On paper, Beethoven shouldn’t have been famous, let alone immortal.
In the 1970’s, Leonard Bernstein called out the many gaps in his CV. Apparently his capacity for melody, harmony, and orchestration were pretty sub par.
Oh, and then there’s the issue of his personality– considered by many at the time to be difficult, eccentric, aggressive and headstrong. Add a messy personal life and a host of health issues – including going deaf — and you get a train wreck.
“He was all about serving humanity, says author and lecturer Jan Swafford, but it was actual people he didn’t like.”
And yet, here we are, 250 years later still getting chills from the Ninth symphony…
Beethoven didn’t succeed despite his flaws – he succeeded through them. His isolation bred the very intimacy that makes his music eternal. His deafness forced him inward where he found sounds no hearing composer could access. As our friend, author Ryan Holiday likes to say, often “the obstacle is the way”.
We could say much the same of any great leader. Alexander, Churchill, Napoleon, Patton, Disney, Jobs, Frida Kahlo, Gates, Musk, John Ford, Simone de Beauvoir. They and all their works were riddled with flaws.
But imagine if these people let their weaknesses stop them. I can’t be a composer, my melodies suck. I can’t be a great painter, I’m sick and bedridden. I can’t be a great General, I drink far too much. We’d all be worse off.
The leadership coach, Jerry Colonna, says that all people are fractured. The magic isn’t our inherent talent, it’s in how we work around the gaps. Your stutter might make you a better listener. Your impatience might make you a faster decision-maker. Your anxiety might make you more prepared than anyone else in the room.
We often wait for our flaws to disappear before we start something important. But what if the very thing we’re trying to fix is the thing that will make us indispensable? |
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