Resilience: Find a Way to Play Your Music
Resilience - I would like to have this sort of grace under pressure, this ability to see possibilities, to focus on solutions, to play my music with what I have ... or have not. It's an emotional intelligence competency worth developing.
Theres a story going around the Internet about Itzhak Perlman, the violinist. Youve probably heard the name of this famous violinist, maybe even heard him play. What many people dont know is that he has braces on his legs and can only walk with two crutches.
When he walks across the stage to take his place with the orchestra, its an ordeal to watch. Once he reaches his chair, he lays down the crutches, unbuckles the braces, a long, slow process, gets himself set, picks up his violin, puts it under his chin and then nods to the conductor.
As the story goes, when he was giving a concert at Lincoln Centre in New York city, when he had barely begun the concert, one of the strings on his violin broke. It snapped so loud there was no missing what had happened. Everyone could hear it. The audience expected the concert to be over, or for him to go through the painful process of putting on the braces and crossing the stage again to find another string, or another violin. After all, its impossible to play a symphonic work with only 3 strings.
However, Perlman
drew a deep breath and proceeded onward. Without knowing how the violin is played, I have no idea what recomposing and rethinking it took for him to play this way. I play the piano, and would be hard put to play if one of 52 keys was missing, and Perlman was missing 1 of 4. You would think it would be impossible.
Evidently Perlman doesnt accept impossible in his vocabulary.
When the concert was over, the audience went wild,and Perlman rose to accept the applause. Then he motioned with his bow to quiet the audience and said, You know, sometimes it is the artists task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.
This to me is an incredible story! I would like to have this sort of resilience, this grace under pressure, this ability to focus on possibilities with confidence, and this ablity to play my music with what I have, or have not.
About the Author
Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ coach certification. Susan is the author of numerous ebooks, is widely published on the Internet, and a regular speaker for cruise lines. For marketing services go here.
Written by: Susan Dunn
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