The Magic of "I Think I Can"

 

The very first time I was invited to give a speech in my capacity as a trial consultant, to a large and very impressive (gulp!) group of lawyers, I was so terrified, die-hard introvert that I am, that I couldn't lift my eyes off the totally scripted pages of my speech. As I waited for my turn to speak, what kept going through my mind was a saying I learned as a toddler: "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," which, oddly enough, soothed me such that even though my eyes never connected with my audience, I made it through the ordeal. And like the little engine that could, I ended my day with "I can!"

For those of you who didn't have the benefit of the early children's classic, "The Little Engine That Could," it is where that saying comes from. I can't count how many times, to this day, the mantra of "I think I can" has pulled me through challenges both feared and hoped for. And it can do the same for you.

Like that promotion you want but can't summon the courage to ask for. Or that special someone you want to connect with, but are afraid to approach. Or that new hobby you want to try, but doubt you'll be any good at. As the marvelously successful Henry Ford once said: "If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right."

What positively damning words! We are truly our own worst enemies. Most of the time, that thing, whatever it is, that we don't think we can do or be or have, could be ours, in some fashion, some way, if we but go for it. Yet we stop ourselves from thinking that we can't be, do, or have whatever it is--so we never try.

How very sad.

Life is for the living of it! "I think I can" goes a long way toward supporting us in whatever might thrill us. Try it. You might surprise yourself. I know I did!

(Photo--Text: Watty Piper, Illustrations: Lois Lenski - Print Magazine)

It’s All About ‘Tude

Dr. Joshua Miele

I was having a pity party the day before a Ballroom Dance Competition. It was hot, I was tired, my legs were sore, we hadn’t rehearsed enough, I’d never remember all my steps, and on and on. I was being such a grump even my dogs were avoiding me. Fine. I can take a hint.

I settled on the couch and looked through some good-feel websites, hoping to get myself in a better place. I did more than that. I found a sensational source of positive inspiration, in the person of Dr. Joshua Miele, who at all of four years old, was burned and blinded by acid in a most unfortunate event, yet went on to create an extraordinary life for himself – and others. Dr. Miele has devoted his career to inventing ways for vision-impaired and other disabled people to navigate through life without bumping into obstacles and facing innumerable issues in the course of their day-to-day. Now, at 53, married with children, Dr. Miele is a Principal Accessibility Researcher with Amazon! He is charged with developing ways to make Amazon’s many products accessible to all, a job he relishes.

So much for my pity party! Dr. Miele speaks of never having considered himself a victim. He doesn’t think of himself as a walking tragedy, either. Just as someone who has had something happen that needed to be dealt with. His attitude is what fueled his desire to achieve a happy and successful life and by doing that he can help others do the same.

Attitude! It truly is what makes the difference. It’s not what happens to us, but how we respond to it that determines how any given event impacts our lives. Dr. Miele’s story reminded me once again, how much more important it is for us to mind our response than it is to moan and groan over the whatever. It’s irrelevant whether the event was traumatic or – like my pre-competition whining – simply annoying, our willingness to adopt a forward-looking, solution-oriented attitude can make all the difference between finding happiness versus dwelling in misery.  

I got myself up off that couch, strapped on my dancing shoes, and practiced my routines for the umpteenth time, only now with renewed hope and enthusiasm. With a panting audience of two happy dogs once again in attendance.

 

The Problem Isn’t The Problem

 

The problem isn’t the problem. You read that correctly. Really. The problem isn’t the problem: the problem is when we forget to focus on the solution.

 

Take Ben Lovell, for example, a 42-year-old Englishman whose right leg was amputated due to a life-threatening blood clot in 2017. He went through it all: suicidal thoughts, depression, PTSD, the works. And then Ben figured out it wasn’t serving him to focus on the problem, namely lack of leg and his inability to walk for more than 20 minutes at a time.

