Heifetz Quotes & Sayings

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach. — Jascha Heifetz

Something looked through my grandfather's eyes. It said Being an accountant, it's not the end of the world.
Something looked at my Uncle Danny. Something looked at my aunts and it said A secretary, is that so terrible?
Linda had seen four before her do something that was not so terrible and already there was something about them, their whole lives ahead of them and the best thing cut off, as if something that might have been a Heifetz had been walled up inside an accountant and left to die.
Doom. Doom. Doom. — Helen DeWitt

To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of "getting on the balcony" above the "dance floor" to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening. — Ronald A. Heifetz

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the 'song beneath the words. — Ronald A. Heifetz

If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it. — Jascha Heifetz

I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Your silence creates a vacuum for others to fill The key is to stay present and keep listening. The silence of holding steady is different from the silence of holding back. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me. — Jascha Heifetz

No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that wish you were on the other side. — Jascha Heifetz

He once told a reporter he wanted his obituary to be short - "just make it born in Russia, first lesson at 3, debut at 7, debut in America in 1917". — Jascha Heifetz

When people come to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken the longest stride forward since the beginning of time. — Jascha Heifetz

The great mystery isn't that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn't play the trumpet very well. — Peter Drucker

Conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference. — Ronald A. Heifetz

The zenith of virtuosity, a violinist like Jascha Heifetz, the supernatural in a pianist like Vladimir Horowitz, these are performers who were so idiosyncratic and personal that to imitate them would be like filling somebody else's bottle with your wine. — David Finckel

Leadership is a difficult practice personally because it almost always requires you to make a challenging adaptation yourself. What makes adaptation complicated is that it involves deciding what is so essential that it must be preserved going forward and what of all that you value can be left behind. Those are hard choices because they involve both protecting what is most important to you and bidding adieu to something you previously held dear: a relationship, a value, an idea, an image of yourself. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color. — Jascha Heifetz

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
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When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play — Ronald A. Heifetz

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven. — Jascha Heifetz

If the Almighty himself played the violin, the credits would still read 'Rubinstein, God, and Piatigorsky', in that order. — Jascha Heifetz

Your inspiration taps hidden reserves of promise that sustain people through times that induce despair. You enable people to envision a future that sustains the best from their past while also holding out new possibilities. — Ronald A. Heifetz

But to practice leadership, you need to accept that you are in the business of generating chaos, confusion, and conflict — Ronald A. Heifetz

You cannot expect people to seriously consider your idea without accepting the possibility that they will challenge it. Accepting that process of engagement as the terrain of leadership liberates you personally. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Yesterday's adaptations are today's routines. — Ronald A. Heifetz

You stay alive in the practice of leadership by reducing the extent to which you become the target of people's frustrations. The best way to stay out of range is to think constantly about giving the work back to the people who need to take responsibility. Place the work within and between the factions who are faced with the challenge, and tailor your interventions so they are unambiguous and have a context. — Ronald A. Heifetz

The discipline of practice every day is essential. When I skip a day, I notice a difference in my playing. After two days, the critics notice, and after three days, so does the audience. — Jascha Heifetz

Exercising leadership is an expression of your aliveness ... But when you cover yourself up, you risk losing something as well. In the struggle to save yourself, you can give up too many of those qualities that are the essence of being alive, like innocence, curiosity, and compassion. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Most people instinctively follow a dominant trend in an organization or community, without critical evaluation of its merits. The herd instinct is strong. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Worry not that your child listens to you; worry most that they watch you. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Stay diagnostic even as you take action. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Values are shaped and refined by rubbing against real problems, and people interpret their problems according to the values they hold. — Ronald A. Heifetz

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something - a belief, a value, a behavior - that they hold dear. People can stand only so much change at any one time. — Ronald A. Heifetz

It's WA today, Minna," called Orson from across the room, Orson's name for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Orson played second violin with a sloppy serenity, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue, his bowing long and sweeping and beautiful even when out of tune. "If you must make a mistake," he had quoted, "make it a big one." Was it Heifetz who had said it? Perlman? Zukerman maybe? — Patricia MacLachlan

What happened has hurt us. Now you have to work this out. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Exercising adaptive leadership is about giving meaning to your life beyond your own ambition. — Ronald A. Heifetz

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it. — Zubin Mehta

The improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect template. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Your behavior reflects your actual purposes. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Attention is the currency of leadership. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves. — Ronald A. Heifetz

If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Mental health professionals have said for a long time that individuals cannot adapt well to too many life changes at once. If you suffer a loss in the family, change jobs, and move all within a short time, the chances are your own internal stability may break down, or show signs of serious strain. — Ronald A. Heifetz

What people resist is not change per se, but loss. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Practice like it means everything in the world to you. Perform like you don't give a damn. — Jascha Heifetz

And leadership then is about mobilizing and engaging the people with the problem rather than trying to anesthetize them so you can go off and solve it on your own. — Ronald A. Heifetz

I have discovered three things which know no geographical borders - classical music, American jazz, and applause as the sign of the public's favor. — Jascha Heifetz