The Top 10 list

We’ve spent the last two months listening to some of the best that 2021 had to offer – it was rich and varied, and definitely worthy of someone’s attention. After some deliberation, here are the 10 albums we’d recommend you check out.

• Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
• Big Red Machine – How long do you think it’s gonna last?
• Low – Hey What
• Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
• Superwolves – Superwolves
• Lucy Dacus – Home Video
• Coral – Coral Island
• John Smith – Fray
• Sturgill Simpson – Cuttin’ Grass Volume 2
• St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home

More details on these wonderful records

• Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams – another so called ‘voice of a generation’ has delivered an album that has so much maturity and warmth. Framing the music – ‘playing Arlo Parks on Spotify and my wife asked me to send her the link – she loves soulful music and I guess this one checks that box and more’.
• Big Red Machine – ‘How long do you think it’s gonna last?’ – recent Taylor Swift collaborators, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, are back with their 2^nd collaboration. It feels closer to last year’s Taylor Swift albums than their first record. We loved that album, and this one’s got better and better with more listens.
• Low – ‘Hey What’ – a perennial favorite band in this part of the world. They have been together for 20+ years and their sound keeps evolving. Less melody on this record, bit more distortion, but they still manage to sound listenable yet original. If you don’t enjoy the distortion, John Smith may be your artist.
• Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime – frequently on my Bandcamp feed through the pandemic. Mdou and his fellow musicians are from Niger and they play this driving, guitar led sound that’s really easy to tap your feet to. There’s something really pure about their sound and it draws you in, if you’ll let it. Comparisons with Van Halen and others (in some write ups) don’t do justice to these original musicians.
• Superwolves – Superwolves – collaboration between Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney. Mdou Moctar plays some great guitar too. If you don’t know much about Bonnie Prince Billy, he has an amazing back catalogue, and according to no less than Rick Rubin, this is up there with all of that work. My favorite album before I heard some of the others!
• Lucy Dacus – Home Video – There’s a lot of layers to this one. The acoustic confessional songs are there, some great harmonies and then the powerful guitar/synth driven moments – found myself singing ‘Triple Dog Dare’ (which has elements of all those things) long after the record player had stopped turning.
• The Coral – Coral Island – 25 years after their self-titled breakthrough album (in the UK at least), they came back with this concept album that is packed full of great pop songs – influences may include Britpop but the 60s west coast vibe makes it sound just great. Check out ‘Mist on the River’, it’s a wonderful example. We assume the River Mersey is that river, but we don’t know for sure.
• John Smith – Fray – discovered John Smith on a streamed English folk festival early in the pandemic. Uncomplicated acoustic music with catchy choruses and occasional beautiful harmonies – ‘Hold On’ is just a perfect example. He deserves a wider audience.
• Sturgill Simpson – Cuttin’ Grass Volume 2 –if you saw the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music, you might appreciate an album paying homage to many of the legendary artists (the great Jimmie Rogers to name one) featured there. It feels closer to bluegrass than any modern country that we get to hear. The songs seem so beautifully crafted. Bonus points for having an Indie record store only release.
• St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home – didn’t really enjoy this on the initial listen.  Our friend David told us he loved the album, so we kept on and discovered something special. While there’s an occasional Bowie vibe (‘Scary Monsters’?) some nods to Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ along the way (‘The Melting of the Sun’) throughout you are drawn in by the great guitar sound and the soulful voices. 

More things to listen to

So much more music deserves a mention – some artists I have referenced in previous years, and in some cases I am still playing these records to better appreciate how good these records are:

• Robert Plant/Alisson Kraus – Raise the Roof
• John Grant – Boy from Michigan
• Leon Bridges – Gold Diggers Sound
• Laura Mvula – Pink Noise
• Julien Baker- Little Oblivions
• Andy Shauf – Wilds
• Wild Pink – A billion little lights
• Rosali – No Medium
• Silk Sonic – An Evening with Silk Sonic
• Snail Mail – Valentine
• Kasey Musgraves – star-crossed
• War on Drugs – I don’t live here anymore
• Nick Cave/Warren Ellis – Carnage
• Brandi Carlile – In These Silent Days
• Sault – Nine (if you can find it – it was deleted from streaming services 99 days after its release).

Reissues 2021

So many reissues in 2021, and they seem to get more attention than the new material. Tempted not to name anyone, but there are some are really, really special works that we’ve enjoyed:

• Laura Nyro – American Dreamer – could be the widest disparity between really amazing music and commercial success any artist experienced in the 60s and 70s. This 8 album set is from that period. While in recent years we’ve been collecting the originals for $5 and less in record stores, the music feels so much more valuable – try out ‘Stoney End’ surely as good a pop song as anyone ever written. 
• Beatles ‘Get Back’ documentary and Let it Be reissues. For any Beatles fan the documentary gave a fabulous insight into how the band worked together. The music in its various forms tells us once and for all that Let It Be was a great Beatles album, and the version released in 1970 did not do it justice. It’s obviously garnered a lot of attention – our feeling is it may be justified.
• George Harrison – All Things Must Pass – another Beatle remaster (not the first version of this record) – it contains a lot of interesting recordings on the expanded boxed set, what we found interesting was how much better the subtle remixes made the original record sound. A great album and the just got to sound even better. Would not have been out of place in the Beatles discography.
• Joni Mitchell – The Reprise albums (1968-71) – taking the opportunity to talk up Joni Mitchell (whose originals generally cost a lot more than Laura Nyro’s). ‘Blue’ was 50 years old in 2021, it is an amazing album, much has been written about how groundbreaking it was, but even now it seems fresh and listenable. And there’s 3 more great albums in this pack!

