Posts Tagged "stress"

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?