Borrow my bass…

We need each other. Fact. God created us to live and work in community. To celebrate our unique gifts, to lean into our individual talents and skills, and to collaborate together to make something great out of our collective contributions.  

Today’s rant is my latest riff on the importance of Building Our Interdependent Relationships…i.e., the Twelfth Essential from the BTL Twelve Playbook. This is one essential I’ve been landing on frequently of late in team practices. 

I was blessed to experience this very concept yesterday. For context, my youngest son is a gifted pro in the music world….and he is my favorite bassist ever (yes, I’m 100% biased). I have learned so much of the value and the gift of intentional, interdependent relationships from son John and his professional colleagues over the last 10 years. The music and creative communities are such an amazing, generous, and supportive collection of artists. We in the business world have much to learn from these pros and from their worldview re: how and why they support and collaborate together. 

So, a young up-and-coming bass pro who is friends with my son was in a serious car wreck while en route from Dallas to his new home in Cbus this week. Gratefully he is OK, although he suffered some minor injuries as a result. His upright bass, however, needed the ER more than he did (contrary to their sturdy looks, the upright bass is a fragile instrument). 

This young musician’s friend, a gifted jazz vocalist in her own right, knew my son John from the CBus jazz community. She shared with me that he was the first person she reached out to, to ask if he knew of any available upright bass on very short notice for her friend to borrow while his is in the repair shop in Cinci. I was grateful to hear that she thought of my son first as someone who would be generous and willing to help a fellow musician.  (Happy bass mom here!) 

And for those of us who are on somebody’s payroll… if you are a gig musician and your instrument is in the shop, you don’t make any money. Hard fact. 

So I got a text from son John and within minutes and I was able to connect with this young artist to arrange for him to pick up John’s back-up bass so he could continue to work and fulfill his commitments this week. One of which is no joke…the epic Columbus Jazz and Ribs Fest. 

Time for a shameless plug: If you love jazz and ribs and you’re in Cbus this weekend…please check out one of our very best offerings in central Ohio in the summer. Yeah, it’s hot out…but the jazz is cool! 

https://www.hotribscooljazz.org/2022-line-up/  (And be sure to hear Rachel Azbell on Sunday’s lineup!) 

What a blessing it is to live, to work, and collaborate together as we pursue our OPUS. What a blessing it is to support one another in our pursuit of our Why. Our relationships matter most. Together we transform.

Always together. So good.