If you are like me, you are trying to sift through the current moment – strategize and think forward – or you may still be in shock. Our lives were different this time last week. Things are hard right now and imaginations can run wild. I am constantly faced with my own question: How will I lead in and through this?
Sometimes moments from the past bring , strength, insight and comfort when we are forced to stand still.
One such moment happened in 2002, at the Village Vanguard, when Wynton Marsalis was playing the solo of his life – trying to make a comeback after several setbacks in his career.
He dramatically was concluding his solo, I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You, when a cell phone went off in the audience. Can you even imagine? You are in your comeback moment and you lose your audience in the concluding moments due to a silly cell phone ringtone.
No one could have faulted him for getting angry and giving up. No one would have faulted him for walking off the stage.
Instead, he made a different choice. He took a moment – waited – lifted his trumpet and then began to play and replay the ringtone. He moved into improvising the ringtone tune, moving through several keys. This brought the distracted audience back to him. He improvised with what was given to him – he showed his improvisational brilliance.
He seized the moment and moved through it – eventually he shifted the tempo of the cell phone tune back to the ballad tempo of his initial song and ended where the ringtone had unexpectedly interrupted his initial concluding moment.
We are being unexpectedly interrupted.
The ringtone is happening! It doesn’t help for us to tell each other to ignore – nor tell each other to just hang on. While this will eventually pass, it will not pass without making a mark on our past, present and future.
Like Marsalis, we need to trust our personal brilliance – our resilience – our creativity – our giftedness that we each have. Our gifts are here for us to use and to support each other through this worrisome, anxious and fearful time.
May we improvise like Wynton Marsalis. Seize the moment and trust our deepest gifts and deepest purpose for being. The world has given us an interruptive ringtone – How will we lead through it?
