Your Leadership State Has a Soundtrack

There’s a song I’ve listened to for years.

“Gigantic” by the Pixies.

In fact, I had listened to it just yesterday

But this time, something different happened.

In the middle of a long, stressful stretch—too many meetings, too many decisions, not enough space—I put it on again.

And this time… I paid attention.

Not just to the song.

But to what was happening in me.

Within seconds, I noticed it.

My breathing slowed.
My shoulders dropped.
My thoughts became clearer.

I felt more like myself again.

Not because the song was new.

But because my awareness was.

And it made me stop and think:

How often, as leaders, do we move from one conversation to the next
without ever noticing the state we’re in?

Carrying stress…
Carrying frustration…
Carrying the emotional residue of the last interaction into the next one.

I’ve done that.

I’ve walked into conversations already activated—
not fully present, not fully listening—
and I’ve seen how it changes everything.

The tone.
The trust.
The outcome.

So I started doing a little digging into the neuroscience behind what I was experiencing.

And what I found was fascinating.

Music—especially music tied to meaningful moments in our lives—doesn’t just trigger memory.

It activates multiple systems in the brain at once:
emotion, attention, and physiology.

It can lower cortisol.
Increase dopamine.
Shift breathing and heart rate.

In simple terms:

It can change the state we bring into the room.

And that matters more than we often realize.

Because leadership isn’t just about what we say or do.

It’s about the state we carry into every interaction.

But here’s the part that stayed with me…

Music isn’t always calming.

There are songs that bring something very different.

I think about “Think About Your Troubles” by Harry Nilsson—
a song that reminds me of my father singing when I was young…

and also of putting together a montage after we lost him.

Same song.

Two emotional realities.

Connection… and grief.

Which made me realize:

Music is always doing something.

The question is—

Is it helping us regulate, reconnect, and move forward…or keeping us anchored in something we haven’t fully processed?

I’ve been exploring this idea more deeply—through the lens of neuroscience, leadership, and identity.

It’s something I will touch on in the first episode of my podcast, Shaping Driftwood…and something I’m excited to explore further in an upcoming conversation with a good friend who has spent his career studying the connection between music and identity.

Curious—

What’s a song you’ve heard a hundred times…but never really noticed how it changes you?