from Christian DeLord
“We cannot expect things to change if we keep doing the same things. Crisis is the greatest blessing for people and nations, because crisis brings progress. Creativity arises from anguish as day arises from dark night. It is in crisis that inventiveness, breakthroughs and great strategies arise.” – Albert Einstein
The silence is broken only by the soft hum of the air conditioner. My fingers stop on the piano keys. I breathe deeply and look at the blank sheet of paper in front of me, the one that should turn into a new melody. But the 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. Music, the music that had filled theaters and hearts for years, was bouncing around 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 setting the calendar of events for the following months. One after another, appointments were being canceled. The cancellation emails were piling up in my inbox. And with them, a feeling of emptiness and futility grew.
“And now, who am I without a stage?”
The question echoed in my head as I watched the world slowly come to a halt and enter a state of pause that I had never experienced until now. 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 I was soon to promote the release of the new single “Anema e Core.” I was literally “feeling sorry for myself,” drowning in a sea of self-pity that, paradoxically, seemed almost comfortable.
But the comfort of self-pity is illusory. It is like staying in a bed that is too soft: at first it seems pleasant, but if you don’t get up, your muscles atrophy.
The turning point
I remember exactly the moment of the turning point. It was a morning in late April, the sun was coming in through my study window. I was lazily scrolling through social media, reading the usual complaints and “it will be okay,” when I came across a post that hit me like a punch to the gut:
“The problem is never the crisis. The problem is how you react to the crisis.”
Those words resonated in me with the force of a truth too long ignored. Perhaps I was simply mistaking the point of view, where I was looking at the situation and asking 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, follow your instincts, adapt to the moment.
As Steve Jobs said in one of his most inspiring speeches:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t get trapped by dogma, which means living by following the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions cloud your 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.”
These words were really powerful. For me, reinventing myself meant exploring unfamiliar territories, technologies I was unfamiliar with, different modes of expression from what I was used to. I had done a few live shows in years past, but I had never thought I could create something that would become a weekly fixture to entertain people on my YouTube channel.
I started studying 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.
Most importantly, I began to develop what would later become HARMONIE®, an immersive experience combining music, meditation and well-being. 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 stages that I identified at that time so that I could draw a line that could then lead me to fulfill the project that I am pursuing 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 stage is that of acceptance. I am not talking about resignation, but a lucid awareness of the situation. It is the time when you stop denying or struggling against reality and start observing it for what it is.
During this time, I began to practice daily meditation. Fifteen minutes a day in which I sat in silence, observing my thoughts without judging them. This practice helped me separate facts from the emotional interpretations I was giving them.
The reality was that I could not do physical concerts. The emotional interpretation was that my career was over. Once I separated these two aspects, I could see the situation more clearly.
2. Resource inventory.
The second step is to take an honest inventory of what you have at your disposal. Not just material resources, but also skills, relationships, time.
I took a notebook and made three lists:
- What I can do: play the piano, compose, communicate, write, simplify…
- 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’s not about trying random things, but 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 have failed miserably. Others were unexpectedly successful. But each one taught me something valuable, and I have collected the various impressions within a notebook where I can reread and go over the various steps for continuous improvement.
4. Iteration and growth
The last stage is iteration. Take what has worked, improve it, adapt it, expand it.
The mini-concerts on Zoom evolved into HARMONIE®, a format I now take around Italy that has touched the lives of hundreds of people. Collaborations with therapists led me to explore Theta Healing® and become a certified practitioner.
The crisis that seemed like the end of everything 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 just be noise.
Similarly, crises in our lives are like those silences. Moments of seeming emptiness that are actually filled with possibility. It is up to us whether we experience that silence as an agonizing pause or as the 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? The 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 poorly I had developed my digital presence.
What are the emerging needs that I can respond to with what I can 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 turn it into a fluid movement, “falling forward,” incorporating what seemed like a mistake into their dance.
Engineering in times of crisis means exactly that: falling forward. Turning what seems like failure into a step toward something new.
It is not easy. It requires courage, creativity, perseverance. But when I look back at my deepest moments of crisis, I realize that they were also the most significant moments of growth.
The next time you find yourself struggling, remember: stop feeling sorry for yourself. Wipe away the tears, take a deep breath and ask the most creative part of you, “And now, how can we turn this moment into something meaningful?”
The answer may 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 values problems more than solutions. The real crisis, is the crisis of incompetence. The drawback of people and nations is 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 crisis that the best in everyone emerges, for without crisis all winds are only slight breezes.”
I think people, in general, should begin to understand that this is the time to reinvent themselves both work-wise and emotionally speaking. I believe (I hope) that the era of guaranteed lifetime employment, monotony and mediocrity is coming to an end–only those who are deeply prepared will understand.
To talk about the crisis is to increase it, and to be silent in the crisis is to exalt conformity. 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 stimulated you or made you think, please leave your comment below.
Thank you!
