Effective Leadership Through Sound Connections: A Conversation with Jem Fuller - Part 2

“And to bring it back to sound, I find this is also fascinating, when we put things on vibration. So yes, your thoughts are powerful. And when you think something, but you also speak it or sing it, when you put it on vibration, you bring it into the physical world amplified, and word is powerful. If you ask the Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginals here, they tell you, the wise ones tell you that they sang the world into existence.” – Jem Fuller

 

This episode is the second half of my conversation with international coach and retreat facilitator Jem Fuller as we discuss why having a big ego isn’t always a bad thing, the surprising links between sound, physics, and the Aboriginal Dreamtime, and how language itself first evolved from music.

 

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(0:00:00) - The Power of Sound and Ego

The second half of our discussion begins as we talk about Jem’s strategies for handling the stress and overload of social media, including just taking a deep breath. “You know,” he says, “it’s like a release of energy and if you’re starting to feel a bit, you know, elevated or a bit anxious, then a big sigh can be really, really helpful.” He explains why our minds are instinctively drawn to protect the ego, and why a “big ego” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “A big ego doesn’t just mean that you’ve got a superiority complex where you think you’re better than you are,” he explains. “To be able to... step up and say, ‘Yes, I’ll take the lead,’ there has to be some sense of, you know, ‘I can do this.’”

(0:05:09) - Discovering Authentic Leadership Through Core Values

We talk about ways to get in tune with your ideal leadership role, and ways to figure out just what sort of leader you are at the core. Jem suggests imagining someone delivering your eulogy: “What would you really hope to hear them say when they’re describing your character? And you write those words down Kind, generous, open-minded, loving, patient, caring, hardworking, whatever it was for you Write those words down. The words you’ve written down are your core values.” We discuss the physics and philosophy of sound and the link between ancient beliefs and cutting-edge science. “The mountain only existed when we sang about it,” he says about Aboriginal beliefs. “And quantum physics also has a similar kind of thing with this that certain things only become when we observe them and language them, you know. So words are powerful, and that’s part of the reason affirmations work.”

(0:16:11) - The Power of Connection Through Sound

As our conversation comes to a close, Jem shares his thoughts about the power of sound to connect us to one another on a deeper, more personal level. “You don’t need to intellectualize the sound of a major chord,” he explains. “It just immediately feels like it feels.” We discuss the untapped potential of that sonic connection we all share and look at the latest studies on the age-old mystery of which came first: human speech or human music. “Before language,” Jem tells us, “before words, we had the embouchure characteristics to sing or to...