Worlds Within Worlds (Stevie Wonder Wisdom)

don't make me call Sir Duke on you!

Author

Matt Zeigler
December 16, 2024

That includes curating (“hey, you should read this”) and basic communications (“how’s it going with those TPS reports”).

You, and whoever else is in it with you (or that you want to be in it with you), are in a world together.

Which requires world building.

Who are the characters? What are their stories? What are the stakes?

Why do I care and why should you care?

What do you care about and why should I care?

We are all building worlds within worlds all of the time.

Or, as Stevie Wonder put it,

Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands

But just because a record has a groove
Don't make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter A
When the people start to move

They can feel it all over
But they can feel it all over people
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people

Stevie Wonder, “Sir Duke”

Whatever you’re creating:

  • treat it like it exists in a distinct world (separate from the broader world!)

  • understand its got its own language (and that’s a feature!)

  • understand whoever learns to speak the language can join (pros and cons!),

  • more people joining in means more opportunities for members (more pros and cons, is this what you want?), and

  • more people speaking the same language in the same world creates competition for opportunities, including stakes and standards, which creates culture.

When you do it right, they can feel it all over.

Go listen to the album cut too, but feel this performance all over:

ps. an old band I was in used to do a version of this medley live. I love YouTube for this, I only previously had this on a ripped CD I’ve long since lost and now I’ve got multiple versions. I like this one for the added bass camera angle:

*Shoutout to Dave Nadig for putting that expression permanently in my brain. He dropped it on our Just Press Record episode with Angie Colee.

Extra shoutout to Dr. Preston Cherry, whose forthcoming book, Wealth in the Key of Life, inspired this post. Watch for him on an extra musical Intentional Investor out early 2025. Does the intro include me going through every song title from Songs in the Key of Life (even though there are SO MANY SONGS ON THOSE 4 RECORDS) just because I couldn’t stop myself from taking the challenge? You’ll see. (Yes, I did it. I couldn’t help myself).