The Million Dollar Challenge

All comments welcome!

After the decorations, celebrations and communion with family and friends, Monday morning will reappear.

My holiday gift to each of you: a few tips from the IndiBrand™ Individual Branding Workshop series.

Even in this economy. There is much to be grateful for:

The future is the present moving forward constantly. This means that whatever you envision for your future is being impacted by your choices right now—this very minute—and the next, and the next, and the next.

The future is connected to your present (which has just this instant become your past). As you consider what you want 2010 to be like for you, engage all of your senses. What do you want it to smell like? Taste like? Look like? Sound like? And feel like? The more visceral your imagination of your future, the more real it becomes and the easier it is to make choices in this instant and the next that truly support your goals for your future!

When I am considering my future I make sure I am specific and engage each of my senses across multiple areas of my life. Like good marketing, the more targeted I am in my focus on each area of my life, the more impactful my connection to it is! The more likely I will actually create it, and the more joy I experience in all areas of my life as a result. Following are some of the focus areas for my future. What are yours?

There is always room for changing one’s vision. Don’t let your fear of commitment or your belief that you cannot control what the future holds, or anything else, get in your way. It’s the distinction between making choices that lead to something that fulfills you or not.

Author: Michele Lando, president of Skilset Communications, Inc., and author of the internationally acclaimed IndiBrand™ Individual Branding workshop series. To reproduce any portion of this article, you may write or phone 626-792-0032.

The scene: Washington D.C. Metro Station on a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about an hour. During that time, approximately two thousand (2,000) people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes: the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes: a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes: a 3-year-old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly, as the kid looked at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time.

Several other children repeated this action.

Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 minutes: the musician continues to play. Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while.

About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.

He collected $32.

After 1 hour, the musician finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed, no one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions rose:

In a commonplace environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments… how many other things are we missing?