Many years ago, during a casual discussion with Eric, a former principal at a high school where I worked, I asked, “What’s something that you know that you cannot do?” To my surprise, he responded, “I don’t believe that there is anything that I can’t do.” Not only did I not expect that response, it landed hard.
I’ll be honest, my initial thought, which I kept to myself was, that’s kind of arrogant. Yes, I was judgy at first but his response stayed with me for days. It bothered me. It took up space in my head until I finally realized something. It wasn’t my belief that he was arrogant that bothered me. I was bothered that I didn’t think that way. I didn’t believe that there was nothing I could not do.
Turning the focus away from him and onto me, I wondered, why not? And down the rabbit hole I went! First I visited all the times in my life that I failed miserably. I opened the door labeled “unfinished” and viewed the half-starts I left behind. Then I moved on to the “failed miserably” door and took a good loooooong look. Not a pretty sight but…so purposeful! It occurred to me that this rabbit hole was my playground. Each unfinished plan was necessary in my journey and led to all the other doors labeled “successes” and “accomplishments.”
Let’s go back to Eric for a minute. In my time working with him I came to know his history quite well. Yes, he was an accomplished leader. Yes, he stayed the course and earned the degrees that qualified him for his position. Yes, he moved up the education hierarchy. Yes, he earned all of it. But so had I.
Then one day, while I was surveying the staff on where they went to college, Eric seemed hesitant when responding to my survey. And there it was…Eric had his own rabbit hole of failures and half-starts and unfinished doors.
Eric understood something that I didn’t. He understood the importance of mindset. Eric understood that the way we frame our experiences informs our beliefs.
This experience was a defining moment in my life that completely upended my belief system and changed me on a deep, deep level. From this point on, I internalized it. There is nothing that I cannot do. More importantly, I understood that what makes this a statement of humility vs. one of arrogance is knowing that I must be willing to put in the effort to do it. Everything is figureoutable when our desires and intentions align.
Path Forward Coaching 