from Christian DeLord
“We cannot pretend that things will change if we continue to do the same things. The crisis is the greatest blessing for people and nations, because the crisis brings progress. Creativity is born from anguish as the day is born from the dark night. It is in the crisis that inventiveness, discoveries and great strategies arise.” — Albert Einstein
The silence is broken only by the soft hum of the air conditioner. My fingers pause on the piano keys. I take a deep breath and look at the blank sheet of paper in front of me, the one that should transform into a new melody. But my mind is elsewhere.
It was 2020, and the world had stopped.
There were no more concerts. There were no more events. There were no more people to hug. The music, the one that for years filled theaters and hearts, bounced between the walls of my house without finding an exit.
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash
The crisis as a mirror
I remember when, with the first news of the lockdown, I found myself staring at the calendar of events for the following months. One after another, the appointments were cancelled. Cancellation emails piled up in my inbox. And with them, a feeling of emptiness and uselessness grew.
“And now, who am I without a stage?”
The question echoed in my head as I watched the world slowly stop and enter a state of pause never experienced before. The crisis has this power: it strips you of everything you thought you were and forces you to really look at yourself.
At that moment I lived in a state of creative paralysis. I was pissed off because in a short time I would have to promote the release of the new single “Anema e Core”. I was literally “crying on myself”, drowning in a sea of
But the comfort of self-pity is illusory. It’s like staying in a bed that’s too soft: it feels good at first, but if you don’t get up, your muscles atrophy.
The turning point
I remember exactly the turning point. It was a late April morning, the sun was coming through my study window. I was idly scrolling through social media, reading the usual complaints and the usual “everything will be fine”, when I came across a post that hit me like a punch in the stomach:
“The problem is never the crisis. The problem is how you react to the crisis.”
Those words resonated with me with the force of a truth too long ignored. Maybe I was simply looking at the situation from the wrong perspective and I asked myself:“If I can’t bring people to my music, how can I bring my music to people?”
It was time to stop complaining and start looking for solutions.
Photo by Cosmin Mîndru on Unsplash
Reinventing yourself is not easy, but it is necessary
Reinvention is not a linear process. It’s not like following a recipe. It’s more like jazz: there’s a basic structure, but then you have to improvise, go with your gut, adapt to the moment.
As Steve Jobs said in one of his most inspirational speeches:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t get trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important of all, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Somehow they know what you really want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Those words were really powerful. For me, reinventing myself meant exploring unknown territories, technologies I wasn’t familiar with, ways of expressing myself that were different from what I was used to. I had done some live broadcasts in the past years, but I had never thought I could create something that could become a regular weekly appointment to entertain people on my YouTube Channel.
I started learning how to create digital content. I learned how to record my own music at home with minimal equipment. I explored the world of streaming, video editing and social media marketing.
And, most importantly, I began to develop what would later become HARMONIE®, an immersive experience that combines music, meditation and wellness. A project that would never have been born without the crisis that forced me to stop and rethink everything.
I want to share with you the four phases that I identified in that period in order to be able to draw a boundary line that could then lead me to realize the project that I am carrying forward today. I called them the Four Stages of Ingenuity in Times of Crisis.
Through my journey, I have identified four stages that I believe are universal in the process of reinvention during a crisis:
1. Conscious acceptance
The first phase is that of acceptance. I am not talking about resignation, but a clear awareness of the situation. It is the moment in which you stop denying or fighting against reality and begin to observe it for what it is.
During this time, I began practicing daily meditation. Fifteen minutes a day where I sat in silence, observing my thoughts without judging them. This practice helped me separate facts from the emotional interpretations I gave them.
The reality was that I couldn’t do physical concerts. The emotional interpretation was that my career was over. Once I separated those two aspects, I could see the situation more clearly.
2. Inventory of resources
The second phase is to make an honest inventory of what you have available. Not just material resources, but also skills, relationships, time.
I took a notebook and made three lists:
- What I can do: playing the piano, composing, communicating, writing, simplifying…
- What do I own?: a piano, a computer, an internet connection, time…
- Who I know: musicians, therapists, wellness enthusiasts…
This inventory made me realize that, despite the crisis, I could create something to connect with these people.
3. Targeted experimentation
The third phase is experimentation. It is not about trying things randomly, but about testing hypotheses based on the intersection of your resources and the needs of the moment.
I started doing small experiments: live sessions on Instagram, mini-concerts for a few friends on Zoom, collaborations with therapists to integrate music into their online sessions.
Some experiments failed miserably. Others had unexpected success. But each of them taught me something valuable and I collected the various impressions in a notebook where I could reread and retrace the various steps to continuously improve.
4. Iteration and growth
The last phase is iteration. Take what worked, improve it, adapt it, expand it.
The mini-concerts on Zoom evolved into HARMONIE®, a format that I now take around Italy and that has touched the lives of hundreds of people. Collaborations with therapists led me to explore the Theta Healing®.
The crisis that seemed like the end of everything has turned into the beginning of something new and deeper.
Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash
The silence that precedes the melody
In music, there are moments of silence that are as important as the notes. Silence creates tension, anticipates, prepares. Without it, music would be just noise.
Likewise, the crises in our lives are like those silences. Moments of apparent emptiness that are actually full of possibilities. It is up to us to decide whether to experience that silence as an agonizing pause or as a moment of suspension before a new, unexpected melody.
If you are going through a crisis, I invite you to ask yourself these three questions:
What is this situation showing me about myself that I didn’t see before? Crisis is often a magnifying glass on our strengths and weaknesses. In my case, I discovered how dependent I was on external recognition and how little I had developed my digital presence.
What are the emerging needs that I can respond to with what I know how to do? Every crisis creates new needs. During the pandemic, people needed connection, beauty, moments of peace in the midst of chaos. My music could respond to these needs in new ways, even from a distance.
What better version of myself could emerge from this situation? Crises have the potential to refine us, like fire with gold. They can burn away what is superfluous and reveal our most authentic essence. In my case, the pandemic helped me rediscover the true purpose of my music: not to entertain, but to bring well-being and connect.
The Art of Falling Forward
There is a technique that dancers use when they lose their balance. Instead of resisting the fall, they transform it into a fluid movement, “falling forward,” incorporating what seemed like a mistake into their dance.
Being resourceful in times of crisis means exactly that: falling forward. Transforming what seems like a failure into a step towards something new.
It’s not easy. It takes courage, creativity, perseverance. But when I look back at my deepest moments of crisis, I realize that they were also my most significant moments of growth.
The next time you find yourself in a bind, remember: Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Dry your tears, take a deep breath, and ask your most creative self, “Now, how can we turn this moment into something meaningful?”
The answer might surprise you.
Time to reinvent yourself
As Einstein said:
“He who overcomes the crisis overcomes himself without being ‘overcome’. He who attributes his failures and difficulties to the crisis, violates his own talent and gives more value to problems than to solutions. The real crisis is the crisis of incompetence. The inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness in seeking solutions and ways out. Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life is a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there is no merit. It is in the crisis that the best of each one emerges, because without crisis all winds are only light breezes.”
I think people, in general, should start to understand that this is the time to reinvent themselves both professionally and emotionally speaking. I believe (I hope) that the era of guaranteed work for life, monotony and mediocrity is coming to an end… only those who are deeply prepared will understand.
To speak of crisis is to increase it, and to remain silent in the crisis is to exalt conformism. Instead, let’s work hard. Let’s end once and for all the only dangerous crisis, which is the tragedy of not wanting to fight to overcome it.
If these words have inspired you or made you think, leave a comment below.
Thank you in advance!
