Speak with the ability - 12 capabilities of high-performing individuals

Author: Yang Lixin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Has the music in your heart disappeared? Some say we have two forces within us—one that makes us believe we are born to be great, and another that constantly reminds us, "You can't do it!" The famous tenor Caruso once waited in the wings of an opera house before his performance, with the audience filling every seat. Suddenly, this great singer shouted, "Get out of my way! Move! Move!" The backstage staff were bewildered, as no one was near him. "I feel like I have a great self inside me that tells me to sing and knows I can," Caruso explained later. "But there's also a little self that fears and tells me I can't." "I just told that little self to leave me," he said. A person's two greatest enemies are self-doubt and the fear of failure. They often hold us back, preventing us from trying. They drain our resources, leaving us able to use only a small part of our abilities. Talent and confidence must be combined with perseverance. Ken Heser was an excellent musician. He effectively used his talent to communicate with prisoners in a prison in the southeastern United States. He often told the inmates, "When I was a child, I received a small xylophone as a Christmas gift, along with a manual. I only learned to play it after the manual went missing." After searching his home, yard, and car and finding nothing, he sat down and started crying. "Mom!" he sobbed, "The music is gone!" His mother replied, "Son, the manual is gone, but the music is in your heart. If you listen carefully, you can play it." In prison, he told the prisoners, "You may feel like you've been cut off from everything, like life has reached an end, like music has disappeared from your life. But the music is in your heart. If you listen carefully, you can play it!" Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, no matter how unfortunate your experiences, the music in your life hasn't vanished. It's inside you. If you're willing to listen, you can play. "A shallow thinker will become timid and because of misfortune, while a great thinker will rise up because of it," said Washington Irving. P8-9