A Story Supreme

Mario Fogg lowered his block-rimmed eyeglasses at me with a quizzical look. “I was at the gig last Friday night downstairs,” I explained, “great show.” I’d spotted Mario at a reception at my workspace on Auburn Avenue. His jazz trio, anchored by his drumming, had performed John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” to an intimate group shoehorned into a space that by day was a modest coffee shop.  
 
In our conversation Mario shared his views that music is, at its core, a way to exchange ideas. That regardless of your background, culture, mother language, ethnicity or gender music provides a universal platform to express a thought. To convey an emotion. He explained that every performance was one-of-a-kind even if it was the same piece that he’d played a hundred times before. That he brought whatever was happening to him at that time – his hopes or disappointments or euphoric energy – to that moment in time. That split second his sticks hit the drum skin.
 
It is the same with the story you tell. The emotion that runs through your communication is what your audience will respond to. They want to be reminded of Coltrane because that is what you promised to play. But you must deliver your own take on it. Dig into the emotions that drive you to do whatever it is that you do. Bring that to every conversation, every touchpoint and every time you interact with your client or customer.
 
The music is not in the drum kit