🥁 The OffBeat #88: Lead Sheet | Leadership Digest
Something to read, something to think about, something else
This is The OffBeat, where music meets leadership. I’m Allison Stadd—jazz drummer, marketing leader, and very tired/highly caffeinated mom of two—and each week I deliver a fresh take on work, creativity, and connection, like how to hire like Duke Ellington. It’s like HBR, but with better taste in music.
Lead Sheet is The OffBeat’s every-other-week roundup of links, recs, and quotes. Like a lead sheet in music (just the essentials: melody, harmony, lyrics), it always has something to read, something to think about, and something else—all within the themes of leadership cues from music, cultural curiosity, and personal/professional balance.
Opening Note | A track that captures the vibe of this edition of The OffBeat:
Feels like a backyard potluck or a candlelit living room jam session. It’s warm and communal; music made for connection, not perfection.
Popcorn brain (PureWow)
Can Gen Z founders fix the online shopping hellscape? ()
The top 50 purpose-driven startups of 2025 ()
BLOCC: a framework for staying focused on your to-do checklist (Flow)
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.” — Richard Feynman
Chaotic, complex times like these call for a values tune-up. Even if you’re clear on what’s most important to you in life—whether it’s putting family first or finding the humor in things or making time for creativity—it never hurts to check in with yourself and see if anything’s changed.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of Real Self-Care, created a lovely technique to do just that called The Dinner Party Exercise.
Imagine you have $200 to throw any kind of dinner party you want. Reflect on the following:
What would it look like?
What would it feel like?
Who would be there?
The ideal dinner party looks different for everyone, and honing in those nuances helps you identify what means the most to you.
My 3 core values, which have morphed over the years—especially once I became a mom in 2021—are:
Connection
Growth Mindset
Creativity
So my ideal dinner party would probably be a potluck with a carefully curated guest list of ~6-7 people each instructed to bring a new-to-the-group +1, be warm and cozy and kinetic and candlelit, live music in the background, and small moments of delight tucked everywhere—a handwritten welcome note at each place, a "question jar" full of conversation starters, and maybe even a corner with an open art station.
And no phones!
I want to hear about your ideal dinner party. Hit reply or leave a comment.
This is a *NEW* Lead Sheet segment spotlighting other newsletters or podcasts that are tonally or thematically harmonious with The OffBeat. There’s so much great, under-the-radar independent content out there right now and I’m excited to surface my favorites here.
For books and beautiful things, check out
(she recently declared Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore one of the best books of the year and I fully agree). If The OffBeat had an office, ChickLits would be the watercooler curator.For double the reading recommendations, including the deal with corporate gardening programs and the 30 best fiction and nonfiction books of the last 30 years, plus 4 fascinating things to listen to / watch, keep reading.