Over at Presentation Zen they've got a post about Benjamin Zander, who's day job is as a conductor (with a particular fondness for Mahler) and who, outside of this, is simply an inspiration.
He is co-author of one of my all time favourite non-fiction books The Art of Possibility which I can't recommend highly enough. It's one of those books you go back to time and again to restore your humanity and pick you up.
(Another is Gordon Mackenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball.)