Video Replay | The Art of Possibility

Benjamin Zander’s presentation took the audience on a journey that offered a startling new perspective on leadership. Through stories, music, and concepts, it caused a radical shift in perception. This was not just a speech—it was an experience! In this model of leadership, the conductor saw his job as awakening possibility in others. The orchestra became a group of highly trained individuals poised to coalesce into an effective whole. Passion, creativity, and the desire to contribute were presented as basic human instincts to be released. World-famous conductor Benjamin Zander used the metaphor of the orchestra and a lifetime of experience to illustrate his insights.

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Benjamin Zander is the conductor of Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and a guest conductor around the world.

He is a teacher of thousands of musicians and a speaker on leadership to global corporations. He's given both the opening and closing keynote presentations at the Dallas World Economic Forum and has been profiled on CNN 60 minutes and the BBC.

He's the recipient of the United Nations Caring Citizen of the Humanities Award and the ABSA Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his contributions in the spheres of music, culture and leadership in South Africa.

Most importantly, he made a huge impression on me having participated in one of his sessions. more than a decade ago.

As a teacher, he has awakened, electrified, and inspired thousands of young musicians for half a century. Each of his recordings include a full-length CD on which he explains the music in brilliant fashion to the ordinary listener.

His recordings have been nominated for three Grammys. He's the co-author of the book The Art of Possibility, which has been translated into 26 languages.

27 languages. I stand corrected. Today he'll offer us an extraordinary insight into ourselves. Will you welcome teacher, conductor, visionary Benjamin Zander?

You know, the latest language which only happened very recently is in Farsi, where the book has appeared in Tehran.

I'm very excited. about that. So look, I'm very thrilled to be here because I realized, as I was thinking about it during the day, that you are the most important people on the planet right now, because you have the voice and you have the ability to communicate with people a message that is of great significance and thrilled to be here.

I did notice something quite interesting in the last session and it's been repeated now, which is that there is nobody in the front row here and that was true before and I thought quite a bit about this because then I noticed that the first row to fill out was the back row and that's kind of interesting because why do we sit in the back row?

What is it about the back row that is so irresistible? Has anybody thought about that? Close it right it's close to the door so you can escape That's the first thing and there are a number of people who aren't even in the back row But they're behind the back row so they're even closer to the door And is there anything else about the back row that is irresistibly attractive?

Well, yeah, that's modern times I'm just thinking of Manatee in general all right right what's that? You can watch the whole room so people in the back row are often sitting with their arms cross saying they're having a little Trouble up there in the front It's the place for the judges and the critics Great is there anything else about the back row?

Yeah, I didn't catch that I think it was funny, but I'm sorry I'm call on you exactly right nobody will call in you from the back row that's very profound because nobody nobody gets asked to the back row right and then there's one other wonderful thing of back row you can sleep exactly I have a friend who teaches a philosophy of course it meets at eight o'clock in the morning at a university it's in near Princeton forgive me I've forgotten the name and he has a class in philosophy and he says that there are always about 30 people in the back asleep during his class and he addresses the people in the front he finds that perfectly normal now I conduct a symphony orchestra I cannot afford I have 30 members of my orchestra asleep so let's just think about these wonderful

the empty open, inviting chairs in the front row. Who are they for? Well, it's kind of interesting to think about who is the front row for?

Important people. I gave a talk to a group human psyche that has people say, if I saw one lady, was very interesting, I saw her come down here and she walked down quite energetically.

You were sitting in the back row and you moved up, which is great. But she came like this and she went like this.

And then she sat somewhere in there. And I said, let's settle this matter once and for all. Would I ask, please?

the entire back row to get up, wait, wait, wait, wait, and I want you to come to the front row and I invite you to come to the front row in the same spirit in which the government invites you to pay your taxes.

Okay, where did you Or more, we need more people, more people. You know, the thing about the people at the back who is still standing there and have resisted by charming invitation is they're saying, well, maybe we'll check it out to see how it is before we commit something we do along.

Okay, that's great and we're almost completely great. are a few over there and somebody may cycle up here later we'll have a front row.

Now that makes all the difference to me. You understand, having the front row full See, I thought with them, that makes all the difference to me and as for you, for the rest of your life, every time you walk into a room for the rest of your life, you will ever be able to decide, shall I sit in the back and hide and judge and and obviously I think sleep and or will I sit in the front, I call this the front row of your life.

So what's happened here, if I had said tomorrow please push people up to the front, you would either have ignored it or resented it and it's the kind of thing that happens in school because they move up to the front and you don't want to and so you are more likely to end up being in the back in future.

I didn't do that, I created a distinction and the distinction is sitting in the front row of your life.

And you all know what that means being attentive and aware and open and not minding being baton and all of that.

And that's a way of being. It's not a place to sit, it's a way of being represented by being in the front.

You've got it? The people in the back now have to say, do I have to be bored, disengage, judging, criticizing and God forbid sleeping?

No, of course not. Because once you have the distinction, the way of being represented by this statement of being in the front, it doesn't matter where you sit.

You can leave the orchestra from the back if you have that mindset. So what I have just done is I've created a distinction and a powerful distinction and the thing that's beautiful about it, unlike instructions and motivation.

it sticks. Motivation is great, it's a very valuable people come and they energize and they push people and they you feel great for about two hours and then like Chinese food you're hungry again for more right and that's what motivation is.

Transformation on the other hand sticks forever and so now you have this distinction and it'll be there for the rest of your life and so being in the front row is now something very understandable.

The thing that's not so easy to do is to sit somewhere other than the front row and still be in the front row of your life.

If you're playing in an orchestra only very few people can sit in the front and they all aspire and fight and compete and in order to be in the front because that's where the prestige is but what I'm teaching my orchestras is that the real power comes from

of the last stand, the very last player because he's further away, he's likely to be less engaged. And so if you get an orchestra like that, you have an orchestra of powerful players right to the back, and if every of you is seen visually an orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic, it's unbelievable, and also my youth orchestra the same.

They will play like this, doesn't matter where they're sitting. Right, so we've created a distinction, and that's what we're going to do today.

And I want to begin with the little story which I think will surprise you because I speak a lot to to help organizations, and I always invariably tell something that my father said to me, and I consider it the best review I ever got wasn't from a newspaper critic.

My old father came and attended a class. I was teaching. the young people and he sat through the whole thing, was 94 and blind sitting in his wheelchair and I went to see him afterwards and he said, I see you're actually member of the healing profession and I found that very touching, that's about the highest aspiration and I think at this time people in your profession have to be members of the healing profession because as the title of the event suggests we're at a time of enormous difficulty and where relations between people are at their worst, where the threats and fears are at their greatest and the people who are the communicators whatever the role you have it's the most important thing because without good communication we're lost, we're lost.

So that's what I want to well on and we will talk about music, I won't talk about your profession because I don't know it, I will talk about mine and you will find out through the eyes of a conductor and the teacher how we might approach this.

