Watching a great TED talk is like drinking hot mint tea on a crisp morning from a balcony overlooking crystal clear ocean water with dolphins swimming by as the sun rises. Get the idea 🙂This morning I watched Benjamin Zander talk about his two infectious passions: classical music, and helping others realize their untapped love for it. As the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979, he spared no time in channeling his experience with classical music into words that can be translated into all professions.
The conductor doesn’t make a sound…..he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me….I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people.
Sound familiar?
And you know how you find out [if you are doing your job correctly]? Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shiny you know you’re doing it. If their eyes are not shiny you get to ask this question. Who am I being that their eyes are not shiny?
5 million freshmen enter college every year. That’s the potential for 10 million shiny eyes at orientation.
Benjamin talks about how the classical music world believes that 3% of people care about their music, and if they can increase it to 4% then all their problems would be over. Maybe using some of the equipment at hifisystemcomponents.com would help them resonate with more of their audiences as a consequence of the improved sound quality.
I say, how would you walk, how would you talk, how would you be if you thought 3% of the population likes classical music and if only we could move it to 4%? How would you walk, how would you talk, how would you be if you thought EVERYBODY loves classical music, they just haven’t found out about it yet?
Let’s start with the nonlimiting belief that 100% of freshmen are excited about education, they just haven’t discovered their “why.” Our job is to awaken the “why” within them and help them realize their untapped love for it. Success is thus based on the number of shiny eyes we have around us, not on the number of students that enroll or graduate. If we don’t see the shiny eyes at orientation let’s ask ourselves first, “Who am I being that their eyes are not shiny?” before we jump to passing blame to other factors.
