In 2007, an average-looking man in a baseball cap and a white T-shirt started playing the violin in a Washington, D.C., subway station during the morning rush hour. But this man wasn’t just any street performer. He was the famous musician Joshua Bell, and he was playing Bach’s Chaconne - a piece regarded as one of the most difficult for the violin, and on a $3.5 million Stradivarius.
This was all part of a famous social experiment and a hidden camera revealed that over one thousand people passed by as Bell play six classical pieces over 45 minutes. However, only seven people stopped to watch his performance for at least a minute. Kids were more curious and wanted to watch but their parents didn’t let them.
What’s really interesting is that days before, concert-goers paid up to a hundred dollars for a ticket to see Bell play the same instrument at a sold-out show in Boston.
Isn’t it true we often speed past the world around us, often missing out on life? What if we slowed down just a little to notice things around us? Imagine what we could experience: the beauty of a single flower in a concrete jungle, the sound of children laughing, the smell of food being cooked? Or your team helping you because they want to? Or the managers who always guide and mentor others just because they can? Wonderful isn’t it?
Do share your “stop and notice the world around you” stories with me ok? Email me at jeff@REVinspires.me, and I’d love to hear it!
What’s really interesting is that days before, concert-goers paid up to a hundred dollars for a ticket to see Bell play the same instrument at a sold-out show in Boston.
Isn’t it true we often speed past the world around us, often missing out on life? What if we slowed down just a little to notice things around us? Imagine what we could experience: the beauty of a single flower in a concrete jungle, the sound of children laughing, the smell of food being cooked? Or your team helping you because they want to? Or the managers who always guide and mentor others just because they can? Wonderful isn’t it?
Do share your “stop and notice the world around you” stories with me ok? Email me at jeff@REVinspires.me, and I’d love to hear it!