There are really two worlds that I want to distinguish and again I use that word. This is a world that we're all extremely familiar with, it's the world I called the downward spiral and it does exactly what you would expect downward spiral to do which is it goes down.

It's the world of failure but at the same time it's also the world of success because success and failure go together like the front of the hand and the back of the hand, you can't separate them.

Even when you're being successful and say the stop market is going up you're worried that it might come down and so we call it the downward spiral.

It is a world of success. lesson failure, winning and losing comparisons and above all measurement. I'd love you to keep the lights up if you would so that I can see everybody here.

That would be great. So this world is a world that we all live in and it permeates our life and in the world of communication it is always present, always present this world looking for bad things, looking for negatives, looking for stories that sell and so this is very familiar and doesn't need further discussion.

The other world is a world that we call radiating possibility and you notice it has a completely different shape.

It doesn't have any up and down, no success and failure. has only radiating arrows suggesting possibility and the arrows go out in all directions.

There were two shoes salesmen who went to Africa in the 1900s in order to see if they could sell shoes and they rode telegrams back to the base in Manchester.

of the telegrams said, situation hopeless, stop, they don't wear shoes. The other one rode glorious opportunity, they don't have any shoes yet.

And you notice that when I was saying situation hopeless, they don't have any shoes, my whole body managed to manifest that despair.

That's hopelessness. Even the voice, situation hopeless, they don't wear shoes. Glorious opportunity, they don't have any shoes yet. suddenly the hands go out and the body is free.

So the body language is an expression of what you're thinking and what you're feeling. And since what you're thinking and feeling is invented, because they're both looking at the same circumstances, they come up with different sentences.

So the body language is the result of the thought. And since the thought is changeable, you can choose what you say.

And here's a beautiful thought, one which you might pass on to your even very young children, because I pass this once on to an eight-year-old who got it completely, which is that every time you open your mouth, every time you open your mouth, you can choose whether to speak in the downward spiral or in radiating possibilities.

And that is a very, very profound realization. when you get it, and I remember the look on the face of this eight-year-old, and I said it, he said, wow!

don't know what he meant, but I could guess, which he suddenly felt very powerful. or because he suddenly realized he could actually change the world by opening his mouth and speaking.

Now I'm speaking to a group of people with immense power, more power than any other group, more power than any army because we can't use armies now except unfortunately.

But we can use communication and this is a great, great moment to explore how this works. We all have been practicing speaking powerfully in the face of despair and disaster as a result what to do and how to speak and what we mostly do is we went into despair and anger and blame those with the things that.

came easily, that's the downwards part, it's automatic, it doesn't need special thought. Speak or be in possibility in the face of despair is very hard to do, it takes creativity and above all it takes discipline.

So I'll give you an example of things, I have a whole section on my website which I recommend because it's a playground of music and I'll tell more about that as we go.

One section is called thriving in COVID, it sounds like a contradiction but actually we did thrive in COVID in an unexpected way and it didn't deny the difficulties and the tragedies, it simply was a way of being in the face of despair and that's essentially what I understand this conference is about.

The first thing that happened was we couldn't play, you can't play an orchestra if you're all sitting in your own homes.

So we tried, we talked about it, we had all sorts of silly strategies like having people in different houses playing into their computers, doesn't work, it's hopeless.

So we had a choice which was to give up completely or to create some other alternative. And I decided since the orchestra couldn't function to turn the whole youth orchestra, that's my young people's orchestra, into a group of conductors.

I taught them to be conductors and I taught them not so much the physical gestures, but to approach music as if they were the conductor.

I bought them each one full orchestral score of the Mahler Fourth Symphony and sent it to their home and they were all sitting there on Saturday afternoons in the rehearsal as if they were conductors.

And we had a fantastic time. And I began to teach them about how the orchestra works. you prepare and all sorts of things.

And when the COVID was over and we got together as an orchestra, I noticed something very interesting, which is normally when people are playing in a musical situation, they look like this because they're looking at the music and they don't pay much attention.

Suddenly this orchestra was playing like this because they were looking for all the other instruments. So it had a new realization that would not have been available if we hadn't done that.

It simply wouldn't thought of it. So my approach to this is there's always a pathway to possibility, but it takes enormous discipline.

Another thing, and I'll do, that's the didn't hear a single concert anywhere. So I started a concert series in my driveway.

I have a large driveway and I invited all the musicians in town to come and play and everybody's wearing a mask and they play the park and shoot but it was incredible and people came from far and wide.

And then we started filming it and then it was filmed through Brazil and responses in Greece and there was a fantastic time of joy and there was one lady who I remember particularly she came to every single concert.

We have a series of 15 concerts on Sunday afternoon she came to everyone and then she died at the age of 107.

That was the end for her. I mean it was it was pretty nice. So there's lots of ways of being in possibility even in difficult circumstances.

My father who was a wonderful man. The last thing he said he was blind when he died and and my brother was his doctor and my brother came to visit.

And of course, since he was blind, he had to say who he was. He knocked on the door. And he said, add, it's Luke.

And my father said, is there anything I can do to help? And then he died. That was the last thing he said.

So that's a little extreme example that even at that moment, he could think of something which he knew was humorous, of course, and then he died.

So I set that as the context for this discussion because it is a powerful idea and difficult and easy and its simplicity, but very difficult to realize.

And so what I wanted to do in this last session is to spend some time with you to just explore that.

I just want to establish something before we start, we have this beautiful piano. I want you to imagine that there is a seven-year-old...

child sitting on the piano and I just want to say something before I start because I suddenly had this thought people will be saying this sounds like positive thinking you were thinking that right there and of course yeah and I just want to be very clear this is not the same as positive thinking positive thinking is pretending things are great when you know they're right right which is why positive thinkers are so annoying I'm gonna tell you a story which will make this distinction clear for you forever my father was a ref G from Nazi Germany and he lost everything he lost his home his belongings his career and as it turned out eight members of his family his mother died in Auschwitz they were all

wiped out before he came to England. And after a while, towards the middle of, I think, in 1942, the English, because Hitler was in Paris, in France, they got scared in England, and they interned all the German people who were living in England, and it's the same as the Americans who were the Japanese.

And so they rounded up all the men, and they put them on the island, and they sent them to different places, but my father found himself in a camp on the Isle of Man, and there were 2,000 men on that camp, and you could imagine the mood in that place.

All of them had lost as he had everything that mattered to them, and the sense of despair and hopelessness was absolutely rife.

My father looked around and said, there are a lot of intelligent people here we should start a university and they did start a university in that camp and he reported to me that they had 46 classes every week 46 classes were running and they didn't have any paper and they paid pencils and no blackboard and no chalk and and no books and it was just people sharing now that is possibility if he'd gone around saying isn't it great here somebody would kill you in the face you get the distinction so don't get taken in by what appears to be book as possibility and positive sound very similar incidentally while we're on the subject of language possibilities is also not the same as possibility because possibilities is options right how many possibilities oh well six seven three four whatever it is they can be numbered possibilities and

open, infinite arena in which anything can be followed and explored. All right, so now I'm going back to my musical example that I was going to give, and here it is.

