focus

4 reasons why empowerment is important for musicians

Everything at Compass for Creatives is about the empowerment of musicians. The importance is so self-evident to me, that I often forget to explain myself to others. I hope that after reading the 4 reasons below it’s evident to you too. 1. Stay motivated even after demotivating comments Using your musical talents brings you lots of fun, as long as everything is going according to plan. You enjoy becoming better and better on your instrument, others enjoy it more and […]

Take off the heat with mindfulness

It’s hot today, a humid 37 C in the shadow. It makes me wonder how anyone can focus with these temperatures! For me it’s difficult to focus, even with a fan next to me and a cold damp cloth in my neck. Even my ability of speak seems to have melted away: I’m mumbling unarticulated sounds, assuming that others understand what I’m thinking. Deadlines don’t take care of temperatures, on the contrary. On Saturday it’s Conincx Pop Festival. For more […]

Focus or flexibility?

It seems that our brain is rigid when focused and can’t focus when being flexible. When we are focused, we don’t notice what’s going on around us. We concentrate on one task only. This is highly efficient and helps us to get in a flow. A great example for this is the selective attention test from Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. While counting the number of passes, we don’t see the obvious image. Try it yourself: The other side is […]

Freedom by structure

After a quite serious storm last Monday, the trees have lost many leaves. Suddenly I can see the structure of the tree, the branches that are usually hidden by the leaves. Makes me think of structure in general. Structure is often seen as the opposite of freedom. Structure can work as a coffin, as a prison. That’s how I experienced the structure of the village life in my youth. The only way out was another structure, the structure of religious […]