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry

In August 2021 we lost legendary reggae artist and producer Lee Perry. His fingerprint is on much of how reggae developed. Highly recommended and by way of celebration, here are 3 albums of his to introduce his work if you haven’t heard it:

• Eastwood Rides Again (1970)
• Roast Fish Collie Weed and Corn Bread (1978) 
• Rainford (2019) – featured on our 2019 recommended list.

And on the subject of great reggae, here’s a Spotify playlist with some of our favorite reggae from the last 50 years.

Other lists

Mojo usually has an interesting list to review and here it is.

The post It’s our 7th annual best music blog appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

You can find the playlists on my YouTube channel. This includes 2020’s best plus a variety of pandemic related playlists.

In this year of all years, I am not sure anyone needs an explanation of the value of music. It’s power to lift us up, to articulate our feelings and to allow us to reflect on what’s going on around us.

The Top 10 list (and more)

I’ve spent the last month listening to some of the best that 2020 had to offer – it was so rich and varied. After some deliberation, here are 10 albums that I think you should check out.

• Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Reunions
• Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
• Taylor Swift – Folklore (*) 
• Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
• Sault – Untitled (Black is) (*)
• Fleet Foxes – Shore
• Nubya Garcia – Source
• Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters
• Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud
• Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas

(*) 1 of 2 albums this artist released in 2020

So much more music deserves a mention – some artists I have referenced in previous years, and in some cases I am still playing these records to get more familiar… 

• Lone Bellow – Half Moon Light
• Nick Cave – Idiot Prayer
• Sufjan Stevens – Ascension
• Songhoy Blues – Optimisme
• Margo Price – That’s how rumors get started
• Bill Callahan – Gold Record
• Laura Marling – Song for our Daughter
• Lucinda Williams – Good Souls, Better Angels

Some newer artists I am still listening to – definitely worth a listen:

• Black Pumas – Black Pumas
• Marcus King – El Dorado

There were also great songs that reflected the turbulence of 2020 – songs that showed up on some of my pandemic playlists:

• Sweeter – Leon Bridges
• I Can’t Breathe – H.E.R.

More detail on the essential stuff

• Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Reunions – this was on the list early. I heard a couple of songs on one of those virtual live shows and they were so memorable. Often catchy choruses get old, but for not with these songs – ‘Running with eyes closed’ and ‘What’ve I done to Help’ stayed fresh and energizing through every playing.
• Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways – never imagined that I’d have a new Bob Dylan record in my new release Top 10 again. The flagship song is ‘Murder Most Foul’ about the death of JFK – it’s an unbelievable song by an artist that is absolutely beyond categorization.
• Taylor Swift – Folklore – my daughter’s favorite album of the year and a point of connection for us. Definitely more in the style of the National and Bon Iver than her previous work. I’m sure this won’t show up on everyone’s list but being able to hear it with an open mind was huge.
• Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher – there’s a beautiful, haunting quality to this album. I seem to be drawn to albums that have songs about Kyoto in them, although it’s more than that – the songs, the simple arrangements, and the voice. Check it out!
• Sault – Untitled (Black Is) – one of 2 albums they made in 2020, both showed up in many of the lists. First thing that struck me was the nod to one of my favorite bands, Massive Attack. It’s much more than that, lyrically, it’s firmly grounded in the pursuit of racial justice, and musically it’s complicated – harmonies, at times some really sparse bass and drum sound, and an intensity that is a feature of both albums.
• Fleet Foxes – Shore – some reviews talked about how this was a return to the sound of their early records. Some might see that as a backward step, but for me recapturing the harmonies, the beauty and the fragility of that sound was perfect for the year we’ve just had.
• Nubya Garcia – Source – don’t know much about this artist, but the sweeping, uplifting sound reminds me of the modern jazz of Kamasi Washington. It’s definitely jazz, but it’s also taken on board many global influences. I think Fela Kuti and King Tubby would identify with the energy and the feeling in this music.
• Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters – I picked the vinyl version up at my local record store – Squeezebox in Wilmington, DE, after Rich told me it had unbelievable reviews. It really has an unbelievable energy to it and this chaotic quality that’s hard to describe (feels very pandemic). 
• Waxahatchee – St. Cloud – this falls under Americana, if you have to label it. I was convinced it was recorded in Nashville, it has great musicians and a sort of Gillian Welch sound to it. (It was recorded in NYC and Texas actually).  
• Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas – she describes this album as the album she’d always wanted to make. I haven’t heard her other work, but this series of beautiful soulful songs is worth a listen.

