Letting Go
5 Great reasons your parents can relax about you pursuing a degree in the arts
The first time I sat in on a corporate business meeting, I was completely lost. As a new employee with two degrees in opera and no previous business experience, this is what you’d expect. You could forgivably assume I didn't understand what it takes to contribute to a successful professional meeting but my dear reader—you’d be wrong.
At lunch I snuck off to call my friend, Liz, a marketing genius/boss lady working for one of the top five companies in Silicon Valley. “Liz, is the purpose of a meeting for just a couple of people to make everyone else sit around and listen to them talk?!” “I mean, yeah, basically,” she sighed. “That’s the most common scenario I encounter. Most meetings could easily be an email instead.” There was a long silence as that sunk in, and time has mostly reinforced the truth of her observation.
Back to my confusion: This was a stark contrast to any time I gathered to work in a group during my music career. This only occurred for one or two specific reasons:
First reason being so a team could workshop a song, ensemble or scene for eventual performance. If you were present you were expected to be capable of giving/receiving highly personal constructive feedback and trying out various approaches live to contribute to the best end product possible. You also knew you would have to stand by your work not only in the presence of your team, but also in front of the end consumer- your audience.
Second reason being so multiple cross-functional teams could align their work with one another to make sure it would be executed seamlessly at the time of performance. Think: an orchestra coming together with a cast of singers for the first time to put together their two parts of the score with the conductor; or a team of stage managers, costumers, make-up artists and props specialists making sure you are correctly dressed, coiffed, and safely positioned in your harness to be lifted into the rafters and lowered into a duet the moment after a small explosive fills the stage with smoke and just before a crew of twenty puppeteers enter for their choreographed back up dance with the six foot tall flamingos..
Gathering together was done with clear intention and very specific desired outcomes in mind. Everyone present was expected to contribute to the process and no time was wasted (especially because musicians are unionized and charge overtime by the minute for rehearsals and performances). No one talked just to hear the sound of their own voice.
With that in mind, here are five reasons your parents can relax about you pursuing a degree in the arts:
Your soft skills will dominate the competition wherever you go
You will master a growth mindset and program your thinking to be solutions-oriented
You will learn how to teach yourself complicated things and share them generously with your colleagues.
You will understand deeply how to collaborate with others and have tools to manage difficult personalities and situations on the fly.
You will have a unique—and therefore valuable—perspective to contribute to your workplaces in future.
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