#172: Why You Need to Have a Harp Role Model (or Be One)

We are the product of our influencers. The current wisdom says that if you want to know what a person is really like, look at their circle of friends. The thinking goes further to posit that if you want to elevate yourself, whether in your income, your fitness, your intellect or your spirituality, you need to associate with those who have the attributes you would like to develop. It’s not just that you adopt the habits and thoughts of the people you associate with; your brain patterns actually change.

In the 1950’s a Swarthmore College psychologist named Solomon Asch observed an interesting phenomenon. A group of volunteer subjects was asked to estimate the length of a straight black line drawn on a white card. Asch discovered that each person’s estimate was dependent on the estimation of everyone else in the group. People actually saw the line differently based on the opinion of the people with them.

Physiologically, the brain craves reward, which it receives when we have our own ideas or thoughts confirmed by the people around us. When our ideas are opposed to those around us, the pain center of the brain, the anterior insula, is activated. 

We could choose to remain silent and not express our different ideas. Our brain, however, is wired to change our ideas to conform with those around us. A network formed of the anterior insula and the medial frontal cortex registers the difference between our ideas and those of others as an error and becomes active to try to eliminate the difference. Fascinating and a little scary. Our brain is more active in adjusting our choices and our attitudes than we are aware.

This is why it is so important to choose your circle of friends wisely. This is also why it is important to choose your circle of harp friends, and your harp role models, wisely. 

Today, I will share the qualities that I think are important in a harp role model, starting with the qualities I admired in the harp role models I had early in my harp life and how they influenced me in ways I am only just beginning to realize. My hope is that this will help you discover more harp role models to inspire your harp life, and maybe even help you be a role model for other harpists yourself.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode: 

• Join a Harp Mastery® Retreat 
• Related resource Do You Have a Harp Hero? blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]