Other music to check out:

Usually I touch on reissues, but this year, I want to reflect on artists that made an impact on me in 2020 for a variety of reasons:

• We lost John Prine this year to Covid. So many of his albums were re-released this year. Time to hear ‘Angel from Montgomery’ and more of his work at least one more time.
• Multiple artists appeared in our family room (we signed up to let them in). Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams, Josh Ritter, The Lumineers, Johny Flynn and John Smith (a new name to me, he’s in the English folk tradition) and were just some of the artists that we enjoyed (and probably kept us sane) through 2020 with their live performances specially for us at home.

If you need more

I rely on NPR’s All Songs Considered to identify new music – if you have an hour, take a listen to their listeners’ picks end of year show 

More lists to explore:

• UK’s Mojo magazine Top 75
• Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 50
• NPR Top 50

The post Music may have been the redeeming feature of 2020 appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

Key Concepts

Some key concepts if you are looking to adopt, modify or stop a habit:

• Willpower does not seem sustainable as a way of embedding a habit. It takes too much brain power.
• Conscious decisions are OK for one off activities (e.g. getting a flu shot) but repetitive actions are important to embed habits (where the activity becomes a motor skill – most easily seen in how most of us drive a car).
• Creating or removing friction is a critical way of enabling adoption of a new habit – removing foods from your pantry that don’t help when you are trying to change your diet, or adding steps that limit choices (wearing gym clothes on those Zoom calls to be ready to head to the gym). 
  • You can make bad habits harder, and newer habits easier to adopt.
  • Restructuring our environment seems really helpful – hide the temptations, e.g. easier to study in a library than in your family room when the TV is right there.
• And from the work of David DeSteno, one more thing – gratitude. His research points to the importance of gratitude in many areas of our lives, but specifically as the positive emotion that (if linked to a new habit) creates a likelihood that the behavior will stick.

Applying the concepts

There’s no doubt that Covid has allowed us to create new habits, and there are certainly some of them, we’d rather ditch. This month I started my own habit changing experiment with a dry January, trying to document the factors that are preventing it from becoming a struggle (and a willpower challenge). After almost 20 days, here are my learnings:

• I’ve framed it as a lockdown reset, to establish new habits for this year and beyond – there’s a big idea in here about establishing how I want to love post-pandemic.
• I’ve shared my plan with friends and colleagues which helps create an interested support network – this is on its own would not be enough.
• From a practical perspective, I’ve moved the beer and wine out of our main fridge to increase ‘friction’.
• I’ve created evening routines around reading, writing, listening to music, and podcast listening, which create a different flow.
• And I’m trying to feel the gratitude from having more time to read and work on interesting stuff (like this article and the one to come on the best of 2020 music).

For lots of reasons, I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions, but I see this less as a one month challenge, rather to set a new pattern after the year of Covid when happy hour any hour seemed to feel perfectly normal. Feel free to ask me about how it’s going, and please share any new habits that you are seeking to build.

Sources

• A shorter summary of the key points on habits and willpower – https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/can-brain-science-help-us-break-bad-habits
• The Hidden Brain podcast about habits – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creatures-of-habit/id1028908750?i=1000461145219
• The Hidden brain podcast about gratitude https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?i=1000499996014

The post More on building habits – the importance of friction and gratitude appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

If you’ve read other blogs, you’ll know that I love listening to and writing about my love for music. Here’s a great opportunity to indulge that passion.

In the age of Zoom, I saw an opportunity. How about I get a few like minded people together and pick our Top 10s and she them as a group, maybe with some rationale if you want to explain your choices. 

While I think we spent an enjoyable hour, there was some stress, and no little regret at leaving out songs that were like old friends, but didn’t quite make the cut.

Some strategies we heard about for selecting your top 10 best:

• Google, Amazon, NPR were all sources of best music lists
• Returning to what was on the 2004 list 
• Scrolling through playlists on many of the music platforms
• For me, leaving through my extensive vinyl collection 

In the end the lists felt as much about what got excluded as what was included. For me, I can’t really explain why artists like Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder and Emmylou Harris didn’t make the list.

Being OK with your list:

• Deciding to focus on how wonderful the music was that made the list. 
• Recognizing that some brilliant music wasn’t going to make it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t brilliant.
• Understanding that most of the lists included songs from the 60s and 70s – decades that have had a disproportionate impact on much of the popular music that followed in the 40 to 50 years after.
• Recognize that the 10 songs might not make the best playlist, but individually, these songs bring you great joy, and great memories.

