Leadership

1 Comment » // January 25th, 2010

My friend Sandi recently recommended a TED talk by a man named Benjamin Zander. (You can view the whole talk here.)

Several things profoundly resonated with me while I listened to and watched Zander’s 20-minute presentation about classical music.

The first was that he says, “We all know where home is.” Those six words made me cry. We DO all know where home is, and we can even define “home” many ways. We know what the truth is. We know when something is real or not. We know when we love something or someone. We always know where “home” is. Always. Even when our brains convince us otherwise.

During the talk Zander plays a piece of Chopin’s Ode to Joy, and he asks the audience to think of someone they have lost while he plays to help us understand what Chopin was trying to say with the music. I thought of the person I had lost to the cult I belonged to and wept. We all know loss.

And finally, Zander gave his definition of leadership and success. He said he doesn’t measure success by how much money he has or how well-known he is. He defines success by how many people around him have shining eyes. Isn’t that beautiful?

Let me tell you, in a cult, or in any abusive situation, no one has shining eyes. That’s how you know it is not home.