The Year Of The Maestro

Toronto January 1, 2011

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Hi this is Mike Lipkin and welcome to the Year of The Maestro, pronounced my-he-stroh

Literally, Maestro is the Italian word for Master or Teacher.

It comes from the world of classical music, but it is also the ultimate professional accolade. Maestro is the title awarded to people who inspire us through their mastery of their art.

It may be the art of music, painting, theatre, dancing, cooking, manufacturing, design, business, presentations, consulting, sales, service or just living. But it’s the execution of those disciplines at a level that strikes us as art.

Art occurs to us as beautiful, appealing, extraordinary, rare, fulfilling, compelling, desirable, pleasurable and reassuring. It pulls us towards it. It opens us up. It makes us more simply by being around it.

The greater the demand, the greater the need for people who perform at the highest level. When no one else can, the Maestro can. And if they can, others will follow.

The number of Maestros around us defines the quality of our life. And the number of Maestros around us is a function of our Maestro-dom. Like attracts like. Life is a mirror that reflects back at us what we are.

Look around you. Are you a Maestro-Magnet? And are you inspiring others with your art? Are you bringing magic to their world? Are you being fully expressed? Or is your music going unplayed?

Make 2011 your year of the Maestro. Your brilliant best is in front of you. If you want to win, that’s the level you’ve got to play at. And it’s easier than you think.

Dramatic Differentiation is the Game-Changer. It’s what sets you apart so others want a part of you.

We’re all in competition for the same thing: Other’s Time. Other’s Time demands Other’s Sustained Attention.

Other’s Sustained Attention demands a Personal Impact that is fresh, phenomenal, memorable, meaningful, emotional, inspirational, and one-of-a-kind. Me-Too or SO-SO (Same Old, Same Old) is not an option.

We’re lucky if we get our Fifteen Minutes. We have to earn it through dramatic personal differentiation. Then we have to earn the next Fifteen Minutes and the next. In fact, our entire future depends on the caliber of Fifteen Minutes we can keep generating.

Here’s more good news: Dramatic Differentiation can be in the flick of wrist, the turn of a phrase or the wink of an eye. It’s the Law of Disproportion. The smallest distinction, the babiest action, the slightest touch, the skimpiest move can make a massive impact that ripples through our future.

So here are the Five C’s of the Maestro Model: Consciousness, Confidence, Competence, Capacity and Contribution.

It all begins with Consciousness. Maestros are intentional. They’re acutely conscious of who they need to be, what they need to do and why they need to do it. I’m conscious of being Fascinated, Amazed, Grateful, Stretched, Curious, Committed, Loving, Alert, Receptive, Ambitious, Vital and Light. I’m conscious of how I’m expressing this message. And, right now, it’s the most important thing I can do because it may be the most important thing you need to hear.

Confidence is constructed from consciousness. It is the bridge from safe to scary. It’s trusting oneself and others. It’s going where you haven’t been before even though you don’t know the way. It’s belief translated into action.

Confidence is your Teflon skin that protects you against self-doubt. It means never backing down when you know you need to back yourself. It’s the gift you give yourself. And it’s the gift no one can take away.

Confidence is a great servant and a shocking master. It needs humility to save it from becoming obstinacy. The distance between Hero and Zero can be horribly short. Humility means believing in oneself but not one’s self-importance.

Confidence is courage out loud. It means expressing our courage so others can follow. If courage is at the core of our character, Confidence is at the edge. It’s the quality that is most visible; that’s why it’s so vital.

I may be living proof of the Power of Confidence. I made the decision at the age of 17 to be confident. Even then, I wanted to be an inspirational speaker in the spirit of JFK, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill and P.T. Barnum.

The only problem was that I stuttered. I got stuck on the consonants. Every speech was a matter of mind over stuckness. And yet I discovered something valuable: my flaw was fascinating to others. They gave me more time. They vicariously participated in my struggle while they thanked their respective gods they weren’t me. I owned an automatic differentiation and an ongoing opportunity to practice being confident, despite the humiliation that always hovering nearby.