So here’s my challenge for you – pick your Top 10 (and ideally write them in the comments section below). And then find platform of choice, listen to them and reflect on what memories are stirred and how much joy this set of songs gives you.   Namaste

My list:

• The Beatles – Golden Slumbers
• Gram Parsons (with Emmylou Harris) – Return of the Grievous Angel
• Laura Nyro – Stone Soul Picnic
• Coldplay (and Jay-Z) – Lost+
• R.E.M. – Man on the Moon
• Ali Farka Toure – AI Bine
• Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On
• The Band – The Weight
• Nick Drake – Northern Sky
• Nick Cave – Into My Arms

The post Finding the joy in choosing my Top 10 songs appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

Music and Meditation are both sources of wellbeing in times of stress

It’s been eight weeks since we’ve been cocooned at home, and music has played a part in our house in keeping us calm, uplifting us and making us feel connected to something bigger. 

There’s great research on how music (just like meditation) can support our wellbeing – here are some insights that I’ve pulled together from that research: 

• One goal of music is to create a powerful and positive shift in our mental state. 
• Music is a reliable source of transformational experience for some of us – we are attracted to music for the same reasons that meditators meditate. 
• Music (and meditation) allow a fuller and richer experience of our emotions: 
  • It stops our incessant and often negative mental chatter and potentially lowers the stress hormone cortisol, and helps us sleep better.
  • Offers us an opportunity to inhabit the present moment more fully and meaningfully. 
  • And rewires the brain with a host of positive emotional qualities. 

These are all important for good health and happiness in human beings.

• One reason we love music so much is it allows us to forget our troubles and just be. Immersed in sound and devoid of the usual angst of life, we can perceive our world from a hyper-present flow state.
  • Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Our sense of self temporarily deactivates and the parts of the brain that generate feelings like anxiety and self-doubt are subdued. In this state, the activity becomes entirely rewarding in and of itself without regard for outcome. 

Practical help

So, if you need music to help right now, you can find many playlists out there – just google quarantine playlists to find one that suits you. One of my favorites is the Billy Bragg list that I’ve reprinted below as it contains a lot that’s uplifting. And if you’d like to hear the ones I’ve created, please visit my YouTube channel.  

• Billy Bragg is an English folk singer whose career has spanned over 30 years.  
• Levi Stubbs was the lead singer of the Motown group, the Four Tops. 

Sources for this summary

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindfulness-and-music/202003/mindfulness-through-music-introduction
• https://qz.com/quartzy/1274667/neuroscience-shows-listening-to-music-has-kind-of-the-same-effect-as-meditation/

Billy Bragg’s lockdown playlist

1. John Lennon • Walls And Bridges – Whatever Gets You Through the Night
2. The Supremes • Right On – Up the Ladder to the Roof
3. Dusty Springfield • Dusty In Memphis [Deluxe Edition] – Breakfast in Bed
4. Bob Dylan • Side Tracks – Watching the River Flow
5. Patsy Cline • Patsy Cline – Walking After Midnight
6. Osibisa • The Very Best Of – Woyaya
7. The Temptations • Puzzle People – Can’t get next to You
8. ABBA • Abba – SOS
9. Little Feat • The Last Record Album – Long Distance Love
10. Willie Nelson • The Early Years – Hello Walls
11. Phoebe Snow • The Very Best Of Phoebe Snow – Every Night
12. The Marvelettes • Please Mr. Postman
13. Percy Sledge • The Percy Sledge Way – Dark End of the Street
14. Audrey Hepburn • Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) [Remastered]
15. Fats Waller • If You Got To Ask, You Ain’t Got It! – Sit right down and write myself a letter
16. Blaze Foley • Duct Tape Messiah – If I could only fly
17. Billy Bragg • Talking with the Taxman About Poetry – Levi Stubbs Tears
18. Four Tops • Reach Out – Reach out and I’ll be there

The post ‘When the world falls apart some things stay in place’ appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

• The Covid19 pandemic has created high levels of significant uncertainty and many of us will be finding it hard to thrive. 
• And, I want to share some practical advice to navigate through the disorientation of uncertain times.

Transitions

To understand what we are experiencing right now, it’s helpful to look to William Bridges – author of ‘Individual Transitions’. When change happens our brains don’t adjust immediately, we need time to process what’s happened – going through at least 3 stages:

1. We try to adjust to what’s ended – sometimes the things that end, don’t end all at the same time. As we learn more about the virus and the impact on our country, our area, and our neighborhood, more things can get lost.
2. Bridges identified the Neutral Zone as a time where something is over and the future hasn’t yet been established. This seem to describe much of what we are experiencing now.
3. And finally, we (hopefully) find a new normal that will take time to adjust to this new state. A point in the future where we will go out and socialize again – albeit with some behavior changes.

We don’t always move through these phases sequentially, we can move back and forth between them. We can be at different phases for different aspects of our lives. At one time, we have some things ending (with new restrictions), we experience the uncertainty of how all this will turn out, and at the same time, we could be adjusting to new patterns of behavior – e.g. Zoom Happy Hours.

