On the nature of inspiring others

by Marshall on December 20, 2010

This 20-minute TED talk is well worth your time.

Ben Zander reminds me of my piano teacher, W. Perry Johnson. Like a lot of kids, I started taking piano lessons as a little kid. But I stuck with it through high school and truly enjoy classical music. (I’m somewhere in between Ben’s 1st and 2nd groups).

Why did I stick with it? I can assure you, I was no prodigy and I didn’t will myself to be disciplined. I even took a break in junior high (which included a brief and stormy romance with jazz lessons) because I was tired of it.

What made the difference was my teacher’s passion. It inspired me. Perry had a passion for classical piano that overflowed. He believed that I could, should, and would love it. That I was capable of playing it well. He expected it.

His passion was rarely comfortable. Sometimes his enthusiasm seemed over the top. And he always let me what he thought. After a poorly performed piece, there would be a painful silence. Followed by his slow whistle of disapproval. But it taught me that there is something more valuable than my own comfort.

It might not be classical music, but I want my life to be marked with passion for what I believe in, and to inspire others like I’ve been inspired. To do that I must believe and invest in others:

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.

You know how you find out? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it…If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question…Who am I being, that my players eyes are not shining?

I’m curious to learn some practical steps for inspiring others. Here’s one unique approach for teachers. What are some other examples you’ve experienced or heard of?

For further thoughts on the video, check out how Kevin DeYoung applies it to the church. (He gets the HT for the vid, too.)

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200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes…and a few lessons.

by Marshall on November 30, 2010

Swedish professor of international health Hans Rosling plays a convincing supporting role in this brief BBC video. The dyamic star, of course, is the data.

A few observations:

  • There is a significant relationship between what people earn (income) and their standard of living (life expectancy). I’m don’t know much about statistics, but it seems intuitive that higher income would be a major cause of living standard. Not the only cause, but I wouldn’t be surprised if its the biggest.
  • The path of each country is unique. Economies are not machines, they are people making choices. The diversity of people and cultures shows up even in something as impersonal as  macroeconomic statistics.
  • Even the poorest countries have improved substantially over the past 200 years, despite a bigger income disparity. This is something to consider if you view economies as a fixed amount of wealth and opportunity. If I make $5 (or $5 million), does that mean someone else goes without? Hardly. In fact, in the absense of coercion (force or fraud), wealth can only be created by meeting the needs of others.

How do we make this happen? How do we encourage this upward trend? Hans Rosling suggests  “aid, trade, technology, and peace.”

Not a bad start, though somewhat nebulous. Aid:  how should we help? Trade:  what should we trade, and with whom? Technology:  what should we invest in? Peace:  how to we make it happen?

I don’t know. You don’t know. Not even Greenpeace knows. (There’s a shocker). What is certain, though, is that economic liberty is crucial to making this happen. Better outcomes occur when people with the best information have the incentive to make the best decision. Economic liberty (which includes laws that punish coersion) makes this happen.

The Index of Economic Freedom, a product of the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, helps make this point.

The strong correlation between economic freedom and income.

Freedom seems to be a developing economy’s best friend. Do you agree? What else is important? Any other cool examples of communicating large amounts of data?

HT to “Big Daddy T”. You can also watch more of Prof Rosling’s magic on TED talk tv.

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