An aspiring entrepreneur made a poignant comment in a recent conversation.
“I can only do it,” he said, “if I know it’s going to be successful.”
My first reaction to this was amusement. If course we don’t know that a new venture is going to be successful. Nobody can tell the future. But then, when I reflected on this idea more deeply, I came away with a different view.
Read More“I have a hard time talking to new people,” says a seventh grader. “I have social anxiety.”
“I’m such a procrastinator,” says another. “I know what I’m supposed to do, but I will avoid it until the last possible moment. I feel terrible about it.”
It’s not a bad thing that this generation of kids is very self-aware. It beats the cluelessness of my own cohort -- we didn’t have the Internet to help us figure out what was going on or find people who shared and validated our weird traits. But I worry sometimes that all the labels these adolescents give themselves will prevent them from seeing that they always have the possibility of changing their habits and disrupting their patterns, even if their personality remains fixed.
Read MoreIf you have watched the Hamilton movie on Disney Plus — or were lucky enough to see it in person before the world shut down — you might appreciate seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance of an early version of the musical’s opener, “Alexander Hamilton,” at the White House back in 2009.
Already a seasoned performer, the twenty-nine-year-old Miranda channels his nervous energy into his rapping and singing, creating that magical feedback loop between soloist, accompanist, and audience, elevating the moment and getting everyone on board with something entirely new. At the same time, you can see that the concept is not fully formed, and the piece is definitely not polished. It’s a high-wire act, with all the danger that implies, and Miranda, with the support of Alex Lacamoire, just barely managed to make it to the other side.
Read MoreI’ve had the privilege of helping many people to prepare for sensitive or challenging conversations.
We talk about how to set the tone, how to make sense of the situation to potentially create a win-win, and how to stand your ground.
Then they ask, “Well, then what will she say? And what will I say next?” But we’re not writing a script. We’re getting ready for an interaction that can go virtually anywhere from its starting point.
Read MoreI came across a plaintive blog post by a struggling entrepreneur. “God,” she said to the Internet, “Why won’t you send your blessings to my business?”
Yesterday, I wrote about how we can succeed with something if we stick with it and refuse to entertain the possibility that we don’t have what it takes. But that’s about our own skill and persistence. We run into trouble when we think we can control what other people do if we just try hard enough or show up long enough…and if that is the case, controlling the actions of an almighty deity would seem to be to be off the menu as well.
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