So there is, you imagine, a seven-year-old child sitting at the piano, maybe you have this child at home, he's been studying for a couple of years, and this is how he sounds, and you may recognize this child.

I see some of you recognize the child. Now imagine he practices for a year and takes lessons, and now he's eight.

And then he practices for another year and takes lessons. Now he's nine. And now he practices for another year.

And now he's 10. They usually give up. If he'd waited one more year, you would have heard this. What happened between that seven-year-old child and the 11-old child?

New-year-old artist you just heard what happened Confidence a brilliant answer. It's not that, but it's a great answer. Yeah Compound learning.

I've never heard it. sounds very impressive. Obviously, it's not that, but it's great thought. Well, so what actually happened what?

But pubic is an excellent answer. It's however not the answer that I'm looking for. What? Encouragement. Beautiful. Yeah, what else?

It's not that. What is it? What? Oh, beautiful. Increased expectations all around. Great. was that? You're having a second chance here.

Yeah, All right, now let me He tell you what it was and this time I want you what I want you is to watch my head, okay.

This is the seven-year-old. The seven-year-old puts an emphasis on every single mode the way your child did when he started to learn to read.

cat sat on and the head goes up and down with each one. The next year later it was every upper node.

The next year it was every four nodes and the next year it was every eight nodes. And the last one was one impulse for the whole phrase.

I didn't know how I got into this position. I didn't, you know, move my shoulder, move my head. No, the music pushed me over, which why I call it one button playing.

To be the other button. One button. So the answer to the question, what happened? Thank you. The answer to the question, what happened is there was a reduction of impulses.

Now, when you came into the room, you did not have the distinction or the category reduction of impulses. If you had had that category, you would have seen my head moving and I thought to myself, I was exaggerating my head movements like crazy and I thought, these are really smart people, they're going to see it.

But it has nothing to do with being smart. It has to do whether you have the category or everything.

education It's not so much the transferance of information as the opening up of new categories and that's what we're doing here by creating new categories and I had an amusing outcome of this new thing because I was giving a talk like this to a group of people and I, the pianist, I was coaching and he was good and he was he was playing well but he was stuck you know it was like this he was and I said to him the trouble with you is you're a two-butter player you should be one-butter player and as he was playing I pushed his body and the music to flight I heard people gasp when they heard the difference and then I got a letter from a gentleman from Ohio as the president of a company and Ohio was in the in the event and he wrote to me that I was so moved by that I went back and I transformed my entire company into a one-butter company I've no idea what he said to them or

like when he finished but that's the way I'd like you to listen to me today because obviously I'm not talking about your work but there but about this notion that you can actually create a category which opens up a whole new world of experience so now I want to do something does anybody have a and does anybody have one before the 60 yes when is yours 50 we're having competition here is anybody anybody else got one before the 50 and I think you're the one would you come up here please now what I'm going to do is I'm going to get this extremely handsome okay now one moment okay here we go I just have my birthday

last week I'm 86. Rob, please sit down, so we are going to sing the single most frequency of a form piece of music in the entire world, but Rob on his birthday.

Here we go. Now, I want you to look at Rob's face, and I want you to tell me if you think that made a tremendous difference for him.

Now look, he's very happy. What is it, 100 odd people or more of his colleagues are saying happy birthday, but by the 15th he might actually have forgotten that this took place.

Now, I want to ask you this and you know that this is a very important person because he's not only one of you, but he's also sponsor of this organization, I just don't know that.

So, he's one of the most important people. So now I want to ask you this. Is it happy birthday to you, or is it happy birthday to you, or is it happy birthday to you, or is it happy birthday to you?

Which one do you think it is? The last one, happy birthday, because it's Rob's birthday, so everyone's happy birthday to you.

We have a decision. Now, as soon as you have a decision, you have to have a conductor to put it into practice.

So, I'm going to be your conductor. And if you want to add to your curriculum, Vita, and say that you sang the conductor of the Boltzmann Philharmonic, that's fine by me.

Yeah. We're gonna do it. Are you ready? Happy birthday to you, but don't attack him. He's a nice man.

Right? I want you to do it with tenderness, with warmth, and with love. Are you ready? Happy birthday to you.

That's beautiful. Now, I've noticed traveling around that people who spend a lot of time behind computers end up what I call neck ups.

That's people who function from the neck up. And I think there are a lot of neck ups in this room.

So what I want you to do is to sing that again and use your hands, right? Everybody use their hands.

Are you ready? Happy birthday to you. That's beautiful. we're talking. Okay. Now, the next phrase, is it more, less, or the same?

Isn't it interesting? takes a few moments, and of course it's more. and it's more for two reasons. One is the music goes up, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, but there's another reason.

We don't go up to somebody and say something and then repeat it less. We don't say, I love you, I love you.

Unless you've changed your mind. So with that in mind, would you do it again? Hands everybody, the second phrase.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, beautiful beautiful. Now I wonder if you, if you could notice this, I was looking around and I think if you're at all excited about Rob's birthday, it's Rob, I've got it right.

If you're at all excited about Rob's birthday, could you inform your faces about it? Oh, he's gone. Oh, I see what you do.

Give that to somebody else. Somebody will take it. Somebody in communications you might be able to find somebody. So, because I was looking around and I saw this kind of, you know, there was a famous violinist called Fritz Chrysler and the story was that he was walking along the road with a friend and they passed a fish shop and he looked in the saw all these fish.

So, when we get to that second phrase, little eyebrow action, a little life, a little vitality, okay, and then when we go over the top, oh, for the last phrase we're going to go over the top.

So, are you ready? Here we go. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear raw. Oh happy birthday to you right now.

A lot of you are looking at me. It was my birthday last week but it's not my birthday right.

I think the reason you're looking at me because I'm the conductor and so we always follow the conductor that's perfectly natural so this is what I'd like to do Rob would you stand on that chair please and I want everybody to stand up right.

Now what I want you to take do is to take three people and I want you to make those three people seeing a most impassioned performance of happy birthday that has ever been seen in Washington before right okay.

Now if they don't sing passionately it's your fault have you got it and if you think of yourself as a really big player take four people okay.

Now I'm gonna say a word about Rob's birthday from birth to 29 is, as we all know, all about growth and development and we all understand them.

And then comes a moment, around 30, when it looks as though it might go downhill from here. And then when we get to about Rob's age, it looks as though it's all over, it's going down.

Now, we know that doesn't need to happen. I'm a living example of that, my father, who lived to 96, was still in growth and development when he died.

So the way it's going to work out in Rob's life depends on how we sink to him today. So he does not want us to hold back, and Rob, I have a word to say to you.

In this culture, it's very hard to accept acknowledgement. But I want to tell you about this room. This room has about 150 people in it right now, and they all love you.

Now, they love you because they know that if you have an extraordinary life, untold numbers of other people are going to be affected.

