Could you increase your success by building more silence into your days?

Perhaps somewhere along the way you've heard the story of Beethoven's deafness. From the age of 30, the already hugely accomplished composer began going slowly deaf, until by the age of 45 he was plunged into complete silence and, his biographer reports, a period of despair.

Eventually, though, armed solely with the music in his head, Beethoven was able to write his late career masterworks, including the revolutionary Ninth Symphony.