Shining Eyes
ARE PEOPLE LOOKING AT YOU WITH SHINING EYES?
Most of us experience conversations that represent a downward spiral from time to time.
You know the dialogue: Nobody cares anymore. All the positive efforts are pointless. The world is going to hell in a handbasket anyway. People are just so lazy or uninformed that they are ruining our future. Etc., etc.
Of course, the key to these mantras is in that last one: everyone in that “uninformed” category are the people who don’t think like us. They just don’t have our superior facts.
And down we go on the spiral.
These conversations can happen in social media, or in person, among friends or colleagues, and it can be the start of a disastrous friction at family gatherings (depending on the tribes we choose to label as uninformed).
And worse yet, we don’t even have to have a co-conspirator in the downward spiral! We can go down the toboggan run all alone, in the privacy of our thoughts. Have you noticed that certain scenarios tip us over into these “all is lost” mindsets? They happen after seeing something horrific online or after watching the news for only a few minutes.
Check out your own triggers.
I started paying attention to these runaway trains of thought when I came across Ben Zander’s timeless talk given at the 2008 Poptech conference. I can’t describe Zander better than the PopTech team did in his introduction: “The only conductor to ever lead the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Zander is a prophet of human potential and an unrivaled champion of joie de vivre” (a joy for life).
He emits an infectious brand of joy when he proposes that any of us can live with a sense of radiating possibility and refuse to keep these downward spiral conversations going.
IT’S A CHOICE.
Since I first heard Zander describe a new way of looking at the world, I have launched EverWideningCircles.com where my team and I have published over a thousand articles about the insight and innovation going uncelebrated in the mass media. Here’s something I’ve learned from all that goodness: the more I know about this amazing world of ours, the more I understand that the downward spiral dialogue depends on how we define “success” in our lives.
If being a successful human is measured in possessions and status, then the downward spiral gives us a convenient way to blame the world around us for any place our dreams are falling short. But, Zander suggests a better measure of success. He recommends asking ourselves, “How many shining eyes are around me right now?”
The concept of shining eyes is best explained by Zander himself in Zander’s famous TED Talk.
He says, "The conductor of an orchestra doesn't make a sound... he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful... I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people... And you know how you find out if you're doing that? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it... And if they're not doing it you get to ask a question: who am I being that my player's eyes are not shining?"
Remove all the references to being a conductor and we’ve each got a recipe for a deeply meaningful success that takes everyone with us!
No matter our job description - teacher, doctor, librarian, consultant, parent, salesman, editor, (insert your own) - you can think of your work in terms of awakening a sense of new possibility in other people. And while you work, if their eyes are shining back at you, you know you are doing it. If they're not, you get to ask a question: “who am I being that the person I’m working with does not have shining?"
STILL CONFUSED?
You’ll have to go to the maestro’s talk to see the most amazing case made for this shining eyes concept. There’s a reason why Zander’s famous TED Talk now has more than 13 million views.
Here’s a pro-tip: Both the PopTech Talk and the TED Talk have been billed as inspiring explanations of why we should all love classical music, but that description suffers from a great poverty of understanding. Make no mistake, the talks are about so much more than that. In the PopTech Talk, Zander shows us the difference between living life with the downward spiral as your default, versus us choosing a mindset of “radiation possibility” as our baseline.
He gives a music lesson to a young cellist right before our eyes, that is a perfect metaphor for how we might improve whatever we are playing at each day.
He teaches us how to create shining eyes for others, no matter our medium.
In that same (very funny) talk, he sends us soaring with a completely novel way of responding to the mistakes we make; with getting the best from others; with the concept of working in a way he calls “one-buttock playing”. The list of ah-ha moments in that video is a long one, if you look for the metaphors outside classical music, in your own life.
I recommend you take less than an hour and watch both, the Poptech Talk first, and then the TED Talk. I’m sorry, there’s no short course on this. I’ve found that understanding the life-changing insights of masters is impossible without an investment of time.
How many shining eyes have you had looking back at you today?
Ben Zander has a gift for awakening possibility in other people. Accept the gift.
In fact, if the PopTech and TED talks resonate with you, I’ll recommend a book next, and you will never look back. One of the most dog-eared and annotated books living permanently on my bedside table is a book by Zander and his wife, Rosamund Zander, called The Art of Possibility.
