What is your worth?

How many times have you ended up in restaurants to enjoy the surroundings and the ambiance more than the food in itself? I have. I have been to Marrakesh in D.C. which serves authentic Moroccan food which I consider it decent but more than the food, I like the atmosphere of the place, the way food is served and how the group who goes to the restaurant eats from the same plate using hands. Of course you will get your cutlery on request, but the fact that you get to eat from the same plate and using your hands in a different experience by itself. I also like the belly dancing that they perform in the restaurant as a part of entertainment. Will I go there again sometime in the future? Yes. But if someone takes just the food and serves it to me regularly just as any other restaurant, will I consider going back. Maybe not. It was for the atmosphere that I went for not for the food.

Why did I mention what I did above? I am not discussing dining in this blog but I just used it to prove a point that the atmosphere or the setting matters for any product or service offered. I was reading an article about Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made, against a bare wall outside the Metro at the L’Enfant Plaza station. This was an experiment that was set up by Washington Post in January of this year to see if the talent was recognized and people proved his worth in the outside atmosphere.

As expected by me, the crowd paid no heed. He hardly made a collection of $32 and change from an hour that he played on a cold morning during rush hour at the metro. 1,070 people passed by him and only seven stopped to listen to his music for a minute or to and twenty seven threw in some tips in the open case of his violin he had kept in front of him. When he performs in the Symphony Hall, the hall is packed and the decent seats are sold for $100. But when the maestro performs on the street, no one pays much attention. Was his music any less than what he played in the Symphony Hall? No. It is the same person, same violin, same music, except the place was different. Where was performing in the Symphony Hall and where is standing in the metro and playing?

I am sure we are all enthralled to meet the super stars – may it be from movies or from the music world. How many times we attend a performance by such stars and we keep waving our hands from amongst the crowd to get their attention with a hope that you will be the one to be called upon to perform for a minute or two with the star. But when the same star happens to pass by you in a crowd, walking without glamor or make-up, you fail to recognize them. The locale, situation and the venue matters for anything that is offered. There is always a right time, right place and a right atmosphere for anything to happen. It does not matter how talented you are, unless you are amid the right crowd, like the idiom goes “it falls on deaf ears”.