SCARF

One way of explaining why an immediate adjustment to change is really difficult comes in David Rock’s ‘You’re Brain at Work’. Our brains are wired to see threats and to respond, and unwated change is easily viewed as a threat. Rock has identified 5 factors that guide our behavior, and we will feel a sense of threat when one or more is compromised – you can read more on SCARF here, written by the smart people at Cleverism:

• STATUS – refers to our sense of our own worth. A reduction in status tends to generate a strong threat reaction. If your work is the most important thing in your life and you are now limited as to what you can do, you will be feeling this loss of status.
• CERTAINTY – Operating in familiar and certain circumstances frees more resources in the brain. With the requirement to stay at home, we are potentially operating with greater uncertainty.
• AUTONOMY – The extent to which you feel control over your own domain. The less autonomy a person experiences, the more the situation feels threatening. Constraints about where we can go has the potential to reduce our autonomy.
• RELATEDNESS – as social beings we are wired to build trust and connection with other people. If the opportunity to build trust and collaboration are diminished, we can feel exposed.
• FAIRNESS – The brain automatically reacts with an avoid-response to unfairness and lands in a defensive stance.

Depending on your personality, some of these factors will be more important than others. Think about which threats you feel right now, and maybe which threats you have felt in the past

CUSP

Here are 4 ways to navigate the uncertainty of the Neutral Zone (CUSP) – the threats that you feel should guide your selected strategy:

• CONTROL – Take actions to regain some control
  • Create your own plan/structure for yourself, your family, your daily routines. Claim control of some other area of your life (get to the one thing you’ve been meaning to do).
• UNDERSTANDING – Gain the knowledge you need
  • Assess the impact on you – financially, emotionally, physically. Look for the plan to get through the crisis – understand about the risks for you and your family.
• SUPPORT – Connect with others and with yourself
  • Meet up with those who can help you navigate through (directly or indirectly)
  • Practice mindfulness and look at establishing a sleep pattern that supports you.
• PURPOSE – Connect with the things that fill your life with meaning
  • Use the PERMA model to catalogue the things that define your life – Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments (read more here – again a more detailed piece from Cleverism)

Here’s one exercise to help:

• Identify one threat you feel in the current crisis – something from the SCARF list 
• Look at the CUSP strategies and identify one thing you could do to manage that threat – be as specific as you can, so that you can put it into practice.

The times are unprecedented – I hope this has been a some help both to understand what you are experiencing right now, and to identify ways for navigating uncertain times.  If you need help with this process – please reach out to me.

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Gallup tells us that most people who have taken the assessment, have done little more than filed the resulting Strengths report without taking action. 

I’ve used Strengths in my coaching practice for some years and I’ve found many ways to extract great value from the assessment. Here are some examples:

Using Strengths in practice

• First, identify where I am using my strengths today and how they can be used together to succeed in future.
  • As an example, I have a client with ‘Achiever’ is her top 5 strengths. It is relatively common in Top 5 reports. It is described as being motivated by being productive, but with a tendency to value work over people. In this case, it’s essential to understand her other strengths and how they interact. She also has Relator in her Top 5. The result is an awareness and ability to engage colleagues in achieving her goals. 
• Next, identify the domains in which my strengths exist. The 4 categories are Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. Armed with this information, I can look at my strengths individually and as a collective and apply them to my goals.  
  • A recent client had Restorative (equipped to deal with problems) and Positivity (get others excited about what they are doing).  Restorative is an execution strength. It’s really valuable when applied to overcoming challenges, but can often make the person synonymous with the problems.  Now he is able to not only solve problems but also bring his colleagues along on the journey, by applying his relationship building strength of Positivity.
• Finally, understand my strengths in a team context. With visibility to my colleagues’ strengths, I can understand the how we can complement each other, how we relate to each other, and how to be more productive.
  • Working with a team recently, one colleague had Self-Assurance (a rarer strength) matched with strengths in execution. While his clarity about what needed to be done was invaluable in an operational setting, it was detrimental to this discussion. We were looking at planning for a 2 year time horizon, and needed to allow space for ‘what if?’ scenarios. With a quick intervention to highlight this, the team was able to produce a more complete outcome.

If you are 1 of the 20 million plus, ask yourself how you can leverage the investment you’ve already made.  

A version of this blog appeared on www.red10dev.com in February 2019

The post Putting your Strengths to Work appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

You can find my playlists, including this year’s, on my YouTube channel:

And if you are still wondering how it relates to coaching, the simple answer is that music can rewire our brain, it can relax us, it can uplift us, and it can make us receptive to new ideas (there’s a longer explanation in my best of 2017 blog).

With the release of the 50^th anniversary edition of Abbey Road, I expected 2019 to be a year where reissues dominated my thinking. While there were some great reissues, there were many exciting new records (and I’ve not finished exploring!)

