Deseo para mis lectoras en 2011

Éste es mi deseo para el año que viene: Que seamos capaces de superar las limitaciones que nosotras mismas nos imponemos.

He escrito sobre esto alguna vez aquí, pero ahora no lo encuentro: pienso que para gente privilegiada como somos la mayoría de mis lectoras y yo, a menudo, tan importantes o más que las limitaciones externas, del entorno, sobre las que no tenemos control, son las que nosotros mismos nos imponemos, al imaginarnos incapaces de ciertas cosas, o pensar que tal o cual comportamiento no cuadra con cómo somos, con lo que somos.

Creo que es por eso por lo que me ha gustado tanto esta historia (o leyenda: se non è vero, è ben trovato) que acabo de escuchar en uno de mis frikipodcasts a Skip Pritchard, director general de Ingram Content Group:

I just love this story of Art Tatum, arguably one of the best jazz pianist that's ever lived.

He was very young, he was blind in one eye, barely able to see in the other, had some very little musical training, but mostly he was self-taught.

How did he learn to play?

When he was very young he put his fingers on a player piano and he started to duplicate the song. [...]

What he didn't know as he started duplicating these songs, with the keys going down on the piano, is that the pieces he was learning to play were actually recorded by two people. He started to play these pieces and people were shocked and amazed, because he didn't know that the pieces that he learned to play on his own as one person, were played by two pianists; two hands, had been recorded by four hands. One person did what was previously only possible for two people to do. Not knowing what he was doing was impossible for anybody, he went right ahead and showed the world his musical genius.

What limitations are we putting on ourselves, our businesses, or industries, because we think it's the way it is, because it's the way it's always been done? If you could focus on what you do best, you could pick your unique differentiation points, what could be possible in your company, what could be possible for you?