“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.
Don’t think about your frustrations, but about your frustrations.
potential. Don’t worry about what you tried and failed,
but with what is still possible for you to do”.
-Pope John XXIII
One of my newsletter subscribers wrote to share how deeply she was affected by the thought of three questions I asked in my latest article, The Power of Acknowledgment.
Perhaps these questions deserve further thought:
1. Does what happens to you affect you?
2. Does what happens to you affect you?
3. Which would you prefer?
In The Art of Possibility, authors Rosamund and Benjamin Zander remind us of our tremendous ability to attract what we want into our lives by being purposeful. In addition to co-authoring this wonderful book, Ben Zander is also a conductor with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music.
After 25 years of teaching, Ben Zander recognized that students would be in such a chronic state of anxiety about their performance measurement that they would be risk-averse with their performance. One night, Ben brainstormed with his wife, Roz (she’s a therapist), to see if they could come up with something that would allay the students’ anticipation of failure. This is what they came up with.Ben had a class of 30 graduating students undertaking a two-semester exploration into the art of musical performance, including the psychological and emotional factors that can get in the way of great musical creation. He announced at the beginning of the semester that every student in the class would get an A in the course. However, they were required to meet a requirement to obtain this qualification.
At some point during the next two weeks, each student was asked to write him a letter dated the following May, beginning with the words: “Dear Mr. Zander, I got an A because…” In the letter, they were to tell a detailed story of what would have happened to them by the coming May that was in line with receiving an A in their class. In other words, Zander asked students to place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report all the knowledge they gained and the milestones they reached during the school year, as if those achievements were already in the past. He asked them to write about the person they would have become by the next May.
You’ll need to get The Art of Possibility to read some of the amazing letters Ben Zander received from his students.
Zander tells us that “the A is an invention that creates possibilities for both mentor and student, manager and employee, or any human interaction. The practice of awarding an A allows the teacher to align with their students on their efforts to produce the result, rather than aligning themselves with the standards against these students.In the first case, the instructor and the student, or the manager and the employee, become a team to achieve the extraordinary; Second, the disparity in power between them can become a distraction and an inhibitor, diverting energy from productivity and development.”
Do things the “right” way
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way,
The correct way, and the only way, does not exist.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Those in charge often fall into the trap of identifying their own agendas and standards, along with the message that “my way is the only right way.” Virtually everyone wakes up in the morning with the invisible assumption that life is about the struggle to survive and get by in a world of limited resources. This limited vision stifles innovation and creativity, and also trains people to focus on what they must do to please their superiors by doing things the “right” way, whether that way works for them or not.
As a young man, I had planned a career as a coloratura/lyric soprano, so I was thrilled when I was offered admission to the Eastman School of Music, a highly competitive and top-rated music conservatory in New York. I vividly remember one of my lowest moments during my freshman year at Eastman…
My roommate was a bassoonist, and we were both giving recitals near the end of our freshman year. He needed a scheduled break in the middle of his recital to rest his embouchure (the formation of the muscles of the mouth and lips, designed to put pressure on the reed), so he asked me if I would perform something from my recital on his show. . I agreed to do it, thinking it would also be good practice for me as I prepare for my own recital two weeks later.The week before her recital, my voice teacher noticed a flyer announcing my roommate’s recital schedule, with my name included in her schedule. That week, when I walked into my teacher’s studio for my singing lesson, she pulled out a copy of my roommate’s flyer and informed me that she wouldn’t be performing at her recital because she wasn’t ready. During the ensuing rage-filled lecture, my teacher instructed me that she was never to perform in public without her permission. After all, her reputation was on the line! She couldn’t believe that I would have the audacity to consider performing anywhere in public without first getting her permission to do so.
Looking back on this disgusting outburst from my Prima Donna voice teacher 28 years ago, I really appreciate something Ben Zander said: “It’s dangerous to have our musicians so obsessed with competition because it’s going to be hard for them to take the necessary risks with themselves to be great.” Performers The art of music, since it can only be transmitted through its performers, depends on expressive performance for its vitality. However, it’s only when we make mistakes in performance that we can really start to notice what needs attention.” You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate the value of his wisdom.
Zander actively coaches his students to celebrate their mistakes by raising their arms in the air, smiling, and saying, “That’s cool!” As I read the book, I tried to imagine what he would have been like as an 18-year-old actor if he had studied with a teacher like Benjamin Zander.
You may be wondering what happened after I was torn to shreds by my singing teacher. At the age of 18, I didn’t have the backbone to face a person of such famous stature, so I didn’t perform at my roommate’s recital. Just two weeks later I performed the same piece in my own recital… and my teacher was very pleased with my performance. After completing my freshman year, I transferred to Macalester College in Minnesota where I received an excellent liberal arts education and studied with a prominent and affirmative voice teacher for the remaining three years. There I received encouragement and support in an environment where it was safe to take risks, make mistakes, and learn from them. Instead of feeling defeated, I blossomed.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology, sums it up by saying that “Criticism has the power to do good when there is something to be destroyed, dissolved or redirected, but it is only capable of harm when there is something to build.”
Zander suggests that mistakes and negative experiences can turn into great opportunities for growth. It tells the story of a tenor who came to him after losing his girlfriend. He was so desperate that he could barely function. Zander was secretly delighted, for he knew that this anguish would allow the tenor to more fully express the heartbreaking passion of Schubert’s Die Winterreise (about the loss of a loved one). Zander recalls, “That song had completely escaped him the week before because, up to that point, the only object of affection he’d lost was a goldfish.”
In The Art of Possibility, the Zanders share a fundamental practice that is captured in the catchphrase “everything is made up.” It’s a whole story that you tell, not just a part, but all of it. And every story you tell is based on a web of hidden assumptions.
Zander explains, “We don’t mean you can make anything up and magically make it appear. We mean you can change the framework to one whose underlying assumptions allow for the conditions you want. Let your thoughts and actions emerge from the new framework and see what happens.” happens”.
Here’s a great example of the power of changing your framework and assumptions: A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study prospects for business expansion. One sends a telegram saying: “Disperate situation. Nobody wears shoes.” The other responds triumphantly: “Great business opportunity. They don’t have shoes!”
Perhaps you have applied limitations that were not given to you, but were assumed. So what happens if you open up the possibility of using the space beyond the points instead of just working within the square formed by the outer points? If you’re still having trouble with this, scroll down to the bottom of this article to see what’s possible when you make up a new point of view.
Here are some simple questions the Zanders suggest you ask yourself while practicing “it’s all made up.”
- What assumptions am I making, that I am not aware that I am making, that give me what I see?
- What could I invent now, that I haven’t invented yet, that would give me other options?
Do you remember the three questions I started this article with?
Does what happens to you affect you?
Does what happens to you affect you?
Which would you prefer?
Using the “it’s all made up” practice, perhaps you can begin to see how you can profoundly affect what happens to you.
I invite you to take a sheet of stationery and write yourself a letter, dating it June 2006. Project yourself into the future as you write a letter about all the knowledge you will have gained and the milestones you will have reached during the year, as if your achievements for the next twelve months were already part of the past.
“In the realm of possibility, we gain our knowledge through invention. Language creates categories of meaning that open up new worlds to explore. The pie is huge, and if you take a slice, the pie is whole again.” –Benjamin Zander
What is possible when a new point of view is invented?
“When you change the way you see things,
the things you look at change.”
–Wayne Dyer