I want to preface this post with the promise that there will be bead pics posted here tomorrow. So if you're wanting to see my beads, they're not here today. :)
I picked up this book --> Outliers in the Newark airport two weeks ago on my way back home. I thought it was well written and it made me think a lot more about the cultures in which we are raised, whether the country of our ancestors plays into account or economic status. The author Malcom Gladwell made compelling arguments for both, backing up his theories with historical examples of successful people in our history. Some lesser known individuals from Jewish lawyers at the turn of the century to Bill Gates to Korean pilots turning their legacy from those with the most crashes to the least.
This weekend I was visiting my Dad and I was telling him about this book and we got into a bit of a debate over the theories behind success. One of them in the book covered a series of serendipitous events. For Bill Gates, it was that he was born in the right year and city and surrounded by the right group of mothers who contributed to building a computer lab in his high school and being within walking distance of Washington University among other things which led to the magic number of 10,000 hours of computer programming before he became a computer genius. Or the Beatles, who caught their break with a gig performing in a strip club in Hamburg for 8 hours a night for weeks on end which ultimately gave them the practice they needed to become a well-oiled machine singing and playing their hearts out before they were 'discovered.'
My Dad believes that it doesn't matter where Bill Gates was born, he would have created the opportunities needed to become successful in computer programming and later building a great software company. I argued with him that not everyone gets such lucky breaks and brought up Chris Langan, who is also discussed in this book as being the quite possibly the world's smartest man. He had a series of equally similar bad breaks that seem to have prevented him from climbing the ladder of success. Since our discussion, I have thought more about my own upbringing and how that has impacted me.
One of the books I remember reading over and over as a child was the The Little Engine That Could. I haven't read it nearly enough to my own children, but I repeated one of the lines this weekend on a golf cart ride as it seemed we would not be able to climb a hill and the golf cart moved so slow it seemed it would stop before reaching the crest of the hill. "I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!" And then we reached the stop and started sailing down. So I followed it up with "I thought I could! I thought I could! I thought I could!"
I realized that my Mom gave me one of the best gifts ever. Not just with reading this book to me repeatedly as a child, but in other conversations as I grew up. She always believed in me and instilled a belief that I could accomplish whatever I set my mind to. Sure, there are other things that reinforced that throughout my young years, but they were all situations that required a lot of work and when they paid off, I was able to say "I thought I could." In the summer before I started 8th grade, I went to Space Camp for a week in Huntsville, Alabama. I was terrified of being by myself, away from my parents and not knowing any of the other kids who went. I was homesick and cried myself to sleep each night. Before it was over, I also had to give a presentation on rocket boosters to an auditorium filled with over 200 kids and adults. I don't remember if I did it flawlessly, but I got through it. I think it is one of the things that just reinforced I could do anything I set my mind to. Although, I may have also been so young that I didn't know to be scared of talking in front of so many people. Either way, as an adult I don't have a problem speaking in front of others now.
As an adult, I don't think I am largely successful. I'm not a gazillionaire like Bill Gates. I'm not the top lampworking Twitterer on the internet. I'm only middle management at the phone company. I dropped out of Taekwondo for a second time and I don't exercise like I should. Nor am I a particularly phenomenal photographer. Yet I get comments from friends and strangers on my blog or in emails saying "I don't know how you do it all." I work full-time, I will be celebrating 11 years of marriage next month and 11 years with my company this month. I try my best to make the right decisions as a mom for my two kids and raise them with self-esteem, but also with accountability to be responsible and kind. I have become a shoddy blogger this year and fail to find the time on my torch that I used to. Life is busy and getting in the way of my hobbies and goals, but I'm okay with that. I keep telling myself "I think I can, I think I can" and take tiny steps toward my goals.
When my kids OR my friends tell me that they think they can't, I tell them to be a little kinder to themselves and that I believe they can do whatever they want. I hope that sinks in with my kids, although I think some of my friends tend to tune me out. I think encouragement is so important and that it does make a HUGE difference in how well each of us can do. I am so excited when I hear about my friends attaining their goals or exceeding what they never thought was possible. Not just excited for them, but it is an indirect reinforcement for me that if I keep trying I will reach my own goals.
So with this long wordy post, I want to ask you two questions.
1) What goals are you reaching for that might seem impossible now?
and
2) What have you done that you never thought you could?
