The story in the link below was sent to me last week by my friend, Richard Bellars, the leadership coach. It’s been around a while, according to Urban Legends, and it’s about a violinist playing beautiful music at a New York Metro station, pretty much ignored by the bustling crowds.
Click here for the story – I checked it on Urban Legends and it’s true!
It made me stop and think about how I allow myself to be rushed by the pressures in my life, not giving myself time to appreciate the good things that surround me, even around the trains and public transport of a major urban area. I know I rush past the various buskers in the London Underground – even when there’s a clearly-talented (well, relative to me anyway!) musician with my favourite instrument, the tenor sax, playing sounds that I can tell I’d really like if I just stopped to listen.
And we do that in business too – too busy with the minutiae of running a business to take notice of all the opportunities around us. Because our heads are full of so many things that have to be dealt with, but don’t truly make a difference – junk e-mail, tax returns, payroll, etc – there just isn’t room for some of the great things that we miss. You may remember I talked in a previous blog about George Miller and his ‘magical number seven (plus or minus two)’ – the number of things we can be aware of at any one time; by filling our minds with junk, we risk crowding out the very opportunities that could help us really take off.
What are you missing?
