The Cow, The Cat, The Captain and The Church Mice (Part 5)

First, show that you're listening by responding when their eyes pleadingly inquire, "What About Me?"  Remember they care less about you than they care about themselves.  If you make them feel important, by listening to them, they will count you as an important person. 

Before you become important in their eyes, commit to being a best in class performer.  Over forty days, commit to becoming a best in class performer by cutting off all other options, except excellence.  The first forty days will be raw, clumsy and misinformed but they will also be revelatory, sharpening and timely.  Be on the look out for other raw, clumsy and misinformed individuals and when you find someone, help them.  Lift as you climb but remember no one owes you anything.  Everything I'm sharing is an adventurous experiment that can blow up in your face at any time.  There are no guarantees; the stakes are high and talk is cheap.  Listen more than you speak because the most important work you will complete is work without words.

Committing to excellence will reveal a dynamic in worthwhile undertakings.  When people are gathered, a pattern often emerges.  There is a captain with everything to lose; a cow with many things understood; a cat with a territory to patrol and mice with bellies to fill.  She discovered in middle school, what her brother discovered in college and decided to be cat in her orchestra.   Experimentation began with writing reminders to herself.  Committing to the lifestyle caused instinctual placement of a golf pencil in her hair.  Ever ready to jot something down, the pencil first served its purpose in orchestra practice.

Sheet music is the map for musicians.  Before being able to play the music the way it's felt, a middle schooler is taught to play as written.  Her conductor perpetually instructed students to make notes, in pencil, on the sheet music.  Most of her peers ignored the advice, making no notes at all.  Note-taking students horrified their teacher with ballpoint and felt tipped pens.  Pencils on sheet music were the exception instead of the norm.  She used her golf pencil for all kinds of things, including reminders on sheet music.  Her first "What About Me?" experiment was an email. "Today's class was helpful for two reasons: I saw the usefulness of the pencils (not pens!!) you beg us to bring.  When you asked us to play slower toward the end, I was able to make a note to remember.  Thanks!"

Her next commitment, in pursuit of the first chair, was to grab a calendar.  She committed to practice every day for forty days.  If she missed a day, she would have to start again.  The intent was to test something Coach Tate's assistant said, "Hard work beats talent when the talented avoid hard work."  She was not the greatest musician in her section but her commitment to pivoting ensured she would be greater after forty days.

When she pouted about orchestra - or boys or teachers or parents or money or life - she had plenty of company.  When she curtailed socialization to practice, she walked alone.  Her work ethic thinned her cohort.  Rather than regret dwindling invitations and points of gossip, she revisited her list of commitments by remembering her brother's experience of lifting as he climbed.

After practice, her brother saw a teammate sitting alone in an upper corner of the arena.  Going up to inquire, he found him quietly weeping in the shadows.  Coach Tate was weeding him out and he didn't know what to do.  He was struggling in the classroom as well, teetering on academic probation.  Her brother, already on his seventeenth of forty days of extra practice, tossed him "What About Me?" and "Work Without Words," as strategies for change.  In solidarity, they began showing up to practice fifteen minutes early, emailing professors pithy proofs they were listening during office hours and heeding the nutritionist's suggestion to set and stick to a bedtime. 

Now on her way to bed, after starting her orchestral forty days over - she tied together four days before missing a day - she knew who she might be able to lift as she climbed.  Hatching her plan would have to wait until morning because although she attended a boarding school, she didn't board.  Her struggling and quietly suffering peer roomed on campus and would be her preoccupation in the morning. 

Her classmate's mother sent her away.  Peers learned one another's stories through omission and osmosis.  Insecurity and depression are nonverbally communicated.  Discovering who asked to board, and who was sent to boarding school, required few words.  An anxious mother sent her daughter away from stables, acreage and servants for a reason.  Rather than gossip - again - about rumors of dysfunctionality in her classmate's life, she covenanted to use what she was learning to help someone else; to lift as she climbed.

As she entered the orchestra practice room, she knew the stakes were high.  The bit of social capital she'd earned could disappear if her altruistic gamble failed.  Sweaty palms confirmed the high wire act into which her brother pulled.  After a few words, she knew she had nothing to fear.  The child of wealth and landed gentry was grateful for her kindness.  They became fast friends and together began working without words over forty days.