Few topics covered in this piece:

• Recommendations from 2019, with some detail
• Recommendations from Liverpool
• Mindfulness playlist
• Reissues worth seeking out
• And some sources for further exploration

Recommendations from 2019

Here are 16 records I think you should check out – I gave up on a Top 10 last year and I am going with that trend:

• Wilco – Ode to Joy
• iLe – Almadura
• Caroline Shaw/Attacca Quartet – Orange
• Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka
• The Highwomen – The Highwomen
• Mdor Mocta – Ilana (The Creator)
• Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest
• The National – I am Easy to Find
• Sharon van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow
• Billie Eilish – When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
• Lumineers – III
• Cate Le Bon – Reward
• L’Epee – Diabolique
• Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains
• Aldous Harding – Designer
• Of Monsters and Men – Fever Dream

A little more detail on the essential stuff

• Wilco – Ode to Joy – I realized when listening to this that I’ve not really gone back to Wilco’s recent albums as much as I have ‘The Whole Love’ or ‘Wilco (the album)’ which are now 9+ years old.  This album seems to be more Wilco-like than their last few albums, and I am enjoying it competing for needle time on our record deck.
• iLe – Almadura – I read that the artist is modernizing the traditional Puerto Rico sound with the lyrics offering strong social commentary. My own take is that this record has so much great energy that it’s worth a listen even if you don’t understand the underlying messages.
• Caroline Shaw/Attacca Quartet – Orange – there are pieces of classical music that I love, and when I saw this recommended in various forums I had to check it out. See later on in choices for mindfulness…
• Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka – I have no idea how successful he is, but in my world he should be selling out big stadiums. It’s soulful and it’s energizing. I have loved everything he has done.  To me this album has a more joyful sound than its predecessor, ‘Love and Hate’, although the topics seem no less serious.
• The Highwomen – The Highwomen – this all-female collaboration has produced a really good album – perhaps not as good as Brandi Carlile’s solo work, but plenty to admire. I really love the reworked eponymous title track with the re-written lyrics (updated from the 1985 Highwayman version.
• Mdor Mocta – Ilana (The Creator) – classified as ‘international’ music in some of the lists I saw. If that means someone who draws on multiple cultural influences to make a great guitar record then I agree. 
• Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest. It’s his first work in 5 years since the wonderful Dream River. The instrumentation is sparse, the voice is warm and the humor and humanity are never far away.  Check out ‘Ballad of the Hulk’ as an example. Fortunate to see him at the World Café in Philadelphia late last year.
• The National – I am Easy to Find – this album has really grown on me. I love this band very much, but this is not just another The National album, it sees them partnering with some great female vocalists to create a different sound, albeit one that becomes The National’s own through the intensity it displays.
• Sharon van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow – another artist who hadn’t released an album in 5 years. Look for the version of ‘Seventeen’ with Norah Jones on the YouTube playlist, and there’s plenty more to enjoy.
• Billie Eilish – When we all fall asleep, where do we go? – introduced to me by my dear friend Stewart early in the year. I realized she may have wider appeal when I was playing her new album and my son asked how I knew who Billie Eilish was? After Kacey Musgraves last year, apparently I am picking out Grammy winners now.
• Lumineers – III – maybe not be as immediately appealing as their first 2 albums, but songs like Gloria, Donna and Life in the City wouldn’t be out of place on either of those 2 albums. 
• Cate Le Bon – Reward – I’ve been ignoring her for a while, assuming she may have something to do with Duran Duran. Apparently, far from the truth, she’s been making great music, talked up by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and now making this album that sounds so mature. As an example, ‘Miami’ displays so many interesting influences – from German rock to the Welsh valleys.
• L’Epee – Diabolique – the cover tells me that this is a ‘super group’, although I hadn’t heard of any of the artists involved. It has a very warm sound with shades of early 90’s shoegazing bands like Slowdive.
• Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains – this was a project of David Berman, formerly of the Silver Jews. He made this music shortly before his premature death last year. ‘The Nights that won’t happen’ is a haunting song given its subject matter and the subsequent events. 
• Aldous Harding – Designer – apart from knowing she’s from New Zealand, I know little more than she has a really distinctive voice and her music has this really calming feel. ‘The Barrel’ is a great illustration of these 2 features.
• Of Monsters and Men – Fever Dream – the ‘difficult’ 3^rd album reviews weren’t terrific. For me, having seen them play this music live in 2019, the new songs sounded as strong as the music went before. Love their energy.

I didn’t get to some of previous favorites yet – e.g. Sturgill Simpson, Solange, Nick Cave, Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes), Tinariwen and Coldplay.  I hope to discover their music as this year moves on.

And from Liverpool (my hometown) 

New artists to recommend

• Red Rum Club released their first album Matador.  It’s one of my daughter’s favorites and I think it has such great energy. 
• The Shipbuilders – described as gypsy surf rock – whatever that is!  So far they’ve only released singles, but they are worth a listen in my mind.

