to Shining Sea, and Around the World in 80 Minutes.