So your job is to accept what's about to hit you as gift with that comment. Now Rob is not the only person with the birthday coming up.

Every single one of us has a birthday coming up. If that everybody on the planet has a birthday coming up.

So we're singing about the possibility of the life itself. Are you ready? Here we go. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Rob, happy birthday to you.

Right. Beautiful. We need somebody to carry this. realize this thing can take you back up. Okay. Beautiful. That was great.

Now, it's very unlikely that Rob is going to forget that. You know, the first time I ever did that, it was at the end of one of those week-long retreats, corporate retreats, and I called them forward two months to retreat.

But anyway, was the last day, and there were about a thousand people there, and we sang the Happy Birthday.

And, you know, on the last day, that's something like that. People really go full-out, and it was it was wild.

was so exciting and incredible. And the person who's birthday, was was nine. I love your laughter because you know in a bunch what I say this child basic a thousand people have to learn she went like this.

Well the next summer her mother called me and she said do you remember Lauren? birthday item? course I remember Lauren said well have birthdays coming up and she was hoping this year she'd have a symphony orchestra.

So now the question is of course what happened is a new category because when you walked into the room you thought you knew how happy birthday was to be sung right and now you've discovered there's another way maybe an infinite number of ways of seeing happy birthday.

Once you've broken that assumption that you knew already. So the question now is what are you going to do the next time you have to sing happy birthday?

Imagine your work, your at home, you're in a restaurant, somebody has a birthday and everybody singing happy birthday to you.

What are you going to do? Well, there are three things really you can do. You can say well that's the way the world is, normal.

Or you can say, don't these stupid people know how this song is supposed to go? Or you can say I'm the conductor and you can stand up.

Those three things look like this. And you can choose one of those three responses for every situation for the

best of your life. Because those three responses, resignation, anger, or possibility, or all viable responses to situations. So we get to choose it every moment of every day.

And that's what this conference is really about. So it's a great moment for me to be having this conversation with you.

And I can't imagine what the outcome of this spread out through the culture, through the corporate world, through education, through the entire veins of our society.

Because this is not a political statement in any sense, but we know we're in trouble right now. And it's not about or against anybody.

It's the trouble we're in. And so it becomes extraordinary. really important, as teachers, as leaders, as communicators, that we choose well.

The words we say, the experiences we provide and the way we treat people. And that is my privilege to be able to focus your attention on that today because it is the most important conversation there is in the world today.

Everything is at stake. So I'm going to spend the rest of our time together talking about ways in which I have chosen to go against the tradition or the assumptions of the world in which I work, which is the world of orchestras.

There is an assumption in the world of orchestras that the conductor is a dominating figure and the maestro image.

of the person standing on the podium with 100 people in front of him and 2,000 people behind him dictating everything.

That is an old image and one that was still rampant when I was young, as I say I'm in my middle 80s.

Now it's started to change dramatically both in the corporate world but also in the world of music. But there's no question.

The image of the leader has essentially a male image of the dominating figure. There are many funny stories, Toscanini, who was one of those conductors, Italian Maestro, famous story of Toscanini, who had a terrible temper, was a great conductor.

He had a terrible temper and he had also a very disconcerting habit which he was short-sighted, couldn't see the music.

So he never looked down, he was always looking up and what he was Looking at was the players, but it was very disconcerting for the players, because the great maestro would go like this, and the poor players were terrified because the eyes got closer and there was a bass player in the back who was so terrified and the eyes got closer and closer and closer, and when finally Toskin India landed on him, was so terrified he stopped playing, and Toskin said, you're fired!

This poor man had to go back and tell his wife he didn't have a job, 20 years in the orchestra, and in those days you could fire somebody without any reason or recourse, that was the end, that's in the days before the union, right, can't do that now, goodness.

So this poor man had packed up his double basses, muttering some things that he'd the two he'd kept to himself and then he spoke out loud and he said, you're a no good son of a and Toscanini shouted back, it's too late to apologize.

That's epitomizes the downward spiral relationship, but it's very deeply rooted in parenting, in teaching, in political life, part of what I've been trying to do is to break it up in many different ways, because I made an extraordinary discovery, you may think it was ordinary, but it was extraordinary for me.

Around the age of about 45, I made a profound realization, transformative. I realized that the conductor doesn't make a sound.

He's the only musician who doesn't make a sound, but he has power, but the power consists in his ability.

to make other people powerful and when I got that it changed everything for me because instead of worrying about whether I was being effective in delivering my will and my making people obey my command and realize my dream I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people and it became my life journey to a work and possibility in other people and I have a wonderful means of knowing whether I'm doing what I want to do and it's partly the obvious thing that the orchestra is sound fantastic when people are playing very powerful but there's another more interesting way which is an orchestra of people when they're playing that way feeling empowered their eyes shine it's an amazing thing it's a physiological fact it's not an opinion it happens automatically and so all the

all I focus on is whether the eyes are shining and if the eyes are shining, ooh, this is great, perfect.

Wow, a thousand. Look, every pair of eyes are shining because in possibility, and we are in possibility, right, at this moment, all of us, everyone, eyes shine is the inevitable reaction.

So the question becomes, if the eyes are not shining, what do you do? And my answer is, you ask this question, who am I being that my players eyes are not shining?

We can do that with our children too. Who am I being that my children's eyes are not shining? And we can do it with anybody.

My life part of a former wife, with whom I wrote this book called The Out of Possibility, that has just been translated.

It is Devasi was a psychologist, psychotherapist and in her work with couples and so on, she came up with this beautiful thought.

If there's a breakdown in a relationship, somebody is not giving an A, and I'm going to explain that. And it comes from a story in my life where I was teaching at the New Really Conservatory in Boston and I had a class each week and I noticed that the young people, good, good players, mean it's one of the top conservatories in the country and the players, all excellent players, showed with their body language and their anxiety that they were not able to let the music flow through them because the fear of competition, of measurement, of comparisons, of

meaning in losing and success and failure was so strong that they permeated their whole body and were unable to let the great music through.

And I came home and said to Rose, what can we do? What can we do about this? And she said, how about you give them an A before the class starts?

So they stopped worrying how they compare. Of course it wasn't quite enough because if people, if everybody gets an A, the trouble is then they'll say, yeah, but what's my grade really?

So we came up with a very interesting strategy that proved to be very powerful. I asked these 50 old students.

came into the class, 50, 45, 50 students. I said before anything began, you have an A for the year, won't change.

In order to get the A, you have to do one thing, which is write a letter which is addressed to me and dated May of the following year when the class ends.

And in that letter, I want you to answer this question, Mr Zander, I got my A because and then describe who you will have become by next May to justify this great grade.

And these letters turned out to be absolutely fantastic because all of this was absent. All of the worry, the competition, the fear, everything, they just described who they wanted to be and it was very moving.

Some of them got caught up in I intend or I hope or all that. That's part of the exercise.

The exercise was who they actually will be in May. And so when I came into class, the person I taught was the person they had described in the letter.

See, I only take A students. And I have a wonderful life as a result surrounded by stars. So that's the process.

