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Category Archives: Listening
Are you sure you really know how much you hurt someone?
Are you sure you really know how much you hurt someone?
Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!
Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!
When most well-intentioned aid workers hear of a problem they think they can fix, they go to work. This, Ernesto Sirolli suggests, is naïve. In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you’re trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit. His advice on what works will help any entrepreneur.
Ernesto Sirolli got his start doing aid work in Africa in the 70′s — and quickly realised how ineffective it was.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM:
Ernesto Sirolli is a noted authority in the field of sustainable economic development and is the Founder of the Sirolli Institute, an international non-profit organization that teaches community leaders how to establish and maintain Enterprise Facilitation projects in their community. The Institute is now training communities in the USA, Canada, Australia, England and Scotland.
In 1985, he pioneered in Esperance, a small rural community in Western Australia, a unique economic development approach based on harnessing the passion, determination, intelligence, and resourcefulness of the local people. The striking results of “The Esperance Experience” have prompted more than 250 communities around the world to adopt responsive, person-centered approaches to local economic development similar to the Enterprise Facilitation® model pioneered in Esperance.
Jeffrey Kluger: The sibling bond
Were you the favorite child, the wild child or the middle child? Jeffrey Kluger explores the profound life-long bond between brothers and sisters, and the influence of birth order, favoritism and sibling rivalry.
A senior editor of science and technology reporting at TIME magazine, Jeffrey Kluger has written books on a wide range of science subjects, including the Polio vaccine, Apollo 13 and the effect of sibling relationships.
Why you should listen to him:
Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor at TIME magazine, where he has worked since 1996. In 1994, he co-authored Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which was the basis for the Tom Hanks film Apollo 13. His book about Jonas Salk and the Polio vaccine, Splendid Solution, was published in 2006. Three years later, he published Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and Why Complex Things Can Be Made Simple). His latest book, The Sibling Effect, came out in 2011.
“Jeffrey Kluger integrates the latest research and brings his own fresh thinking to an ancient topic: sibling relationships. He weaves his own sibling experiences into his rich, insightful text. As with all good storytellers, Kluger’s stories are sad/happy and heartbreaking/glorious.”
Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia
Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen
In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums.
Percussionist and composer Dame Evelyn Glennie lost nearly all of her hearing by age 12. Rather than isolating her, it has given her a unique connection to her music.
Why you should listen to her:
Dame Evelyn Glennie’s music challenges the listener to ask where music comes from: Is it more than simply a translation from score to instrument to audience?
The Grammy-winning percussionist and composer became almost completely deaf by the age of 12, but her hearing loss brought her a deeper understanding of and connection to the music she loves. She’s the subject of the documentary Touch the Sound, which explores this unconventional and intriguing approach to percussion.
Along with her vibrant solo career, Glennie has collaborated with musicians ranging from classical orchestras to Björk. Her career has taken her to hundreds of concert stages around the world, and she’s recorded a dozen albums, winning a Grammy for her recording of Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and another for her 2002 collaboration with Bela Fleck.
Her passion for music and musical literacy brought her to establish, in collaboration with fellow musicians Julian Lloyd Weber and Sir James Galway, the Music Education Consortium, which successfully lobbied for an investment of 332 million pounds in music education and musical resources in Britain.
“Evelyn Glennie is simply a phenomenon of a performer.” New York Times
Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music
Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.
A leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his charisma and unyielding energy — and for his brilliant pre-concert talks.
Why you should listen to him:
Since 1979, Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He is known around the world as both a guest conductor and a speaker on leadership — and he’s been known to do both in a single performance. He uses music to help people open their minds and create joyful harmonies that bring out the best in themselves and their colleagues.
His provocative ideas about leadership are rooted in a partnership with Rosamund Stone Zander, with whom he co-wrote The Art of Possibility.
“Arguably the most accessible communicator about classical music since Leonard Bernstein, Zander moves audiences with his unbridled passion and enthusiasm.” Sue Fox, London Sunday Times
Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander’s experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander’s genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment.
The authors’ harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world.