 

So Ben started working on the solution. For him, it was two-fold. First, Ben created AmpCamp, a fitness boot camp for fellow amputees, which given that prior to his amputation, Ben’s fitness consisted mainly of getting off the couch to stroll down to his local pub, was already a feat. Secondly, Ben decided to climb England’s three highest peaks – he who had never climbed a mountain in his life – and did so this year in 27 hours. Again, despite the inability to walk more than 20 minutes at a go.

 

In other words, Ben stopped obsessing on the problem, lack of leg and all it entailed, and turned his mind, heart and body 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Which brought him success, purpose, and fulfillment. Not bad!

 

Now you don’t need to lose a limb or have anything else as drastic to occur in your life to re-focus from whatever your problem is to tracking down a solution. It doesn’t matter whether the problem is as minor as traffic or a bad hair day, or as major as an ailing child or loss of a job. Whatever the problem is, it won’t disappear or be resolved by staring at it.

 

Your best bet, in all situations, is to follow Ben’s most excellent example. Resolutely turn yourself from groaning about the problem to figuring out a solution. Or several.

 

You can do this. Yes, you can.

 

“The Lion King” and “Aladdin” Get the Best of a LaGuardia Situation

Travel delays are never fun, but from time to time they are bound to happen. You can’t expect the weather to cooperate every time you fly, and better they should repair those mechanical issues before you fasten your seat belt.

I’ve learned to take a deep breath, chill, remind myself it’s not the end of the world, and then look for a way to appreciate whatever extra time I’m now spending in the airport. Reading always works for me, so does getting in some phone-chat time with girlfriends, or cleaning out my inbox if all else fails.

But recently, the Broadway cast members of “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” took appreciating your unanticipated down-time in an airport to a whole new level. During their six-hour weather delay in New York’s LaGuardia Airport, they had a sing-off! It was truly an extraordinary event, captured on someone’s phone, and uploaded to YouTube [https://youtu.be/6ajHZWDP_Vk].

What a choice these cast members made! Rather than bemoan the hot, crowded conditions of the airport, rather than complain endlessly about what the delay meant to their plans, or how bored they were, or anything else, they turned to what they could value in that moment, they started singing. First one, then another, then the whole cast of “The Lion King” joined in to sing songs from their award-winning show. Whereupon the “Aladdin” cast responded with their songs--including an amazing free-style rap by James Inglehart, who plays the Genie in the show.

Not only did the cast members of these shows counter the potentially adverse effects of negativity on their well-being, they uplifted everyone within earshot in that airport! You can see the smiles on other passengers’ faces as their mood changed from “Oy ve” to “Hurrah”! Because everyone was in the same weather-delay boat; it took deliberate, conscious focus to switch from ain’t-it-awful to better thoughts and feelings. Something the cast members accomplished with ease.

Contrast this with the behavior I witnessed a few weeks prior at another airport. My flight was mechanical-issue delayed for three hours, then canceled entirely. We were transferred to a different flight, which meant another delay of about two hours. OK, such is life. Finally, we were in line to board our designated aircraft, just waiting for the previous passengers to get off the plane, and the few minutes required for the cleaning crew to do their thing.

A man standing at the head of our line was vigorously complaining to the ground attendant in charge of taking our boarding passes about how long it was taking the previous passengers to deplane. How he’d had it with all this waiting, and what a horrible airline this was, and what horrible service. There was more of course. I stood there, with my jaw dropped. Here the airline had kept us safe (off a plane not fit to fly), found us seats on another flight, we were about to board, and the man was first in line. It was probably one of the finest examples of complete lack of appreciation I have ever seen. At the very least, the man could have valued his position at the front of the line, and appreciated the fact that he only had another ten minutes, tops, to wait before getting to his seat.

I don’t even want to know what that man’s heart condition is like. What I do know, is that those Broadway cast members, with their ability to switch their focus to what they could appreciate, what they could do--sing!--as opposed to what they couldn’t do (get on a plane right then) had their hearts not only in the right place for the joy they brought themselves and everyone else in that airport, but also in the very best place for their long-term health and vitality.

    Now don’t you wish you’d had that travel delay?!