There was one wonderful day within three, two, three months of that. I came into the class and I said, what does it actually feel like to get an A in the first class when you haven't done anything?

And to my great surprise, one of the Asian students put up his hand like that. And you may know we all are musical institutions are filled with Asian students and they're brilliant.

They win all the competitions and they're way ahead of everybody. Fantastic players. But they very rarely He speak up and draws, and never like that, but this young man, and he stood up, and he said, and you'll forgive my attempt at his, he said, in Taiwan, he said, I was a number 68 out of 70.

I come to Boston, and Mr. Zander says, I'm an A, very confusing. And so, I think, in about three weeks, I decide, much happier A than number 68, so I decided I'm an A.

That was one of those wonderful, transformational moments that I've always remembered, and of course, makes clear that the whole thing about grading is invented, and it's a silly system, if I may say so.

I gave a speech in California, the University of California, where they chose the 50 best students the States. And it permeates through the orchestra and everybody gets quiet and there's a very little dis-ease.

It may not have thought that a disease comes from stress, largely. So that's one of the things, the giving of the A has become a powerful tool in my world and I've passed it on to many people in the corporate world and the world of organizations and it's a very, very powerful idea and I get letters all the time from people, I hand it out, letters to everybody and so on.

So that statement from Rose, if there's a breakdown in a relationship, you're not giving somebody an A, is a very, very powerful idea.

She then goes on to say, and I've momentarily forgotten, forgive me what it is, what back to it. The troubles in the world are obviously largely from places where the A has not been given and imagine a world, I can imagine a conversation between a Jew and an arrow where we say what a privilege is to share this land.

We inherited from our forefather Abraham and just think what we could build together what a different conversation that would be.

One of the big things that happens in orchestras is that people make mistakes. Unfortunately, an instrument is rather loud or some of them are rather loud and therefore the mistakes are audible.

Many of you work in offices and you may make a mistake and nobody will ever find out about it and you hide the paper.

the desk and stuff. Unfortunately you can't do that in an orchestra because if you play a wrong note on the trumpet everybody can hear it.

And so people start getting very anxious and cautious with mistakes and therefore they don't take the risks that they need to take in order to be great artists.

You cannot be a great artist unless you take risks. So I've come up with young and old that if they make mistake instead of the normal reaction which just close down, pull down and restrict which makes it more likely that you're going to make a mistake, I tell them to say how fascinating.

And if you see people ever walking around going how fascinating you know they've been exposed to this particular category.

And the beauty of the how fascinating is. That the body language is up rather than down release and of course it leaves room for the question What can I do to avoid the mistake the next time so it creates a wonderful atmosphere?

It takes away that fear that most orchestral players live under and that constricts them physically leads to dis-ease And also means they don't take risks So it creates an atmosphere and it's amazingly affected has when I go to an orchestra Particularly a new one people suddenly start playing out and their bodies get free and and My you my youth just outrageous.

We just did Marla's sixth symphony Which is an incredibly difficult piece of music It's an hour and a half long and one of the darkest and most Emotionally overwrought pieces of music ever created also one of the very great you apparently know

Is that right? Yeah, wonderful. Well, anybody who knows Marla 6 knows it's one of the pinnacle works of the repertoire.

And there are 12-year-olds in my youth orchestra, 12, 14, 16, up to 21, and they gave a performance in Symphony Hall in Boston that wrenched the hearts of every person in the hall, and it was just unbelievable.

And every single player giving their outness and their heart to the limit of capacity. And now we're going to Mexico on tour, and we're going to play concerts all through Mexico, playing that music, and it's an incredibly exciting thing.

And this is a good time for an American youth orchestra to go to Mexico and create good relations. It couldn't be better.

It couldn't be better. So the world of possibility is an open field of joy and of generosity and giving and excitement, and it's also very difficult to practice possibility.

The book, The Art of Possibility, is a series of practices in maintaining that mode of being. And I've many, many stories and things that can illuminate, but essentially it's the journey from the downward spiral to radiating possibility.

Now I want to just explore something with you, which is that I look out at this room, and I would suspect that there are probably nine of you who really, really love classical music.

I've already identified one to my left, and I know about one other there. And there are probably seven or eight others who wake up in the morning and have classical music on their radio and have CDs and their car and their children are taking lessons and they go to the symphony.

I mean, no question about it. a very small group. Then there's another group of people who don't mind classical music.

know, you just kind of thing nice thing to do. You come home from the office, you're tired, you take a class of wine or beer and you put a little vivaldi up or rajan in office.

doesn't do any harm. very nice. And then there's another group. This is the largest group. They're the people who just never listen to classical music.

It's just not part of their life. They don't hear it. And that's, as I say, the largest group. And then there's a very small group of people who insist they're tone deaf.

Well, of course, tone deafness is not possible. You couldn't be tone deaf and be a functioning human being because you couldn't change the gears on a stick shift car.

You couldn't tell when the kettle was boiling. couldn't, I mean, there's just a whole lot of things that you couldn't do if you couldn't.

And you couldn't converse with people because you couldn't tell the... differences of the voice. So that's, no, I'll tell you what tone deafness is, tone deafness is something that happened when you were seven, you were singing in a choir at school and the teacher said, please just pretend to sing, don't actually sing.

You're spoiling the sound of the choir. And that statement kept in your head takes you into the background of your life, right?

That's where it happened. So what we're going to do is we're going to face that situation. I'm going to tell you, I think that every human being loves classical music, they just don't know about it yet, right?

So I'm going to take you into a world, and you know this world, because we've been there before I did it on my schedule, which I'm having to say has now been seen by 26 million views.

So we're starting to get this idea out into the world. This is no longer a private conversation. But on that occasion I had a miserable piano.

It's time of a beautiful piano. thank you for arranging that. We had a really great piano. took the trouble, because they usually use a, they want to use a hotel piano, but a hotel piano is being bashed and hit and doesn't sound like anything.

They brought in one of the finest Steinway B pianos. I'm so happy about it. So we're going to look at the shopper, the shopper prelude in E minor.

You know what I think probably happened when I started, you thought that sounds lovely doesn't it? Gorgeous. don't think we should go to the same place for our summer holiday next year.

Isn't that funny? How those thoughts kind of walked into your ears when you're listening to classical music and Because if the piece is long you might actually drift off.

you'll companion who loves classical music digs you in the ribs and says wake up it's culture and then you feel even worse.

But have you ever thought that the reason people feel Sleepy in classical music is not because of them, but because of us.

Because imagine if I had done this with my head while we were playing. And for the rest of your life, every time you hear classical music, you'll be able to see by looking at the head whether you got the point.

Okay, so let's see what really is happening here. You've got a B. That's a B. Then a note is B.

The B is followed by a C. And the job of the C is to make that B sad. And it does, isn't it?

