Contributed by Steve Goldberg
Derek Paravicini, with his music teacher and mentor Adam Ockelford
Derek Paravicini, a masterful musician, is blind with severe disabilities. He can’t tell his right hand from his left or hold anything but the simplest of conversations.
When Derek is playing the piano, however it’s hard to believe there is anything he can’t do. Derek is a musical savant, blessed with enormous talent.
Click here to view a segment of Derek in action on the show “60 Minutes”
The behind the scenes story was even more compelling for me. It’s about how his piano teacher, Adam Ockelford, first saw and recognized Derek’s potential. Derek literally crashed into Ockelford, in the middle of a lesson that he was giving. “Suddenly I felt a shove in the back. And he literally pushed me off the piano stool, and just started karate chopping the keyboard,” Ockelford remembered. “I thought he was mad, actually, ’cause it was just chaos of notes and hair and elbows but then suddenly I noticed out of all of that was coming ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.’ I thought, ‘he’s not mad at all. He’s brilliant.’”
The story made me think of the people in my life who saw my potential and believed in me.
My grandmother particularly comes to mind. She lived in our family home for 30 years and helped raise me. She was born in 1891 and passed away a month shy of her 100th birthday. Her most profound advise to me was to focus more on who and how I wanted to be in the world, rather than what I should do in the world.
She lived and believed that a good life came from having lots of varied experiences seasoned with living passionately and with moderation. For a hormonal, highly imaginative teen the passion part was easy to master, the moderation part took more discipline.
After leaving home and going off to college in the late 60’s she would send me weekly “thought” packages of clipping from various magazines and newspapers. Even though neither she nor I were particularly religious growing up, she once sent a news clipping quote that I’ve kept for more than 40 years. It reads,
“God’s gift to us is life.
What we do with our life is our gift back to God”
These words resonate with me almost daily.
Questions For Consideration
- Who in your life believed in you?
- What lessons did they share?
- How are you using these today?
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April 20, 2010 at 9:41 am
Dean Christy
Sometimes the wires get crossed. My parents supported me at everything I tried. I think out of respect and recognition of this I tried to make them proud of me by following paths that would bring them joy. By the time I finished high school all I wanted to be was an actor/performer but felt my parents would not think that was very responsible, so I tried almost everything else. I had some great successes (particularly in any position that involved performing (public speaking, seminar leader…) but still years later I still wanted to act. In all that time I never thought to ask my parents what they thought. On the morning that my father passed away, he turned to me and said “its funny, your Mom and I always thought you’d be an actor” . That lead to a great 12 years on stage and owning my own theatre company. We never made it big but it has been the highlight of my career. Who knows what would have happened if I had got the message earlier. I will always be thankful for those last thoughts of support.
April 19, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Bruce Elkin
Excellent video, Steve. Although I almost didn’t watch it because they way I read the sentence with the link, it seemed as if it would be 60 minutes long. I wonder if others did the same.
It is an astonishing video. The looks on Leslie Stall’s face were worth the watch, not to mention the piano player’s ability.
Thanks!
April 19, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Moderator
Oops, good point! Thanks Bruce. Changed the link a little.
April 19, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Heidi
My grandmother comes to mind as well. But her gift had little to do with words and advice; she simply loved me; and I felt that to my core, giving me a foundation for LIFE.