During the course of last minute revision for the Marketing exam tomorrow, I remembered the following story. I present here an almost word for word email which I wrote in April 2004.
... You won't understand the basketball part, which is to do with the EuroLeague championship. Whoever won the match would go up to the semi-finals, so of course it was an important game. Although Maccabi played very well in the first quarter, they played badly in the remaining three quarters, and with only about 20 seconds to go, they were losing by six points. Missed free throws meant that Maccabi were losing by three points with two seconds to go. A long throw to one of the players who turned and scored a three pointer meant that Maccabi tied the game. After that, because the Lithuanian star had fouled out, Maccabi had it much easier in extra time and won by eight points.
Thursday was an interesting day. Nominally, I was on holiday - the factory was closed - but I wanted to use the time to sort out some problems, and also to write a program for use at work. In the post were two books which I had ordered from Amazon - one is a users' guide to a software music program (Reason), and the other is by managerial guru Robin Sharma, who will be speaking in Israel in one month's time (which is the reason I had ordered the book). This tome is entitled "The monk who sold his Ferrari", which apparently has been quite a hit in certain circles.
This book tells the (exceedingly thin) story about a top lawyer who has a heart attack and so decides to quit being a lawyer. He travels to India where he searches for spiritual enlightenment, finds a recluse group of gurus and undertakes a spiritual change. He returns to spread the word, via the narrator of the book, also a lawyer (actually the top lawyer's assistant). It's a very thin novel in the literary sense of the word, in fact annoyingly so, but at least this is a slightly different tone from the usual self-help type of book. I've actually got bogged down about half way through; I'm sure that there's more wisdom to impart, but the book is getting exceedingly turgid, and the thin veneer of fiction is getting more annoying the more I read.
In the evening was the unbelievable basketball match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Zhalghiris Kovna. As a game, Kovna deserved to win because they played better, but somehow Maccabi managed to pull the fat out of the fire in the last incredible sixteen seconds (that is, before extra time). I wouldn't normally refer to such event here except for one reason: after the game, a few of the Maccabi players and management were interviewed, and in one of these, Derrick Sharp, he who scored the vital three pointer which tied the game, said the incredible phrase: "If you believe, you can achieve". I don't know whether this is a well known phrase on the level of "no pain, no gain", but to my ears, sensitised by the unbelievable change of fortune in the game and also reading about the monk who had sold his Ferrari, it was like hearing words from Heaven.
Suddenly a tune popped into my head, perfectly suited to those words, so I ran to the computer and quickly keyed them in so that I wouldn't forget. I was too excited to go to bed for a while (because of the game), and although I was watching the interviews, my mind kept on returning to that magical phrase, "If you believe, you can achieve". Eventually I did go to bed, but once there, my imagination kept on coming up with couplets - "when you awake, there's a choice you must make", etc. At first, I kept on getting out of bed, walking to the computer and noting down the lines, but after a while I got tired of this, and so every time a new couplet came into my head, I would note it down in a notebook kept by my bedside (writing in the dark, I should note).
I've written about this at length because the serendipity of the lyrics' creation is important. Unfortunately too many of days are routine, and it's not often enough that I get transported into that mental state which allows the (almost) painless creation of a song lyric. I don't know whether the basketball game would have been enough to stimulate me, although I suspect that I would have jotted down Sharp's phrase for future use, because of its rhyme, compactness and general utility. But it took the juxtaposition of the game's high and the Sharma book to produce the direct connection.
I also sent the letter to Robin Sharma, and here is his reply:
Thursday was an interesting day. Nominally, I was on holiday - the factory was closed - but I wanted to use the time to sort out some problems, and also to write a program for use at work. In the post were two books which I had ordered from Amazon - one is a users' guide to a software music program (Reason), and the other is by managerial guru Robin Sharma, who will be speaking in Israel in one month's time (which is the reason I had ordered the book). This tome is entitled "The monk who sold his Ferrari", which apparently has been quite a hit in certain circles.
This book tells the (exceedingly thin) story about a top lawyer who has a heart attack and so decides to quit being a lawyer. He travels to India where he searches for spiritual enlightenment, finds a recluse group of gurus and undertakes a spiritual change. He returns to spread the word, via the narrator of the book, also a lawyer (actually the top lawyer's assistant). It's a very thin novel in the literary sense of the word, in fact annoyingly so, but at least this is a slightly different tone from the usual self-help type of book. I've actually got bogged down about half way through; I'm sure that there's more wisdom to impart, but the book is getting exceedingly turgid, and the thin veneer of fiction is getting more annoying the more I read.
In the evening was the unbelievable basketball match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Zhalghiris Kovna. As a game, Kovna deserved to win because they played better, but somehow Maccabi managed to pull the fat out of the fire in the last incredible sixteen seconds (that is, before extra time). I wouldn't normally refer to such event here except for one reason: after the game, a few of the Maccabi players and management were interviewed, and in one of these, Derrick Sharp, he who scored the vital three pointer which tied the game, said the incredible phrase: "If you believe, you can achieve". I don't know whether this is a well known phrase on the level of "no pain, no gain", but to my ears, sensitised by the unbelievable change of fortune in the game and also reading about the monk who had sold his Ferrari, it was like hearing words from Heaven.
Suddenly a tune popped into my head, perfectly suited to those words, so I ran to the computer and quickly keyed them in so that I wouldn't forget. I was too excited to go to bed for a while (because of the game), and although I was watching the interviews, my mind kept on returning to that magical phrase, "If you believe, you can achieve". Eventually I did go to bed, but once there, my imagination kept on coming up with couplets - "when you awake, there's a choice you must make", etc. At first, I kept on getting out of bed, walking to the computer and noting down the lines, but after a while I got tired of this, and so every time a new couplet came into my head, I would note it down in a notebook kept by my bedside (writing in the dark, I should note).
I've written about this at length because the serendipity of the lyrics' creation is important. Unfortunately too many of days are routine, and it's not often enough that I get transported into that mental state which allows the (almost) painless creation of a song lyric. I don't know whether the basketball game would have been enough to stimulate me, although I suspect that I would have jotted down Sharp's phrase for future use, because of its rhyme, compactness and general utility. But it took the juxtaposition of the game's high and the Sharma book to produce the direct connection.
I also sent the letter to Robin Sharma, and here is his reply:
Thanks so much for sharing this with me. Fascinating. Robin
Why do I bring all this up now? Because if I believe in my ability to answer questions in tomorrow's exam, then I will achieve. Confidence is the key.
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