Why do I give? Giving for me is a natural response of my heart. I love to give, be it of my time, money, talent, resources or personal relationships.

To understand what motivates me to give, it is helpful to understand what brought me to a place of giving. Understand that giving was not something that I was taught or raised with. As with so many of my generation, I was raised and taught to seek, gain and accumulate and once I had done that, to seek, gain and accumulate more. It was this self-serving philosophy with which I was raised that defined what success was alleged to be. That is, the more I had the greater my success would be.

This proved not to be the case for when I did gain much quickly I still found myself to be an individual with an empty heart. I would suppose I had some measure of success but I had a great sense of insignificance in my heart. Once I understood that success in a material sense brings no great fulfillment of the heart, I searched elsewhere and found the key to success: significance. Significance comes only from investing in the lives of other people and especially those less fortunate. This great principal of life was astutely taught to me one night many years ago in San Francisco.

On a cold wintery February night in San Francisco many years ago, a very famous and prominent concert artist friend of mine took me to an AIDS hospice in the bleakest part of town where he performed a brilliant concert of Debussy and Beethoven for ten people who were in the advanced stages of AIDS. He performed on a baby grand piano that was missing strings and that someone had painted green. The piano sounded terrible. I was horrified at the circumstances in which my great friend found himself. After all, this was one of the world's great concert artists who had performed in the major music capitals of the world to rave reviews and surely, I thought, this environment was well beneath him.

As I sat in the back of the room and watched my friend perform, I noticed that he performed with more passion and played longer than he had the night before during which he had joined me in a private estate concert for some of the wealthiest and most distinguished personalities in Northern California in a beautiful and exclusive private estate. After his performance for his small and sickly audience in the hospice, he asked the ten people who were in the last stages of their lives to come as close as they could to the piano.

He then proceeded to share his life story with them and impart to them through his own life a message of hope and peace. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room and I will never forget how the audience of ten responded to him. The gratitude that they expressed was truly heartfelt and for just a moment in time, my friend made a great and profound difference in the world by giving these hopeless people hope. As we left and walked into the dark and damp San Francisco night, my great, famous, and much respected friend turned and looked at me and said, "That is what makes an artist. That is what being a great artist is all about. Never forget it". I never did.

I give only because I want to make a difference in the world. I do not seek recognition for what I give. I only want to do what I can to make a difference for the better because simply put, 100 years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, what kind of house I lived in or car I drove and nor will it matter how many concerts I performed or albums recorded. But you know, 100 years from now the world will be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a homeless mother and her children ... or the life of a sick child ... or simply put, I gave hope to a human being without hope.

The world will be a better place because I lived my life meeting the needs of those less fortunate than myself. I have learned that the degree to which I am successful is equal to the degree that I am significant in the lives of other people and that significance is found in giving into the lives of other people and partnering with those who are making an effort to meet the needs of the hopeless.

It is this compelling desire to leave my mark of hope on the world that takes me into prisons, hospitals, retirement homes and homeless shelters to share my music and life. One night I may be in an exclusive private estate with a distinguished audience and the next night I might be in a prison. I tell you that often times I think the concert in the prison accomplished more than the concert in the estate.

I often think of what Ken Nagano, one of the great conductors once said, "The purpose of music is to share". I believe this. I perform to share and not to impress. I believe with my whole heart that the very basic purpose of my life is to share. I want to be remembered not as a great classical guitarist, not as a wealthy man or someone who was well-known but rather, I want to be remembered as someone who was significant - significant in the lives of other people.

A very great man once said to me, "Christian, invest in those things which are eternal in nature. People last. They are eternal - invest in their hearts and lives". I did. I am. I will continue to do so for in that personal investing in others lives, I have discovered the true meaning of success.

In the final analysis, the measure of a man is found not in what he had. It is found in what he gave to others. The only things we keep for our eternity are those things we gave away to others.