Posts Tagged "limits"

Feel Like You’re Out Of Time? You Are :)

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Mar 15, 2009 in Abundance, Confidence, Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Self-Improvement, Success, Success-Consciousness, Thought-Management, Value | 3 comments

Time is such an interesting thing. City-dwellers are often obsessed with it, but completely unable to use it to maximum potential. Successful people bend time to their will. Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Lady Gaga, and Bruce Lee all had the same amount of moments of you and I, some of them had even less. but they made bold moves, never compromised, and always followed their feelings… and somehow all their meetings, connections, performances, etc. worked out for them pretty well.

I’d love for you to access these same ideas and habits.

An Eye-Opening Experiment On Genius & Timing

A couple years ago, an experiment was run to see if a brilliant, genius-level violinist would be recognized in a washington DC subway as a busker. Here’s the summary:

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning.He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

 

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till without stopping and continued to walk.

 

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly late for work.

 

The one who paid the most attention… was actually a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along hurriedly, but the child stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

 

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.

 

He collected $37.

 

When he finished playing and silence took over, no one really noticed it.
No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

 

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

 

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

 

Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and the priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

 

- Summary taken from: Ego Dialogues

My personal experiences.

Throughout my life I’ve given 5s, 10s, and 20s to street musicians as I pass by for any number of reasons. All of them related to success-consciousness and listening to my heart. I know what it’s like to support the arts and people looking to succeed through their passion.

I also know what it’s like to be ignored. I’ve shared my art with the world and had it fall on ‘deaf ears’, many times. I made every mistake you can name, and those experiences elevated me to some of the most valuable mindsets I can imagine.

I can tell you a few explanations as to what went wrong in the genius violin subway experiment. For now though, let`s look at what some others thought about it.

So What Happened?

The publishing of this experiment generated lots of buzz, the buzz of a quadrillion bees! Well, maybe not that much buzz, but basically, the media was talking. Check it out:

"If God started preaching at a subway station how many people would stop and listen and how many would think he’s just another nut?"

 

"Reporter Astonished By Common Knowledge: Yes, people on their way to work are generally in a hurry."

 

"This episode illustrates a key difference between DC and New York. I suspect the outcome would have been very different in Manhattan."

 

"Most people probably can’t tell the difference between the best professional violinist and the median professional violinist unless, maybe, they stopped to listen carefully."

 

" Music, after all, ‘moves only in time.’ Most people passing by that station that morning had no time." (emphasis added)

As I said, the genius violinist failed because 1) mistargeted fanbase, 2) wrong medium. For now though, I’d like to focus on the bold line above about "having no time.". There is so much incredible beauty going on around us all the time, and in big city subways, at rush hour, most of the population are pre-occupied with worry, stress, deadlines, minutes, seconds. They are in a trance, and they are in a rush.

If I had a dime for every time someone told me they couldn`t do what they wanted `cause they had no time… I`d have a lot of dimes. They say they can’t create the art or music they love. They say that they have no time to exercise or cook wonderful meals. They say they can’t stop to appreciate a musician in a subway doing their best to touch someone’s heart.

I get it. No time.

When I was younger I used to tell people "Hey, I’d love to stop and talk to <so-and-so> but I’ve got places to be and things to do."

This wasn’t 100% true.

I had plans, sure, but telling people that I had no choice and that I couldn’t change focus for a minute towards another human being showed my fear and lack of trust that time would work out for me.

With this attitude, I was sending the message that I didn’t trust the people in my circles (clients, friends, family, etc.) to understand if I showed up 1 subway late because I chose to connect with someone. My attitude said that I didn’t trust things to work out in my favour when I took a small ‘risk’. Stopping to chat might’ve resulted in an amazing business contact in the music industry, or a new and valuable friend, or an introduction to his beautiful and loving daughter. ANYTHING. All I had to do was take a couple minutes out of my plan and my trip.

Crazy, I know.

Try New Time On For Size

I’m not suggesting everyone stop what they’re doing all the time to talk to subway musicians.

I’m suggesting people look inside themselves and see if they’ve been dismissive and rushed out of habit or out of an unexamined fear. I’m suggesting that rushing to create your art, and then claiming you don’t have time to share it and sell it, is a complete misunderstanding of time.

Successful attitudes towards time means doing what feels best, and expecting time to work out for you. It can you know. It really can, but like everything on this site — you have to TRY IT. Experience teaches. I have my own badass experiences and badges of honor. I learned the hard way, and I want you to try this stuff while it`s safe, before you get to where I had to go.