Choices for mindfulness:

The list for 2019 comprises a single work:

Attacca Quartet/Caroline Shaw – Orange

Amazing Reissues

Some wonderful music was reissued in 2019:

• Abbey Road turned 50 last year.  For all the outtakes on the previous Beatles reissues, these are my favorites – especially the ‘The Long One’. Nerdily, I played my copy of the 2012 reissue and then played this version and the difference was really noticeable – the sound was warmer and fuller, which is an amazing thing to say about one of the best albums ever recorded.
• Bob Dylan – Rolling Thunder Revue.  More reissues with 70s Dylan.  This is a really vibrant record – suggests that the live shows would have been amazing to see. One reviewer described the version of ‘Isis’ sounding like the Clash 2 years before they emerged.
• Ronnie Lane – Just for a Moment – if you don’t know the work of the former member of the Small Faces and the Faces, I think it’s worth checking out. He was critically acclaimed in his lifetime, but not that commercially successful. His music has a warmth and spirit that I am drawn to. Check out Barcelona.
• Marvin Gaye – You’re the Man – new Marvin Gaye music after all this time – of course we want to hear it.  It’s hard to understand how the title track didn’t get released in his lifetime – it’s a logical companion to What’s Going On and a thing of beauty.
• Gene Clark – No Other – another artist not necessarily appreciated in his lifetime. Former Byrds band member – ahead of his time in being outstanding alt-country before that was a serious thing. Although one review I read said it was a lost classic of philosophical soft rock – not sure I like that, but does help you get a sense of how hard this is to categorize..

If you need more

One of my sources is NPR’s All Songs Considered – if you have an hour, take a listen to their listeners’ picks end of year show or to the NPR best of 2019 show

More lists to explore:

• UK’s Mojo magazine Top 75
• Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 50
• NPR Top 25

The post 2019 – music as a source of happiness, healing and creativity appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.

Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski point out in their book ‘Soccernomics’ that coaches don’t typically have a big impact on a club’s results – based on a few decades of research across several countries.  A club’s payroll is a much stronger indicator of success. Prior to the Champions League Final (Europe’s premier club tournament), Simon Kuper wrote about this phenomenon again on ESPN FC, and interestingly he observed that Liverpool are one club outperforming others with higher payrolls. He did not comment on why – here’s where I would argue that Jurgen Klopp, may be a critical factor.

This would make Klopp an ‘overachiever’ in the original ‘Soccernomics’ analysis – and important to note, Kuper and Szymanski did identify some ‘overachievers’ in their study.  His leadership style has some dimensions that seem unusual in the field of soccer management. Historically, coaches have been very dictatorial with their players and their teams, disdaining input from non-football people around analytics and diet. This seems to be changing at the top level, where managing a team of twenty-something millionaires presents another level to the challenge. 

He is often talked about as a great motivator, but I think that understates his leadership qualities.  So what does Klopp appear to do differently?

• Understanding players as people – he has said it’s important to understand his players first, before talking to them about football. 
  • His first question about potential new players is, apparently, what are they like as people? This is key to getting the right people on board. Early on Klopp allowed a star defender to leave, because of his disruptive influence.
• Allowing people to try things:
  • Much was made of the improvisation that allowed Liverpool to score some key goals this season.  His players have the freedom to try things, within the game plan that he and his coaches develop.
• Giving other people credit – in the latter case, he gave all the credit to the players involved. 
  • He once referred to his assistant (Zeljko Buvac) as ‘The brain’. Buvac left LFC last year, and this year the team improved tactically – suggesting that Klopp was happy to give credit to others, even when his role was the more significant. 
  • He recently called the players mental giants for their ability to keep winning at the end of the season.
  • He does not take credit personally when results go well and does everything to avoid blaming his team in more difficult times
• Understanding where he is strong and where he could benefit from other expertise – diet, data, player acquisition are just some of the areas where he relies on others in the team.  
  • In recent weeks there’ve been several articles on the club’s data analysis team and their insights on which players to acquire for the team – Klopp isn’t always invested in these players at the start.
  • These analysts are key in helping Klopp and team with preparation.
• Aligning with and building on the club’s strategy. Unlike many coaches he seems to embrace the limits set by the owners.
  • His ability as a strategist is often understated. After last year’s near miss in The Champions League, he returned with a new plan of how the team was going to play, requiring major changes in his system – this resulted in a dramatic improvement in performance this season
• Honesty – an ex-Liverpool player who left the club as part of Klopp’s changes said last week that he was one of the best coaches he’d ever had because he’d explained what he needed and it was clear that the player (Christian Benteke) was not a good fit.
• Patience – this is a commodity in short supply in soccer. Coaches are changed out frequently. Yet, Klopp’s question to new players he’s trying to integrate into the squad is, are you here for 5 months or 5 years.?

I haven’t observed other English Premier League (EPL) coaches (Pep Guardiola or Mauricio Pochettino) as closely, but both appear to have more in common with Klopp than a coach like Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte, both highly critical of players on their squads – who have left the EPL in the last 12 months.  

So, what did I learn…. Kuper and Szymanski are skeptical of the premise that coaches are key to a team’s success. My take on Jurgen Klopp is that there’s potential for coaches who are skilled in identifying marginal improvements in their team and its performance, to become the overachiever described in Soccernomics. I think the wider implications for leaders in other fields – by adopting the approaches I’ve outlined above I think there’s significant opportunity for marginal and continuous improvements, leading to the creation of great teams.

*For those of you who don’t know, I’m the chairperson of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club in Delaware.

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Are you are looking to flourish, be authentically happy, and live well? Read on. It will help if you are familiar with the band Coldplay. Their most recent record’s music and lyrics suggest that they have discovered the language for a flourishing life, as illustrated by the model (it’s known as PERMA).

