Benjamin Zander is arguably the most accessible communicator about classical music since Leonard Bernstein. Zander moves audiences with his unbridled passion and enthusiasm.
His book “The art of of possibility” starts with a wonderful story.
“Waiter”, I said, in an exuberant mood, “I have a perfect life, but I don’t have a knife.”
I was having breakfast with a friend of one of my periodic visits to London to conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra. I heard giggles behind me and, turning around, caught the eye of a girl of about twelve with a typically English pudding-bowl haircut. We exchanged smiles, and then I went back to my conversation and to my breakfast.
The next day, I passed the young lady again in the breakfast room and stopped to speak with her.
“Good morning. How are you today?”
She drew herself up ever so slightly and, with a tilt to her chin and a sparkle in her eye, answered me.
“Perfect”, she said.
Later, when she was leaving with her parents, I called out mischievously, “Have a perfect day!”
“I will!” she responded, as though it were the easiest, most obvious choice in the world.
And with that, she sailed out into a universe of possibility.
Tags: Leadership, Raf Stevens, storytelling, values