Take the opportunity now, learn from my stories and my experiences. Embrace a success-mindset towards time and watch life unfold beautifully for you.

An experiment to try: Pay attention to yourself in the next little while and see how often you find yourself saying "I don’t have the time", "I’d love to but I’m too busy", or simply walking in a determined rush, head-down, and closed to anything going on around you. The results may surprise you

Many people feel like they’re running out of time, and I’d love for the same people to feel completely outside of the limits of linear time, as if it were a tool they could use or not.

"Well open up your mind and see like me,
open up your plans and damn you’re free,
look into your heart and you’ll find love, love, love, love" – Jason Mraz

I know you’re all reading, share your thoughts, feelings, feedback and stories! Ever had timing work out beautifully for you?

No- No- No Limits.

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Aug 13, 2008 in Awareness, Confidence, Life Coaching, Personal Growth | 0 comments

Lately my awareness of purpose has been getting stronger and stronger, and I’ve been doing a ton of work behind the scenes, in order to broaden the world’s creativity. It’s gonna rock.

Broadening the world’s creativity means pushing boundaries and limits.

Every time we impose a limit or label on ourselves, things such as “I’m just not very athletic” or “I hate all dogs” or “I only like big boobs, period” (yes, a substantial rack can certainly be extra-ordinarily appealing for many but its quite a limiting to restrict someone to only that outcome) — it sounds like these things can either be defining characteristics of who we really are (and they can), more often though, they’re tricks and illusions of our uncontrolled thoughts minds, which end up holding us back in life.

A long, long time ago dated a girl who stead-fastly considered herself to be a terrible communicator, and I could feel that particular belief came from her family-life, friends, and upbringing. At the time I foolishly thought my personal communication strengths could more than make up for it, but I was dreaming — you can never decide an outcome for another person against their own personal preference, and I just became frustrated trying. During the time that this was going on, interestingly, I limited myself to a ‘gentle, respectful, nice guy who can tolerate anything‘ (read: a pussy,) when I knew deep down I was a powerful creator, a leader, and a dominant personality who didn’t feel good encouraging in his life fearful people who consistently choose to settle for their own perceived limits. I was doing just that though, by accepting my own.

When I finally awoke to these things about her, and subsequently myself, I immediately made the choice to change my limits. I acknowledged my own value and the characteristics that keep me passionate and alive. I know who I am and what I want and how I wish to create myself in this moment and the next (and there is no ‘I’ but that’s merely semantics).

If there are self-imposed limits, that deep down we’d like to change, steps can be taken. The key step is to Get Happy and Do What Feels Good ASAP.

If you wanted to be more athletic for example, a small step might be to just go watch some light-hearted sports. Or maybe you decide to go for a walk a few times for a few weeks. These steps are not difficult for most people, a good portion of people claiming to be ‘non-athletics’ are capable of, and actually enjoy, walking, and you might be surprised how much your energy level, metabolism and desire for activity increase.

Let’s try another example: “I don’t like dogs” you might claim. But now, would it kill you to ask after, seek out, or at least keep an eye open in life for the smallest, cutest, nicest dog around, even on TV — perhaps a completely new-born dog with no teeth… and see how you feel about *that* particular dog? Not so bad, I’d imagine. Then your limit has grown to: “I hate dogs, except those adorably hairless, harmless, and innocent newborn ones.” and that’s a great step, eventually you can get to appreciating toddler dogs, and so on.

The last one in our list had to do with breasts (mm, breasts…). You could try an affirmation, a very simple start. "Everyone is beautiful", by acknowledging this you’ve already opened up the possibility for some human being somewhere to be attractive to you who may otherwise not have been.

It’s understandable that everyone has preferences, but it might be rewarding to acknowledge where our preferences come from. Are they from childhood scars, traumas or misguided attachments? Is their source the media and our often blindly accepted society-driven beliefs? Or is a particular preference of ours an individual defining characteristic of our true selves, or a combination of all? If we have an awareness of where they come from, we can better decide if a particular preference suits us, and we can break our own established limits.

Well, how can I tell if something is a self-imposed limit or part of my purpose in life? you may be thinking. You can tell if a trait feels good to you. Does it help you enjoy who you are and help you shine in life, creating value for others? Are you able to do well because of the trait, and help others grow through it? These are questions to ask yourself, to meditate on or pray about or research or take a class on, or however you find you learn the best.

If even that proves difficult, then it is very likely you have not yet discovered your true purpose.

I know this brief ramble on limits has touched at least one of you, and for that, I am grateful.

Love to hear how you feel about this in the comments!