Everyone has their own taste in music, but why do you listen to it? How does the music you listen to make you feel, how does it influence you, your mind and your daily life, even your interactions with other people?
The power of music is amazing. Music has the power to stir our emotions. These feelings are gripping – often irresistible – and seem to emerge from nowhere. These feelings color our moods, affect our perceptions and generate a behavioral pattern. The indisputable fact about music is its power to evoke emotions. Music is like a road you walk on, and based on the music you listen to, you could see how it can help plot your journey in life.
For Weight Watchers President and CEO Florine Mark, music was emotionally a saving grace as she went through a recent bout with colon cancer. While she stayed in the hospital recovering she listened to “As bad as I felt, I would put the music on and it really kept me. It helped me to find rest in my discomfort,” said Mark. “I truly believe music is food for your soul.”
The repetition of a line as in a lullaby, the pounding of a drum and the strumming of the strings of a guitar, all have the innate ability to produce a feeling of physical ease. But good music does not stop there. It touches our emotions. True music really reaches far deeper and touches our soul leaving its imprint on us and inspires us to change. Lyrics like the ones in Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror or the Beatles’ All You need is Love motivated the masses to give peace a chance and reminded them that change begins with the individual. Powerful songs like this are felt more than heard, and that is what makes music such a baffling mystical experience. Music is created from the heart and molded by emotion. When you find that right mix that can get you through just about anything.
The ancient philosopher Plato said “music and rhythm find their way to the secret places of our soul.” Check out the soundtrack of President Barack Obama and my life soundtrack and think of your own soundtrack and fill your secret places with the rhythm that will drive you to greatness!

Barack Obama (Courtesy of Blender Magazine)
1. Ready or Not –Fugees
2. What’s Going On- Marvin Gaye
3. I’m On Fire- Bruce Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter-Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman –Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky –Kanye West
7. You’d Be So Easy to Love-Frank Sinatra
8. Think –Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Light –U2
10. Yes We Can wil.i.am