What I’ve noticed about playing weddings
What I’ve noticed about playing weddings
About a decade ago my wife (/business partner) and I purchased a small business that provides fine string music for weddings.
It’s a fun story to tell, and I often share it with clients when the topic of business sale is relevant.
But this weekend I had a larger realization about this area of my life.
Business, and organization in general, is often focused on streamlining and systemization. And that’s because it has to be. The entire premise of succeeding in business and organizational pursuits is based on the concept of reproducible transaction. Today we have tools to facilitate and automate this like no previous era. As the head of a business or organization we MUST think this way, which is why systems theories are not optional for anyone who wants to build and scale in a reliably strategic way.
But, here’s what’s easy to forget.
It’s easy to forget that our services touch real lives, and that those real lives are driven by that most human of quests, the search for meaning. At the end of the day that’s what we’re all here to do.
Purchasing that business was a good choice for us. It has returned on investment (even merely financially) many times over since doing so. It was well systemized when we purchased it, with a clear sense of ideal client, messaging, and SOPs. We added some additional digital marketing savvy to the project and created a means of client attraction that works with little effort.
Leads enter the inbox, we evaluate them, respond with a sales letter, and then we’re off and running. Much of this was already built when we bought it. The last owner understood business systems well.
That’s more or less how I once thought of it. And this meant that the Saturdays I would sacrifice often felt like an inconvenience in service to these essentially anonymous couples that I would meet once and never see again.
This past weekend I realized that I have come to see it differently than I once did. These couples, in choosing our service, offer us a priceless gift, and invite us to partake in a relationship that is truly sacred. The gift is called “trust”. And in offering that trust they express the truth that we are worthy to bless with our presence and artistry one of the holiest rites of passage in the human experience.
This past weekend I found myself truly inspired by the love expressed between members of the new family, and grateful to be present and trusted. It’s a much different way of seeing and being than a decade prior.
How about you? How is your service sacred? I promise that it is, because the human condition is a sacred one, and the services we offer to one another in the effort to improve the condition are sacrificial and sacramental. Trust is the bond we form as we do. Contracts are a codification, and currency is the energetic exchange.
The human condition is sacred. As a servant leader you are a minister of grace. And the relationships you form in this process are holy. We are all in the game to improve the human condition perpetually, which is a most blessed, purposeful pursuit.
Don’t miss the meaning at the core of what you do. It goes straight to the heart of existence.