YouTube has ushered me down a rabbit hole of videos featuring extraordinarily talented people playing public pianos. In case you are unfamiliar with it, many public places like malls, train stations, and so on will have a piano out in public areas with the hopes that a passerby might hop on and play a tune. I have been enthralled with a few of these musicians who are casually going about their day and unleash a remarkable talent out of nowhere. I'm deeply fascinated by the reactions of the other people in the video, and it got me thinking about how we, as humans, recognize greatness.
If you go to a Spurs game, you expect to see great basketball players. What if we are not expecting to witness greatness? How do we respond when we see it out of the blue? In the videos I've seen, most people cannot deviate from what they have planned; they have to get to the bus or train, and they can't end the phone call they are on and enjoy this nice surprise. Joshua Bell is a world-class violinist, and in 2007, he held an experiment. For over 40 minutes, Mr. Bell played his violin in a Washington D.C. metro station during rush hour. Of the thousands who passed by, only seven stopped to listen. He was given $32 dollars in change for his efforts. Two days before his experiment, he sold out a theatre in Boston for an average ticket price of $100.
A lot can be taken away from this experiment. The most obvious point is that no matter how talented you are, no one will see your true worth or potential if you are not in the right environment. I have two simple questions for you: first, do you see and are you pursuing greatness within yourself? Second, are you working with great people who can maximize the potential they can extend to you?
What about your financial advisor, are they great? Do you expect greatness from them, and how could you tell? The first step is knowing if whoever you are interacting with is great based on whether they are holding themselves to the standards of greatness. Now, that is up to you to decide, but while greatness is something all have the potential to realize, it is also exceedingly rare. As far as financial advisors go, from a financial advisor, there is an epidemic of people choosing their advisor based on any number of reasons but rarely because of how great of an advisor they are. Most choose their advisor because "they are nice, they've known them a long time, a friend referred them." Here is my point: if you want to pursue greatness for yourself, surround yourself with great people. Stop and listen to the music; perhaps it's inconvenient or not in your schedule that day, but greatness is something worth pursuing and won't happen by accident.
Think about it, then give us a call.