Only a week after 10% of Bryant’s student population stormed the Harvard campus and filled up his concert hall, Benjamin Zander came to our home turf — Bryant University — for an “Evening of Ideas & Shining Eyes.”

I started the event with, “Let me explain how Benjamin Zander ended up in Smithfield, Rhode Island.” I started telling the story of our first phone call, but he grabbed the microphone and said, “Lauren, sit down.  I HAVE to finish this story.”  To the erupting laughter of the audience, I conceded!

Over the course of the evening, back and forth between the piano and the audience, Zander introduced three revolutionary concepts to the Bryant campus:

1) You can live in one of two worlds: the world of downward spirals or the world of radiating possibilities.

When you are trapped in downward spirals, everything is either a success or a failure. For example, our country’s educational system - either an A or an F. And what happens when you reach your A? Is that it? Is it only down from there?  Most of what we read in the newspapers, or see on TV, are downward spirals.  For example, “Sports… Survivor… The Apprentice… Paris Hilton telling you what she thinks about the world.”

However, over in the world of radiating possibilities, you don’t know WHAT’S going to happen!  You just know it’s going to be good.  Possibilities and opportunities radiate in every which way.  Instead of stopping for that “A” you create your own grade, outside the realm of traditional measurements.

2) In order to live in the latter world, you must be able to enroll others in your mission. The example he used was how we enrolled him to come speak at Bryant for free. “Usually people offer me a lot of money to come speak.  Lauren offered me nothing!”  Instead, I tried my best to show him all of the non-monetary value there was in coming to speak to so many passionate, entrepreneurial students.  Enroll others in your mission by opening up possibilities for them they didn’t even know were there.

3) THE FACTOR. Every single moment of your life you have a chance to be a leader.  To be a leader, you must open up possibilities for others that they never knew, nor imagined, were there.  Anyone can manage employees, but to continually and passionately open up possibilities for others is a skill worth admiring and emulating.

Having the factor simply means that you are not only living in the world of radiating possibilities, but are also actively enrolling others to join you.

The evening itself was an unforgettable moment in Bryant’s history of events and we deeply thank Benjamin Zander for transforming the mindset of tomorrow’s young leaders.

It all started on TED.com. Surfing through the videos (which – by the way – is like TV for interesting people) I came across Benjamin Zander, conductor for the Boston Philharmonic. Suddeny I was sitting in the TED audience, or so it felt like it.  Zander was captivating, inspiring, transformational. All the traits of a world-class speaker. However, not even the world’s best speaker can bring a room of 1,600 busy, influential people to their feet singing “Ode to Joy” like Zander can.  I decided then and there that I would somehow bring him to speak at my school.

Less than seven weeks later, Benjamin Zander and I had set a date for his presentation at Bryant. When I first called him, what did I hear on the other end? No secretary. No switchboard. No virtual assistant named “Julie” with a scary human-like conversational tone, apologizing for not understanding you. Just the same pleasant voice I had heard on TED -  Mr. Zander himself.

I’ll leave you to Google Zander’s speaker fee, but let’s just say you can probably buy yourself a generation of TED tickets with the same amount. However, as Zander said later, he heard “possibility” in my voice (which really equated to an excited, anxious college girl), that inspired him to say “yes.” This shows that Zander is truly in it for the mission. And let me tell you, his mission is a great one.

He only wanted one thing in return.

“Why don’t you bring some students to my concert in October? So they can see what we’re all about.”

“Sure, Mr. Zander!”

Soon thereafter, I met him in person at his home in Cambridge to discuss the event and logistical topics. Then he brought up the concert:

“You know, it’d be truly amazing if you got a couple hundred students to come to the concert! Imagine it! I guess this can be a test of entrepreneurialism.”

“Sure, Mr. Zander! 200 college students to a classical music concert in the middle of midterms? No problem!!”

Anything’s possible in the world of possibility, right?

Well, just six weeks later, we were loading five coach buses of college students, mid-mid-terms, to see a classical music concert conducted by a person they had virtually never heard of.

At the concert, we saw the amazing George Li, and of course Benjamin Zander in action.

As we filed in and slowly filled up Harvard’s Memorial Hall, Zander frantically ran in between and up to all the students, shaking their hands, personally welcoming them, even hugging my roommates!

When all was said and done, here is a student testimonial to describe the evening:

“Zander and his orchestra definitely reached out to a part of me that I didn’t even know existed. The emotion and passion each musician expressed radiated throughout the room and sparked something in me that made me want to find something to be that passionate about.” - Haley Trenholm, sophomore

Before the concert started, he spoke about Bryant, and how many students were in the concert hall. “This is my dream!” he exclaimed.

However, we hope he realizes that by giving us the opportunity to be part of such an incredibly eye-opening and unique experience, he was fulfilling our dreams.