Why your `WHY` is important

2020. An unprecedented year by anyone’s standards.

It has been an opportunity (actually rather an obligation) particularly for small businesses who are not necessarily cash rich to go back to their ‘WHY?’.

That is what has happened to me anyway.

It took me a few months after March 2020 once all the live events using drums to bring teams together were cancelled to look at myself in the mirror to ask what is it that I stand for?

Am I in the business of drumming? Or am I in the business of collaboration and performance? (By the way to optimise both demands that we have to get good at self-care).

Obviously it is the latter. The drums, as powerful as they are, are just a tool. Actually the djembe is just technology – a primal form of communication. So it was time to evolve and to learn to use some different technology to keep my ‘WHY?’ alive.

I wrote down the recurring elements of my workshop script and dissected them. One of the recurring lines in my script is that we cannot think rhythm. Rhythm has to be felt. So it became clear that an important aspect of what I say suggests that we need to come back to the felt perception part of ourselves.

In other words EQ. Emotional Intelligence. Along with our intuition, that is where our authenticity comes from. That is where our capacity to be empathetic and offer compassion comes from. Just like rhythm we cannot think compassion – it is something that we feel. So to support our colleagues at this challenging time we all need to get better at feeling, particularly now when so many are struggling both mentally and emotionally. And it brings me to know that what I stand for has more value than ever.

So to bring my ‘WHY?’ alive in the virtual world I bought a green screen.

I bought a mini mixing desk.

I bought additional computer monitors, professional mics, lights, and a streaming camera.

My on-line programs combine music, voice work, performance, colour, fun, sharing, customized quizzes, movement and mind body awareness exercises and tools so that teams learn to take a break from their home working routine to take care of themselves. Whilst the djembe plays a lesser part in the programs I run today it’s not gone completely.

And certainly the spirit of the djembe remains strong. In the Malinke tribe of West Africa where the djembe comes from they used to say ‘Anke Dje, Anke Be’, the literal translation of which means ‘everyone gather together’.

So thanks to different technology my ‘WHY?’ is still in tact.

Anke Dje, Anke Be. Djembe.

“Just like rhythm we cannot think compassion”

It is something that we feel. So to support our colleagues at this challenging time we all need to get better at feeling, particularly now when so many are struggling both mentally and emotionally.