Because it was perfectly happy by itself. But you have that C. then it does it again. else it again and by that time you're really sad and now it goes down to A and it does the same thing with another note and then it goes down again and again so B-A-G-F that's as as it's and exactly there were a few holdouts let's try the end right the page choir there it is yeah and you notice nobody's turned up nobody everybody in every village in Bangladesh knows dada dada dada oh and shop and nose

that everybody knows that that E is what's expected but he doesn't want to reach it there because what will it happen?

It'll be over right? So in that sense like Hamlet Hamlet discovers very early on I think it's that one scene scene 3 or 2 he discovers that his uncle killed his father and so he keeps on going up to his uncle and almost killing him but then he backs away and then he goes off and he almost kills him and the critics all say well he's a procrastinator or he has an edit was complex no otherwise the play would be over stupid right so he delays and delays and delays and delays you remember the grave tickers and Olivia goes mad and all that stuff that's in order to delay until Act 5 he can kill him it's the same he's just about to reach the E and he says oops no better go back and do it

Yeah. This is the bar in which he's thinking. Back we go. And now he does it again. But instead of repeating the whole thing, he gets excited.

That kind of thing. You don't have to worry that's excitement. And then he gets to end shop. And now finally he goes down to E.

But it's the wrong chord because the court is looking for his this one. And it said he knows. That's a deceptive cadence because it deceives us who we weren't expecting it.

So I always tell my students if you have a deceptive cadence, be sure to raise your eyebrows, then everybody will know.

So he's got two E. But it's the wrong chord. Now he tries another E. But that doesn't work. And then he tries another E.

And that doesn't work. And then he tries another E. And then finally... Aha, he's got there, right? And everybody feels he's home, right?

It's exactly like coming home after a long day in the office, you turn the key on your car and you say, ah, I'm home, right?

And everybody knows that feeling because everybody, literally everybody has that feeling when it's come home. Isn't that beautiful thing that we, we human beings all share that feeling.

Alright, so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to play the whole thing through and you're going to follow exactly what I told you.

There's a B which goes like that, C, B, C, B, C, B, and down to A, down to G, to F.

Doesn't go to E because otherwise the play will be over. back up to B, excited, you remember, and then goes down to, the F-sharp goes to E but it's the wrong E, the wrong E, the wrong E, the wrong E and finally goes to E.

And C is one buttock. A. Because for me to join the B to the E, I have to stop thinking about each individual moment and start thinking about the long line.

And I met this gentleman just before we started and he saw me do this on the TED talk and he said I think about long lines all the time.

And this is not a who has discovered the category of long lines. And if we live long lines, we won't get so upset about the individual moments that occur.

This may be a very good moment to think about long lines. And I don't have anything political to say to you at all, but I have a deep respect for the human values represented in this country.

And I think they go deep into the soil and the soil. all of this country and we will find a pathway to find the long line of America and the long line of the world.

That's my firm belief. In fact, I even believe that the next 30 years are going to be the most exciting 30 years in human history.

Now, can I prove it? No? Can you argue with it? Yes, it isn't a statement to be argued with.

It's just a dream. It belongs in possibility. I was with two American journalists, sisters, night, and I was talking like that and they both thought they were polite, but they're not wrong and I'm not right, but it is a way of being in the total.

people especially when you talk to children, if you keep perpetrating the agony of despair, it will deflate and despair everybody.

And one of the things that music does, it elevates the spirit. The great pianist Leon Fleischer said classical music is like an act, is an act of anti-gravity.

love that idea, an act of anti-gravity. So as you're listening and you're following this line of the long line, which I now can play on a beautiful, I'm not a pianist since then, I'm a a cellist.

And so if I make a mistake, which I undoubtedly will, you'll just say how fascinating you are. But it won't interrupt the story that we're sharing here.

So what I'd like you to do, because I think it's proved to be valuable for people, is to follow

that line all the way down from B to E, but also to bring in your emotions by thinking of somebody that you love who's no longer there.

I just lost my beloved ros and and I can't stop thinking about our wonderful life and creativity and the book we wrote together, The Art of Possibility and just the incredible 47 years that we spent together creating this way of thinking and teaching it and and there's a great painter and all of which I've gathered on my website on that so we can go and share it.

So that's who I'll be with, but you'll be with a beloved grandmother or somebody who care deeply about and allow the music to shape the listening and the experience.

Shop fair, prelude number four in E minor. You You may be you may be wondering why I'm applauding you.

Well, I did this for a bunch of school children in Cambridge in Boston. I went to a school that was a seventh grader class and I essentially told them the same that I told you and at the end I played it and they went crazy clapping.

They were clapping and I was clapping and they were clapping. Why is it? Hey, why am I trapping? And what I said little kid said, because we were listening.

A bunch of executives from powerful communication departments sitting listening late in by a piece by shopper, out of the box, out of the box.

So thank you for listening to that. The out of the box image, which I think you all know, everybody probably has seen this image and you all know how it works, which is that you four lines without taking the pen off the paper.

You remember that? because and but it's if you haven't seen it you're about to have one of those experiences because I'm about to demonstrate how it works if you've seen it you'll remember that experience.

The the the game is that you join four lines without taking the pen off the paper and so you can imagine you're in a discussion you're in a meeting and somebody says let's try this and somebody else says well let's try this and somebody like that and then this and this and this I gave this to a CEO of a company in Seoul and he worked with his entire family for about an hour and a half and they couldn't do it they kept it you couldn't see the page anymore and finally I put them out of their misery and showed that the only way we can do this is to go outside the box which is of course where out of the box thinking comes from and the thing about it is it takes

discipline, to realize that not to be infatuated with the assumption, the assumption is that it has to be completed here.

But if I'd said, using the whole white sheet of paper, you would have done it in an instant without thinking.

But I didn't say that, and so the assumption is that it has to be completed here. And that takes discipline.

And the ideas that are thrown out by people, like, do you remember when I asked you about the Mozart at the beginning and you said, it was puberty and somebody else, was really good, this idea, that idea, very nice, but actually quite irritating.

And that's why meetings are so irritating, they're just throwing stuff out. And it's very boring and it's that is debilitating and it closes down, whereas the person who is responsible for keeping possibility alive in an organization is the most important person and I have a whole lot of them right in front of me right now.

Because the CEO is busy running the company, the person who is responsible for communication is the person can be, doesn't have to be, but it can be the person who is keeping his or her eyes always on, are we playing the right game?

And that's the question, because all we are doing in life is playing games, I mean that in the best sense, not in true sense, and somebody has to decide on what that game is and whether we are still playing it and people throw out all sorts of ideas and get in the I was present to do wonderful moments.

in Hewlett Packard, and they asked me to stay after I give my presentation on possibility to see whether they were keeping in that mode during their meeting.

And they were discussing essentially how they could be the best in the world. That was the conversation. And one of the vice presidents, one of the women said, why are we talking about how we can be the best in the world?

Why aren't we talking about how we can be the best for the world? And suddenly, the whole conversation shifted, and they were playing a different game.

And it was just a preposition. So all those arguments and those sort of silliness that people get into trying to, my opinion, somebody has to keep an eye on the quality of the conversation on the game.

