Week 1: Subtraction Summer School, from Rodriguez to Elvis
A Song A Day, Each With A Lesson. And An Excuse To Dance.
I was that kid who was as excited to get the summer reading list as for the one-of-a-kind buzz in the hallways after the last class of the last day of school.
I love summer as the season of long evenings and ice cream. Summer Fridays and Out of Office messages peppering my inbox.
And, I relish the chance to dig deeper. To get projects done, books read, and ideas thought, while meetings recede and project timelines slow.
I’m also someone who treats September as the New Year — the season I most want to arrive rested, clear, and ready. This year that pressure arrives a little early: I’ll be on the TEDxSan Diego stage on August 27, which makes this summer’s preparation feel particularly high-stakes and motivating.
What about you — what’s calling on you this fall that you want to meet with full capacity?
I designed Subtraction Summer School to serve both sides of my summer wishlist: no heavy lifting (for you or me — the songs are already lined up, on the Subtraction playlist I built earlier this year during the 100-day practice), but plenty of opportunity for reflection and reps to build our subtraction muscle.
(If you missed the kickoff post, start here: What If Your Summer Soundtrack Made Your More Effective By Fall.)
The framework is simple: every day this summer, I’ll share one lyric with one question or small practice to clear what doesn’t serve you. Music turns out to be a less logical, more felt way into subtraction, which suits the summer mood very nicely.
This week, we:
wondered with Rodriguez,
waded through challenge with Ella Jenkins,
lamented a broken system with John Mayer,
summoned our courage to change with Sia,
banged our drums with Todd Rundgren,
concentrated our single match into an explosion with Rachel Platten,
soaked up the sun with Sheryl Crow, and
let Elvis remind us to get beyond conversation to action.
Each of these songs is simply an invitation to stop. To hear, feel, or see something clearly before deciding what to do about it (or not).
That sounds simple. It isn’t. Most of us are running so fast that honesty about how it’s really going feels like a luxury we can’t afford. Or a haunted house of horrors we don’t have the fortitude to enter.
Which is exactly how addition addiction works: the more overwhelmed we are, the more we add — another commitment, another initiative, another yes — because stopping feels scarier, or riskier, than pushing through.
But from where I sit, that addiction is killing us. Not metaphorically. In burnout rates, broken relationships, mental and physical health symptoms, and well-intentioned high-performers who are succeeding by every external measure but falling apart inside.
STOP is the first move in the Stop, Drop, and Roll method — and the hardest. The mandate is simple but not easy: to silence the outside noise and get real with yourself. No single format, time window, or medium is right. We just have to summon the willingness to look.
From that vantage point, dropping things becomes possible, even relieving: identifying what’s actually crowding out what matters most, and releasing it with intention rather than guilt.
And then we Roll: bringing our clearest, most focused energy to work and relationships, with enough white space for real ripples to form and spread.
This summer, we’re using songs as a joyful, emotionally resonant, and flexible prop for an effective STOP practice. As a critical foundation for the subtraction muscle we’ll need when Fall comes knocking.
Find the daily lyrics and prompts on the Notes page of my Substack, and these weekly summaries will hit your inbox each weekend.
Max out on ice cream and lobster rolls, relish that reading list, and keep on rollin’,
Nell