Your mind’s active focus and awareness guides you to notice and achieve
Intention is the starting point to anything.
When we intend to start a business, for instance, we might start thinking about it. We imagine possibilities. Then suddenly, wham, some strange coincidence happens — a guy shows up at a party who has the perfect connection to help us.
Sometimes we think of such things happening in our life as “circumstance” or good luck. Many of us can look back over our lives and see a moment or two where we had the big break that seemed to change our course.
But, we govern these circumstances more than we might think…
Training to hit that sweet spot — engaged, focused, excited, a bit nervous—that puts you at the top of your game
You step out into the stadium, stage, auditorium, conference hall — in front of an audience of 1,000, 20,000, or two million. What will you do? How will it go? How will you harness your mind at this moment?
You walk to work, sit at your desk, open your mind. Today you strategize one of the big ideas of your life that transforms your business and takes your thinking in a new direction. How does your mind come up with the answer you’ve been seeking for so long?
The more I conduct (and the more I think about how we…
When I’m conducting an orchestra that’s hurtling at breakneck speed, I can’t make a mistake or there will be a train wreck.
Orchestras are powerful, spontaneous, glittering sound machines. They produce extraordinary performance with relatively little preparation. In fact, many top professional orchestras rehearse on average for four rehearsals before a concert, in some situations as little as one rehearsal, and often they find themselves reading music on sight and producing excellence in the moment.
I conduct these orchestras, and time is big money for those who hire us. Every moment counts. A film orchestra records music at top form and top efficiency to make it within budget. …
“Lead and let go” to transform the potential of your team.
Leadership is about being the fuel and the fire — creating a spark and lighting your team into motion. It’s about infusing and communicating purpose — so that it is what compels your team’s greatest passions and interests and brings them together in a common quest. And I learned as a conductor, that sometimes it’s about letting them play and standing back to enjoy the performance.
True leadership is a unique combination of actively leading and inspiring direction while, at other times, being a conduit for your organization’s own will to shine through.
As an orchestra conductor, if I get…
How music can help every child grow into a happy and successful adult
As an orchestra conductor, I can attest to how music has empowered my brain and changed my life.
I started out as a simple kid growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan and through music I learned the potential that I didn’t know I had.
Music is invaluable to children in many ways — brain development and growth is a major one, but there are so many other empowering ways that music will change your child’s life now and for the future.
Whether your child is a budding scientist, contractor, teacher, doctor, entrepreneur, or professional hockey player, they will have…
Be a better parent by creating an empathetic relationship with more listening and less conflict
I’m blessed with two boys, both teenagers. (I don’t always feel blessed about the teenager part). I made the mistake once of encouraging my oldest son to join the debate team in his school, and now I’m paying the price. Every conversation that we have about responsibilities, manners, work ethic, or morality goes into this debate mode of high combat, and he seems all too successful at rebuttal.
With this son, I have the sense that he’s a sleeping giant. If he’s mostly going in the right direction, it’s best to try to leave him to maneuver on his own…
Performance is motion. As a leader, you’re a catalyst for this motion.
Performance is motion.
If you’re a leader, you’re a catalyst for this motion — sometimes a guide, often a teacher, many times an observer.
When I walk out onto the stage and stand on the podium in front of an orchestra, I’m excited. I bow to the audience and turn around, glancing over the sea of musicians’ faces ready to play, feeling like an awkward dance partner. The energy is intense and the anticipation is slightly torturous. It’s hot under the lights.
Starting anything is tough — starting something creative like writing, performing a concerto, starting the race. I look…
And tap into your spontaneous, creative mind more often
Some days, writing is like climbing a sand dune. We work and rework, but we can’t gain traction and frustratingly our words and ideas seep away from under us.
Sometimes, though, when we sit down to write, our ideas flow out of a higher state that combines our thought, reading and imagination into one flowing moment. We transcend our normal day-today struggle and connect to a flurry of inspiration that surprises and amazes us. This is a performance.
I’m an orchestra conductor. I’ve conducted concerts that transform and take us “beyond”, and also, as a writer, I’ve experienced the fleeting…
Transform your mind’s potential while bringing yourself more peace.
When I started my career as a conductor, I thought the only way to achieve success was to do 10,000 things all at once. I was newly married, starting a new job with lots of conducting, administration and pressure. Soon after, I started a family. Travelling every other week, it didn’t seem possible to manage everything. I prided myself on multi-tasking and working long into the night.
Fast forward a few years, and I realize now that whatever I was overachieving in action took away from what I could have achieved mentally and creatively.
When we are committed — there…
Life empowering aspects of music education that will change every child’s success in life
When children perform music they interact with the complex language of music — breaking down rhythms, reading notes and making a myriad of physical actions and mental decisions in flowing, unstopping time.
Music’s complexity connects children’s brains in an extraordinary simultaneous interconnection process. And this is exactly what optimizes their young brain’s potential as they develop! The human brain is capable of processing many different experiences and kinds of information all at once. …
Tania Miller
Orchestra conductor, writer. Performance, mind, leadership and how music teaches the art of living. taniamiller.com