And I'll tell you, I mean, I have If you understand that none of this is, I don't have a speech, you understand, this is not, I don't know where I'm going.

I mean, I'll stop at a certain moment because I've been told that I've got to stop, but you know, the point about possibility is it looks like that.

You can go anywhere. So I'll tell you one story which is important to me, which is I grew up in a Jewish family, which means chicken soup and lots of love and an assumption.

And the assumption was all the children will be successful. Nobody ever said it. Nobody would dream in a Jewish family of actually saying what they were doing, which is preparing their children to be successful.

And the other end of the table and the four children. My brother who's now 92, then the one who's 90, and the sister who's 88, and he's 86, we were children.

the ritual was, my father would say, to my elder brother, what did you do today? And my brother would then say what he'd done, and then my second brother would say what he'd done, and my sister would say what she'd done, and by the time he came to my turn, I was a nervous wreck.

Because I knew I couldn't compete with my sister and my brother and their fantastic achievements and activities, and so I grew up with a conversation, and it went into my middle age and cost me two marriages.

I couldn't pay attention. So, it was so bad that when I was conducting, I would be looking over my shoulder theoretically and saying,

orchestra, I could conduct that was better than the one that I actually conduct. It's like being on a date with somebody, know, wishing you were with somebody else, not great for the person you're with.

So I suddenly had one of those, one of those road to Damascus events, like the silent conductor. And it was that the game we were playing was just a game.

It wasn't life. It was a game called success and therefore also failure. And since it was a game, it was invented.

And since it was invented, I can invent another game. And so I did. I invented a new game. It's called I Am a Contribution.

That's the name of a game. know, you bring down the box and it says I'm a contribution. And it's very simple how you play.

You wake up in the morning and you remind yourself your contribution because you might have fallen into the downward spiral during the night.

And you then go around and you're a contribution. next day you're a contribution again and the next day. And the rewards of this are enormous because, first of all, the eyes are shining and you never get tired.

You just never get tired in that game. amazing. It's a kind of mysterious thing. you know it's very interesting because this is the worst time of the day.

They always give me this dead time of the day when everybody's... And nobody's feeling tired. Nobody's feeling tired. can't be absolutely tired, but I can see the eyes.

I can tell nobody's feeling tired. And that's not because I'm highly entertaining, which I am. because we're in the world of possibility.

And I have a dream. I have a dream. Now, when you leave this place, you will go home and spend away.

week in possibility. The whole week actually have a bigger dream that when you go home you'll spend a home.

You know actually I have a bigger dream that you'll spend the rest of your life in possibility. And now it takes it takes terrific to plan and there's a wonderful story which is true story and I heard from the person herself and you've heard it as I told it on medication.

It's a very, very moving story of a woman who now is living in Houston. She's a painter but when she was 15 she was sent to Auschwitz with her brother

originally with the parents but the parents got lost and so she was alone in the cattle train going to Poland and She looked down and saw that her brother had lost either a shoe or two shoes.

I can't but anyway there he was and she was a 50-year-old girl in charge of this 8-year-old boy. Why are you so stupid doing something for goodness sake keep your things together?

And which is perfectly normal Except the trouble was it was the last thing she ever said to him because he didn't survive So when she got out of Auschwitz She made a vow And the vow was I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever said And when we play music we play music that way And as I get older and I know that

every piece I play is probably the last time Baita said, I don't know, I don't even want to describe it, but every note, just did Mahla's sixth and before that Mahla's fourth, and I just felt every note was just great, and I love that story and to the greatest, and I said to our husband, does she really live that way?

he said, you know, she really does. She doesn't say anything that could undermine the relationship. So it's a way of being, and I have to tell you that I've talked to lots of groups over the years, but it's getting on for me.

I'm 86. to and so I'm talking to a very, very important group. people. I hope you realize that. You're not adjunct.

You're central to life in our time. Every time you open your mouth, every time you write, every time you communicate, every time you lead the CEO in one direction or another, every time you teach younger people to be what they could be in this society.

And those two journalists I was with last night, they went away different journalists that they were at the beginning of the dinner, because they hadn't thought there was another way of thinking that the downward spiral of fear and catastrophe in Washington is a very difficult place to be these days.

Three million people, somebody told me have lost their jobs right now. This doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on.

This is a catastrophe the moment. And so the need and the essential century. reality of the possibility way of speaking is the only path I can see.

So if you see ways of encouraging that, I'll go anywhere to talk about this. And it's a privilege to be here.

So what I want to do, because we have to stop soon, is I want to sing the Beethoven 9th

this. I just want to focus on one thing which I haven't really spoken to although it's been a background for the entire time we've been together and that is that what lives over here, what lives here is very clear.

It's competition and this is where we go for wealth and fame and power. Those are the three things that people are brought up.

is the game of life particularly in this country but just generally wealth, fame and power and the steps along the way, you go to school, get good grades, you make contacts, you get a good job and that's the goal and there are goals along the way.

That's how this one works. Over here the trouble is there are no steps. So all you can do over here is spend in possibility.

That's all you can do and we have no idea where these errors occur. Now we just open. There's a lovely story of an old man who's lying in his deathbed and there are four sons around the bed.

And he sees very, very weak voice. He's just about to die. He's just like, treasure buried in the orchard.

Wow! Too late, he died. So now the four boys, they're picks in the shovels and they go into the orchard and they dig and they dig and they dig weeks they dig.

Nothing, silly old man. But next year they had the best harvest they'd ever have. So we'd never know where the treasure is buried.

So this is vision. This is where the vision lies. And if your company doesn't have a strong vision, try an influence.

to create one because what I found as I go from one place to another one company and to another I Find that the companies that have a strong vision are Very very better place to deal with life than the ones who don't and a vision is something Simple that everybody knows and that it guides the institution.

This is the Boston Philharmonic vision It's right on the front of everything everywhere. You look we have our vision.

It's passionate music making without boundaries There it is right is right on the front of the brochure and Everybody knows it and it guides us in everything we do every decision so If somebody can't use their Tickets at the weekend because they have something else and they give them back The other orchestra in town Boston Symphony they sell the tickets again In Boston Philharmonic we give them to

His place, his place is a homeless shelter, and there are lots of people in the homeless shelter who love music, and so that guides us.

And we know always what to do because of our vision. So that's, you know, and Martin Luther King had a vision, and Mandela had a vision, and so it always has to be simple.

has to be something really strong, so everybody can gather around. The vision of possibility is a very strong one.

People get very confused about vision. I don't know if any of you have been to the London Business School, but in the hallway of the London Business School there's a huge stone plaque which says, our vision is to be the preeminent business school in the world.

I went to the director and I said, know, that's not a vision. She said, I know, but it's written in stone.

So vision to be a vision has to be for everyone. And of course we know that from Beethoven. So we're going to sing this wonderful piece.

you have a copy of your own? Can I have it? Well, that's right. Oh, look, we got next one.

