YOU FILL IN THE BLANKS
Remember the word game Mad Libs you played as a kid? The premise was pretty simple. You were given a story filled with empty fill-in-the-blank spaces, and your job was to choose random words for specific parts of speech - a noun, a verb, or whatever - to complete each sentence. How you chose to fill in the blanks determined the story you ultimately created.
In many ways, each of us are still playing an advanced version of that childhood game in the important areas of life and performance here today. I don’t know where exactly it is you’re working to win, but I do know that your story will be filled with all kinds of unknowns - ups and downs, highs and lows, celebrations and frustrations. Ultimately you are the one responsible for giving each of those moments their meaning, and for determining how they define the narrative in your head. How you choose to fill in the blanks determines the story you ultimately create.
That responsibility - and the opportunity that comes with it - really speaks to the power of our perspective. The famous American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau famously said that “it’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.” Thoreau was highlighting the fact that two people can look at the exact same experience in life, and yet see that experience completely differently. Stop and consider some of those unexpected moments that are a part of any winning pursuit - including probably yours - and the different options that are available for how we choose to fill in the blanks.
Let's say you and I have both been forced to wait in order to get something we really want. While I see the opportunity to bail, you see the need to get better. We both went all in on our performance, and failed. While I see evidence that I don’t have what it takes, you see feedback that can help you improve. That thing that happened was totally unfair. While I see it as an opportunity to become the victim, you see it as an opportunity to win anyways. Neither of us feel like doing the work today. While I see the chance to take the day off, you see the chance to demonstrate some discipline. The problem we’ve been facing persists again today. While I see it as the reason we can’t have success, you see it as the price that success requires us to pay.
There are a number of ways those we consider champions are unique and set apart, but I’m not sure any of them are more paramount than perspective. Champions have a way of seeing things differently - especially the challenges and adversity that are a part of their winning pursuit - and that perspective changes not only how they think about those unexpected moments, but more importantly, how they respond to them. Champions in any area of life recognize that it’s not what they look at that matters, but what they choose to see.
That’s the part about perspective that I really want to highlight here today, because that’s the part that really provides the power. I’m talking about the fact that for each of us, including you here today, perspective is a choice. If you want to see every obstacle as an opportunity to bail or every unfairness as a reason to fail? That’s up to you. But if you want to see those obstacles as an opportunity to validate who you are and just how worthy you are of winning? If you want to accept that unfairness as a necessary part of the big, important thing you're pursuing? Then you have the power to choose that story, too. Ultimately, you are the one responsible for giving each of those moments their meaning, and for determining how they define the narrative in your head. Just like when you were a kid, how you choose to fill in the blanks determines the story you ultimately create.
