Being here

Some of you may think that I'm distancing myself from my main topic, business inspiration, with posts like this one or the last 3 ones but I think not. I think that being successful, achieving goals and reaching the life style you want implies being here with all the things you're made of.

Being here to me means stop thinking our life in a compartmentalized way. I feel this very strongly in France and it's a restraint because it feels like you don't have the right to mix too many things, to try to be good at sports and business, and art, and what you want.

Here's an example. One of the first thing someone asks you when you just meet this person is :

"What do you do for a living ?". This is the illusion, thinking you can know someone just by knowing his job. This is a social judgment, satisfying for many.

It reminds me of Timothy Ferriss who didn't know what to answer when he was actually selling memory optimizer pills online and had enough money and time to be champion of tango, to travel and have fun. Tired of people asking the same question over and over again, thinking he had to justify the reason of his wealth with a job title, he finally decided to answer with a serious tone of voice "Oh, well, I'm a drug dealer", which stopped discussions right away as you can guess !

I already posted an entry about Timothy Ferriss and for me he really is someone who knows how to "be here", who made this choice. Present time matters and when you give yourself the freedom to really be here, magical things happen.

I'd like to share a beautiful video with you of a 14-year old pianist doing an improvisation based on 5 random notes someone else picked for her at a TED conference. The video is long but you can jump to the improvisation part (16:38).

When I watched it the first time I got goose bumps (every time actually) and knew this pianist was "there", entirely.

It makes me want to cry and I don't know why. She creates this melody, we're listening to it simultaneously and it's dying almost instantly... I don't know if I'm clear here but it doesn't really matter if what you'll hear touches you.