Inertia and Balance

and Doing Everything You Love

I’ve been thinking a lot about our song “Inertia”.

When we first started playing it, I thought about inertia the way you think about physics: objects in motion staying in motion, objects at rest staying at rest.

Stuckness.

People get into this kind of rut for different reasons, but for me, the real reason I’ve ever felt that kind of stuck was because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find balance. Not enough of the right things in the right proportions. Too much of one thing, even if you love it, can make you feel like you’re on autopilot.

This year feels different.

The fullest (and calmest) I’ve ever felt

This summer has been a living experiment in balance.

For a handful of nights, I’ve been on stage with my brothers playing songs reminiscent of our living room twenty years ago, looking out at a crowd that feels both like old friends and total strangers. We are literally playing our song I’m Ready from 2012 for the first time in a decade!

By day, I’m on calls about turning old fossil fuel sites into clean energy hubs, reviewing policy ideas from the Planet Reimagined team, speaking at conferences, or prepping for teaching.

Throughout, I’m talking about Amplify, the book I wrote with my friend Heather Landy, about how tactics from the music industry can power movements.

I’m also working on a few more things that you will all learn about soon. Don’t you worry :)

And, I’m also forcing myself to make time for me. Going on walks through London, taking time at the beach. I’m even writing this with my toes playing in the shallows of a pool.

It’s the most my calendar has ever been packed… and the calmest my mind has felt.

What balance actually means to me

For a long time, I thought balance was about narrowing down. Picking one thing to focus on over everything else and cutting the rest.

“Do less, better.” This has always been what we learn. In school we pick one major. In life we (most of us) pick one job.

But my version of balance is the opposite. It’s about making space for more of what I love and letting each piece fuel the others.

Instead of imagining each part of my life as a competing lane, I think of them like gears in the same machine. When one turns, it helps the others spin.

A great show makes me braver in a policy meeting. Teaching makes me clearer on stage. Writing forces me to cut through the noise inside and outside my head, which turns out to be useful everywhere.

The three-circle test

Here’s where I get a little academic. I first learned about this from Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, but I’m guessing that it pre-dates her.

Picture a Venn diagram with three circles:

• What you love

• What you’re good at

• What the world needs

Where those three overlap is where the magic happens. It’s the zone where you can sustain momentum without burning out.

For me, that overlap is performing, building community, translating big ideas into something people can feel, creating new policies, and making climate feel like a place where everyone belongs.

If you want to get nerdy, this overlaps with ikigai in Japanese philosophy, the idea of finding your purpose in life: your reason for living. I learned about this concept from my co-founder in Planet Reimagined, Mila Rosenthal, as she beautifully refers to her husband as her ikigai.

But in my albeit recent experience, you don’t have to name it to feel it. You just know when you’re in the zone.

How I got there

It wasn’t one lightning-bolt moment. It was a bunch of small changes:

• Dropping the barriers between music and climate work so the concepts and theories behind each could talk to each other.

• A mix between sequencing and multitasking, so I could give full focus but also find more overlaps.

• Working in seasons and planning energy like a set list.

• Saying no to more things that historically would have been yesses.

• Building community so balance wasn’t something I carried on my own.

• Practicing gratitude to other people and yourself, on purpose, every day.

Twenty years and you

Twenty years into AJR, it’s not lost on me how rare it is to grow in public and have people cheer you on through every version of yourself.

You’ve let me try new things, show up in unexpected rooms, and bring you along for all of it.

If balance is the suspension bridge between all the parts of my life, you’re the ones holding the ropes.

Your turn

You don’t need a stage to do this.

Draw the circles, fill them in, find the overlap. Protect that space like your life depends on it.

Then pick one small experiment where two circles can work together this week.

I’m begging you, please don’t try to overhaul your whole life in a weekend. Just start.

Thank you

Thank you for twenty years of songs, for letting my work grow wider, and for giving me the room to live all my dreams at once.

If “Inertia” was once about being stuck, this chapter is about what happens when all the parts of your life start pulling in the same direction.

That’s not just balance.

That’s freedom.