What’s Your Option Number Three?

In June 2019, the alternative rock band Radiohead learned over 18 hours of music recorded during their sessions for their album OK Computer was stolen. The hacker reached out to the band with a ransom demand: Give me $150,000 or I’ll release the stolen recordings.

Black portable recorded records

Photo by Mink Mingle

Radiohead appeared to only have two choices from the hacker. They could either pay the ransom or they could let the hacker release their music for free. The band was stuck between a rock and a hard place…

Until they looked for Option Number Three.

Option Number Three

At first glance, you may agree Radiohead only had two choices. It would be easy to see this as the hacker had only given them two choices. Yet, there was an additional option.

Radiohead blew off the hacker and chose to see a third possible option.

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Bumblebee

A Reel Leadership Article

Today’s Reel Leadership article takes you back to 1980s… Well, not really but the movie featured in this article will. Bumblebee, the latest movie in the Transformers movie series, transports you back to the ’80s with an interesting story and fantastic visuals.

After 5 Michael Bay explosion fests, director Travis Knight, the director from Kubo And The Two Strings, gets things right. Bumblebee is the movie you and I, as Transformers fans, have longed for since the 1986 Transformers: The Movie premiered. The new Transformers Bumblebee is a prequel to the Michael Bay films. But better.

Leadership lessons from Transformers Bumblebee

There is a war raging on Cybertron. The Autobots are losing. And Bumblebee (Dylan O’Brien) is sent to Earth to prepare the way for the rest of the Autobots. Unfortunately, Bumblebee is damaged, loses his memory, and his ability to speak. This doesn’t stop the action, or leadership lessons, from coming your way.

Is It Time To Change The Soundtrack Of Your Life?

Research tells us that by this point in the year over 80% of people have given up on their New Year’s resolution. The resolutions, the goals people have set have been given up.

Stop the negative soundtrack playing in your life

Maybe you’re in the same boat. You resolved to lose 30 pounds by June. You weighed yourself and you’re up 3 pounds. So you give up. Or maybe you decided to learn how to play guitar. It’s now February 21 and you haven’t touched the guitar. You’ve given up. Or maybe you wanted to read 36 books in 2018. You’ve only read one and you feel it’s too late to catch up. So you’ve stopped reading.

For each of these failures, you’ve begun to play a soundtrack in your mind. A soundtrack of negativity.

Using Music To Enrich Your Life

I’ve heard so much about enriching our lives. And how we have to do that through reading great books, attending conferences, and listening to great audio series.

It’s enough to make you give up on music and go for only the motivational materials. I know because I’ve done it in the past.

I’d given up on listening to the music that I enjoyed and replaced it with everything I was told I needed to listen to.

Making this changed helped, but there always felt like there was something missing. The missing component was the enriching effect music had on my life.

When I made the change from listening to lots of music to listening to hardly any, it was an abrupt change. The change was prompted by mentors of mine telling me that they no longer listened to music. Instead, they filled their minds with enriching audio books or conference audio.

Calling It Quits

Every day you have a decision to make. Do I carry on or do I call it quits?

It’s something I think about and I’m sure you do to. Maybe not consciously but it’s there subconsciously.

Picture of Mike Mains and the Branches at Cornerstone

Mike Mains of Mike Mains and the Branches saying “Thank You Cornerstone”

Many factors play into the decision to continue the work or call it quits.

  • The impact you’re having
  • The income you’re bringing in
  • The quality of relationships you’re able to build and maintain.

In May I read a message I thought I would never hear.

July would be the last year of, what I consider, the best Christian music festival, Cornerstone.

Actually, I lie when I say it was the best Christian music festival. It was much more than that.

Cornerstone Festival brought together the best in Christian art, music, teaching, faith, fellowship and more.