Great. So what we're going to do is I'm going to read it, read a line, and I met a gentleman who's berman, and you're going to have to forgive this.

I'm going to read it in English, and it's going to come out sounding in German, and you read after me, right?

Freuder Schöner Gatterfunken. Eilishtung. Dinachshauberb, leader. Bastimordrangtayat. Allah mentioned there in Bouda. Bouda in sumpterfugelweit. Right, it sounds like German.

I mean, you're great. So now we're going to stay it one more time all together. Do they have a copy in the back?

Did you have a copy? great. So I don't know why you're in the back, but that's another matter. Okay, we're going to do one more time and then we're going to see it.

So everybody together. Froy the Shurna Gertowfugel. Talk to our citizens. We are betraying for your trunk. Himlicherdine highly. Well, you know the song, let's sing it.

Well done now do you remember do you remember the happy birthday I saw several people going froydah shuddah God.

What we want is a one-butter line of vision like Beethoven had in mind, like storm. Diner, it's over, binder, vida, musty, morda, shane, gerta, hala, menscha, and bruida, borda, and sound of blue.

Great, you sound fantastic. Now you sound a little bit as though you don't know what you're singing about. Great, so let me tell you, Righte's joy, Shurna is beautiful, gerta-funken is God-like shining.

Great light. Gatorfunken, isn't that wonderful? God, God likes shiny bright light. Octa ocelesium is daughter of heaven, daughter of Elisium, via betraten which stand for your tunken drunk with fire.

We stand drunk with fire, himlicher dine, highly shtum, at your heavenly holy place. All of that. comes the main thing.

Dain et alva, your magic says the poet shiller speaking to God. Your magic, binden vida binds together. Your magic binds together.

Vastimorda strangataya. Now this is important. What habit and fashion have torn apart. What the poet is saying is that habit, fashion, the way we always do things that has torn us apart.

The source of all conflict. And then it goes on to say, Allah mentioned Vairdan Burdo, all human beings will be as brothers, all human beings.

Vorda in Zumfta, Flugelweil, where your song, where your soft wings do waft. So this is a song to the possibility that human beings are.

That's what it is, fantastic, that's a vision. And it's not an argument, it's not a proposition, it's a vision.

And it's couched in the most powerful and simple musical language that exists. Every child can play it on the fruit, on the instrument, it's there for everybody.

So now knowing that, and if you're at all excited about the possibility of human beings, would you please inform…

Well, face is about it. And stand up. And we're now going to sing. All right. Are you ready? The music.

It's understandable. But if you think if you finally found the person of your dreams and you go out to them and say, I love you, you know, if you can just get your head up and, you know, I'll just quickly tell you I have time.

Yes, just time. I had a student who was cello student who came to me at the New England Conservatory.

Great wonderful cellist. He had a very important audition and he wanted to be the associate principal cellist. to Barcelona, which is where he came from.

He came to my house to play and he played very well and I said, Maurice, you're playing well. It's good.

You'll get into the orchestra, think, but I don't think they'll make you. Oh, he wanted to be the associate principal cellist.

That's what it was the job. I said, I don't think they're going to make you the associate because to be a leader, you have to open up possibilities for people they don't even know about.

And you're not doing that. So I went to the piano and started playing and he played the cello and his hair began to fly and it was walking down.

was playing. I said, that's it. That's what you're doing. That's great. They won't be able to resist. You play that.

And when he left that night, said, don't play the first way. Be sure to play the second way. Oh, yes, I play second way.

So he went off to Spain and he came back three weeks later. said, how do you go? He said, no, I didn't get the job.

I said, never mind. No, no, wait, wait, wait. He said, I haven't told the whole story. He said, I'm

So he in the Spanish accent, he said, I was so beast off, I said, it, he said, he said, I'm going to go to Valle de Dalit, that's another town.

And he said, I'm going to go for the first cello position in that town. Twice the, I got the job, he said, they are twice the salary of the other one.

And I said, what happened? He said, I play second way. So we introduced a new distinction into my class called beyond the pocket.

All my students know beyond the pocket and even the little ones. And I went, I went to a Catholic school in California and the headmistress, sister Carlotta, she wrote me a letter, thank you.

And she said, BTFI has become our school motto. So what I want you to get is this is the song they sang in Tiananmen Square.

played in Tiananmen Square during the Revolution. This is a song they played when the wall fell down in Berlin.

We went to Carnegie Hall with the Boston Philharmonica after 9-11 and we played a free concert in Carnegie Hall and we played this and the whole audience sang and everybody was shining eyes.

Oh my god, out of the whole place. So this is the song to the possibility that human beings are.

I say that's who you are. I don't think you came into this room with that idea of yourselves but that's who I say you are.

You have unbelievable power. So let's harness the power of Beethoven and his music and Schiller and sing the living daylights out of this thing.

Are you ready? I little dinette-solver-binder-deeda-busty-morda-stranger-tot-hala-mension-thedden-bruda-bord-in-zump-t-a-blue-covile-b Now, I've won, I just have just one one one more thing, would you just sit down and warm up, because you're about to go out into the world of the downward spiral.

And I want to give you one last little bit of ammunition in this journey. I want to tell you.

So, I want to read you, there's a little story here. Yeah, if I can. find my glasses. Ah, here they are.

So this is the story. Once upon a time, there was a monastery that had fallen on hard times. Once a great order as a result of religious persecution in the 17th and 18th century, all its branches were lost.

It had become decimated. There were only five monks left in the mother house. There was that abbot and four others, all of them were over 70.

Clearly, it was a dying order. In the deep woods surrounding the monastery, there was a little hut that the rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a homeotage.

One day, it occurred to the abbot to visit the homeotage to see if the rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated, I know how it is, he said, the spirit has gone out of people, almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.

So the old rabbi and the old Abbot wept together and they read parts of the time came when the Abbot had to leave, they embraced.

It's been wonderful being with you, said the Abbot, but I failed in my purpose for coming. Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?

No, I'm sorry the rabbi responded, I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is

The other monks heard the rabbis' words. wondered what possible significance they might have. The Messiah is one of us, one of us here at the monastery.

Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Of course it must be the abbot who's been our leader for so long.

On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas, who certainly is a holy man. Certainly he couldn't have meant Brother Elrod.

He's a crotchety, but then Elrod is very, very wise. Surely he couldn't have meant Brother Philip. He's so passive, but then magically he's always there when you need him.

Of course he'll be me. Yes, I'm supposing. he did. Oh God, not me. I couldn't be that much for you, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah.

And on the off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Now because the forest in which we were situated was beautiful, people occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic or to wander along the old paths, most of which led to that dilapidated chapel.

They sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that surrounded the five old monks and permeated the atmosphere. They began to come more frequently.

bringing their friends and their friends brought friends. Then some of the younger men who came to visit started to talk more and more with the monks.

after a while one asked if he might join and then another and another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order.

And thanks to the Rabbi's gift, a vibrant, authentic community of light and love for the whole realm. Thank you for listening.