The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.
The major difference between the ‘best’ and the ‘average’ is that the ‘best’ get as much pleasure from practice as performance.
South Africa is a country built on possibility. Possibility lies in making a difference and creating value from a situation – without denying that certain issues exist.
Everybody loves classical music; they just don’t know about it yet.
As leaders, we’re giving out grades in every encounter we have with people. We can choose to give out grades as an expectation to live up to, and then we can reassess them according to performance. Or we can offer grades as a possibility to live into. The second approach is much more powerful.
My job is to awaken possibility in other people.
The job of the leader is to speak to the possibility.
I’m so sorry for you; your lives have been so easy. You can’t play great music unless your heart’s been broken.
In the measurement world, we set a goal and strive to achieve it. In the universe of possibility, we set the context and let life unfold.
Life is revealed as a place to contribute and we as contributors. Not because we have done a measurable amount of good, but because that is the story we tell.
I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.
It’s not a question of how much power you can hoard for yourself, but how much you can give away.
Live the rest of your life in possibility.
I have a definition of success...
If you make a mistake, celebrate.
I settled on a game called I am a contribution. Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side. It is not arrived at by comparison.
Mistakes can be like ice. If we resist them, we may keep on slipping into a posture of defeat. If we include mistakes in our definition of performance, we are likely to glide through them and appreciate the beauty of the longer run.
Right. So if the eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question. And this is the question: who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining? We can do that with our children, too. Who am I being, that my children’s eyes are not shining? That’s a totally different world.
The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility... This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.
He had realized that the labels he had been taking so seriously are human inventions – it’s all a game. The Number 68 is invented and the A is invented, so we might as well choose to invent something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us.
Would you think of somebody who you adore, who’s no longer there? A beloved grandmother, a lover – somebody in your life who you love with all your heart, but that person is no longer with you. Bring that person into your mind, and at the same time follow the line all the way from B to E, and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.