Confidence precedes Competence because it attracts Competence. On the other hand, Competence without Confidence goes unused. It breaks my heart to witness the number of highly competent people who are leaving their skills on the table because they’re too afraid to fail. The real danger is not that we set our targets too high and we miss them. It’s that we set them too low and we hit them.

Competence At the level of a Maestro, (CALM) means you have the required knowledge and skill to perform at the highest level. It means you can carry the weight of the task’s demands and other’s expectations. It means you’re the benchmark by which others are judged.

CALM is the quality that takes people’s breath away. It’s the element that elicits the surprise and wonder that captivates others. It’s the behavior that begs the question: How does he do that?

Whether it’s Christian Bale in The Fighter, the myriad performers in Cirque Du Soleil, Steve Jobs hawking his next game-changer or the flight attendant who retains her cool courtesy on a 14-hour flight, CALM is the signal that cuts through the noise and doubt. It’s the one measurable success factor that can be seen, heard, felt, tasted and touched, but never faked. It’s where the rubber meets the road. And the more sophisticated the audience or participants, the greater the impact.

There is no short cut to Competence At the Level of Maestro. While the process can be accelerated, it’s always going to be a long journey because it has no terminal. The pursuit of CALM is a state of never-ending personal enhancement for its own sake. Sometimes it’s a pleasure and sometimes it’s blood, sweat and tears; but it’s always a passion that grows more intense over time.

CALM means you have risen beyond being a “True Pro” to being someone whose expertise is creating a new genre of performance. Invention, innovation, daring, radicalism and avant-garde are embedded in your everyday execution. It means sometimes going too far to know how far you can go and then immediately course correcting. That’s why all major progress ultimately depends on people with CALM.

Capacity: CALM cannot be created without Consciousness and Confidence, and it cannot be sustained without the Capacity to carry on.

Winning is not about who is right; it’s about who is left. It’s about falling down seven times, standing up eight. It’s about the size of one’s heart, and lungs. It’s about playing like your life depends on it, even though it doesn’t, although the quality of your life ultimately does

The future belongs to those who are conditioned to win. They take care of themselves first because they know everything else depends on it. They treat themselves like the athlete every human must be. They have a plan that’s just right for them. They know that they’re different – just like everybody else.

They love to triumph and they love to train – the one doesn’t happen without the other.

We’re all living in the confluence of a perfect storm. There is more to do. There is less time to do it. There are so many other people who can do it well and there are so many people depending on us to get it right. Anxiety, overwhelm and fatigue are the new normal. No matter how much the economy improves, uncertainty is the new certainty. The velocity of change is doing violence to our sense of well being. It’s exciting and exhausting in equal measure. Whatever it takes out of us, we have to put back in, and then some.

Our happiness is a direct function of our Capacity to handle anxiety, overwhelm and fatigue. It’s mental, emotional, physical and social. It’s the stamina we show in life’s overtime moments. It’s in the crises that we define who we are and what others become.

Contribution: Here’s what I’ve discovered as a result of talking to over a million people from 43 countries since 1993: all wealth is a direct reciprocation of the contribution we make to others. The more value we create, the more valuable we become; or rather, the more value-able we become.

For the Maestro, everything leads to Contribution. He is the cause others rally around because they feel stronger and luckier around him. The Maestro becomes their Talisman. He is their catalyst for luck, their lightning rod for fortune and the channel to their success.

That’s why Maestros are happy. They’re surrounded by people who feed them and feed off them. Maestros are at their best when they’re empowering others. They’re generous at a level that others consider crazy. Yet the more they pay it forward, the greater their payback. It’s a beautiful thing in life: we cannot help others without first helping ourselves. If all wealth is a direct reciprocation of the contribution we make to others, generosity is a force multiplier.

That’s it from me. This year, live the 5 C’s. Become a Maestro and your life will play out very well.