Welcome to The OffBeat! Let's Jam
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You want to “have it all” at work and at home, but that feels laughably impossible.
You want to be a respected, inclusive leader while protecting your sanity and your weekends.
You’re not sure if you’re still ambitious or just conditioned to chase gold stars that stopped meaning anything years ago.
You cringe when companies call their employees a “family.” The politics and the corporate jargon and the culture theater EXHAUST you.
And yet, you still believe that work can mean something. That leadership matters. That you have a responsibility as a leader to create the conditions that enable meaningful work for your team.
I created The OffBeat because I felt alllllllllllllll of that and didn’t know where to go for answers.
I read all the articles, annotated all the books, took all the virtual courses, worked with all the coaches, commiserated with all the friends in a similar career stage, met with all the mentors.
I still felt fumbly and confused.
I still felt anxious about reconciling work with family life, finding my “purpose” and aligning my work to that, and developing as a leader without burning out or checking out.
Until I realized I could find the answers not within the mind-bending corporate funhouse but within my creative core.
I’ve played jazz drums since elementary school and, over the course of my professional self-discovery journey in my 20s and 30s, I uncovered a wealth of interoperability between music and corporate leadership.
I could figure out how to juggle a high-powered role and a family, and how to improve my leadership skills, by tuning into the language I’ve always natively spoken: music.
Let’s take a beat. Why does any of this even matter?
Because we can’t thrive as people without paying attention to how we feel while we’re working.
If you’re disillusioned with work, no matter how grounded you feel outside of it, you’re still cut off from a deeper sense of fulfillment.
Professional well-being and personal well-being are connected. And the responsibility for shaping that connection, fairly or not, often lands on leaders.
The OffBeat is here to help you carry that weight. It gives you stories, tools, and ideas to help you actually “have it all,” whatever that means for you.
And by drawing unexpected connections between music, creativity, and leadership, The OffBeat can re-energize how you think about work—and maybe even make it feel exciting again?!
Work may never be perfect, but it can still be meaningful.
You’re already leading; this approach just helps you do it with more rhythm.
Get Into the Groove
I send The OffBeat every Sunday morning. Each send is easy-on-the-inbox (short, digestible, low cognitive load).
What free subscribers get:
The first and third edition of the month is a roundup of links, recs, and reflections called the Lead Sheet. 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.
The second and fourth edition of the month is a think piece structured like a jam session in jazz (naming the tune—a punchy idea; soloing—exploring different takes on a central theme; outro—a thought-provoking closer).
What paid subscribers get:
A twice-as-long Lead Sheet
An editable template (a doc, a deck, a spreadsheet) included in one of the think pieces every other month
Occasional bonus tracks
Becoming a competent and capable jazz musician—or a workplace leader—involves technical skill, deep listening, and creative expression. Here are a few curated sample tracks to get you started.
Foundations: Grasping the Basics 🎼
How to build a plan on a page
Music-inspired rules to thrive at work
The rule of three, the rule of seven, and the 50/50 rule
Drum rudiments for your professional life
Defining your career essential truths
Imitation: Learning from the Greats 🎷
What I’ve learned from my best and worst bosses over almost two decades of corporate work
“Over-listening” like Miles Davis
Seeing opportunity in the unknown by hearing beyond the obvious
Experimentation: Shaping Your Style 🎶
Using music to motivate your team
A (karaoke-free) roundup of six proven suggestions
My 12 favorite team development exercises
Getting in the swing of things, virtually, in-person, or hybrid
Make like a drummer and just hit it
Keeping your curiosity cup full
Artistry: Finding Your Unique Sound 🎤
The value of what you build is in the quality of the collective
Approaching leadership like sound-mixing
Balancing all the tracks to make a cohesive song
Developing your personalized leadership toolkit
Share The OffBeat
If any of the above sparked something for you, consider sharing The OffBeat with someone who could benefit from music-inspired leadership insights—whether it’s sharing the link in a Slack channel, posting it on LinkedIn, or bringing it up with a colleague.
Sharing resources helps you become a go-to authority for others.
Who’s one person in your network that must read this?