The idea formed from some recent training I did (and subsequent reflection) on a Strengths certification program – specifically Gallup’s StrengthsFinder and the VIA Institute’s character strengths (the latter connects to the PERMA model). My Strengths that contributed to writing this piece:

• With the VIA character strengths, love of learning tops the list.  I look for ways to share my learning with my clients, friends and family (or you dear reader, if you’ve decided this topic is for you). I look for better ways to help people understand ideas (new or old) – and honestly, it’s not always welcomed, especially by my 11 year old son.
• One of my Gallup StrengthsFinder top strengths is connectedness.  I see connections like the one I’m articulating here.  Coldplay’s songs telling stories of loss, confusion about change and of renewal and growth (classic phases of how we cope with change), and. The songs that may be deemed overly positive follow on from older songs of loss and failure. 

Late last year, Coldplay released a movie, ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ that I saw with my 13 year old daughter.  We both loved the music, the lyrics and the narrative of the movie.  Their latest album and tour are the culmination of almost 20 years work, through many ups and some downs (most publicly the lead singer’s separation from his celebrity wife, but clearly not the only challenge they faced). 

In listening to their story, it seemed to me they had discovered what I’ve heard Ryan Niemec (of the VIA Institute) described as the ‘pathways to a flourishing life’.  This is the PERMA model, together with a description of the related character strengths/behaviors: 

• Positive Emotions – vitality, optimism, humor and hope are examples of the positive emotions identified by VIA Character Strengths
• Engagement – creativity, interest and enthusiasm are high when someone is engaged.
• Positive Relationships – Valuing close relationships with others, generosity, and loyalty are key in having great relationships.
• Meaning – Feeling blessed, a sense of wonder, openness and taking a big picture view are typically present when someone has meaning in their lives.
• Accomplishments – Finishing what you started, understanding context, and feeling like you are contributing are behaviors that contribute to a sense of accomplishment.

I see this as a way for clients to build credit in their emotional bank account – the more I have, the more likely I am to be able to offset adversity and challenge.

So, where are these themes in Coldplay’s music, lyrics and in how they live as depicted by the movie A Head Full of Dreams (AHFOD)? 

• Positive Emotions in AHFOD –  Zest, humor and hope are among the characteristics you see strongly in the Coldplay story.  They talk about the message of AHFOD tour being about happiness, peace and love.  There’s a lyric in ‘Up and Up’ that sums up the sense of hope, ‘you can say it’s mine and clench your fist, or see each sunrise as a gift’. 
• Engagement – they talk about an approach that assumes that they are ‘still trying to make it’. AFHOD was a place they were planning to get to. You can see strong engagement with the audiences in Japan, Argentina, Brasil and France.  There’s no ‘if it’s Tuesday it must be Detroit’ for them, every show seems constructed with a sense of place. The lyric from ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ says, ‘you make me feel like I’m alive again’.
• Relationships – they talk about the relationship between band mates as ‘brothers’, being part of the same tribe, and at one point they say that their manager (Phil Harvey) is their best mate.  Their family extends to the crew they’ve worked with for 20 years. I particularly like the lyric from Kaleidoscope to illustrate  the openness, ‘be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide’.
• Meaning – the movie shows them behind the scenes about to play the Super Bowl half time show and their manager (Phil) reminds them that they have a great message to give. The sense of gratitude is very strong in the song called ‘A Head Full of Dreams’, where Chris Martin sings, ‘into life I’ve just been woken with A Head Full of Dreams’. It’s equally evident in ‘Amazing Day’, where the lyric is ‘and time seems to say, forget the world and its weight, and here I just want to say, Amazing Day’. 
• Accomplishments – there were many mentioned in the movie – ‘Parachutes’, their first multi-million selling Platinum album, headline at the Glastonbury festival very early in their career, and their understanding that their ability to reach millions of people is a gift. Hearing the title song in a live setting, it’s clear that they’ve succeeded in engaging their audience in a very uplifting way – how can you not join in the ‘Ohhh, OhOhhh, OOhOh’ with Buenos Aires crowd?

CONCLUSION

Connecting PERMA and Coldplay offers concrete examples of the moments, the strengths and the behaviors that can help us live a flourishing life. 

• Do a quick reflection – which aspects of PERMA are strongest in your life? Which may need some focused attention? Do have what you need to flourish? 

I’d love to get your comments either directly or through www.onnupcoaching.com.  I work with clients everyday who are using their strengths to create a path to flourish and thrive. Let’s talk about your path. 

If you need more detail on PERMA here’s an article that digs deeper into descriptions and examples – https://www.cleverism.com/perma-model-bringing-well-being-and-happiness-to-your-life/

The Playlist is on YouTube 

• Up and Up, Adventure of A Lifetime, Amazing Day Kaleidoscope and A Head Full of Dreams are on both A Head Full of Dreams and Live in Buenos Aires.

The post Finding Authentic Happiness appeared first on OnNUp Coaching.