We all love to see the light in someone when they are in their calling. Every Friday night, my youngest son and I crawl in my bed and we watch something together. Last night, we ended up crying over someone we have never met.
There was a boy competing in America Ninja Warrior who has a rare disease. His body cannot convert food into energy, so he is hooked to a feeding tube twenty hours a day. He can't eat anything by mouth, which leaves him with only four hours unhooked, and in those four hours he trains ninja style in his backyard. The beauty of his story is that he decided a long time ago that his circumstances were not going to be the thing that determined what was possible for him.
By the time he got to the course, Jr and I were holding hands and praying out loud, “please let him make it.” And when he hit that buzzer, we cried. The kind of tears that come when you have just witnessed something true about what a person is capable of. We felt it for him, in our bodies, from a bed hundreds of miles away.
You could actually not know someone and still have their performance bring you to tears. That's when you know you are feeling their spirit. And it made me think about how the human spirit is visible. You can see it. You can feel it coming off of someone when they are fully alive in what they are doing, and it moves other people without a single word being said.
That boy's spirit was so visible because of the one thing I have built my entire life's work around. His belief about who he was had nothing to do with his circumstances. Most people let their circumstances write the story of what is available to them. He did not. He didn't look at the feeding tube and the twenty hours and the rare disease and conclude that people like him do not get to be ninja athletes. He took the four hours he had and he went all in, because in his mind he was already the kid who hits the buzzer, and he was simply moving toward what he already knew was true about himself…. (crying again! his belief in himself is so profound!)
That is everything I teach compressed into one boy on an obstacle course.
Your circumstances are not your identity. Your identity is what you believe about who you are, and that belief is what determines what you actually do, which is what creates the results everyone else can see.
And the part that made it beautiful beyond just his own win was that while he was doing the thing he loved, refusing to let his circumstances limit him, he was helping everyone watching believe a little more in themselves.
That is what happens when someone lets their spirit lead. It gives other people permission to do the same. Jr felt it. I felt it. Thousands of people watching felt it. You have that same spirit. Every single person does. The only question is whether you are letting your circumstances write your story, or whether you have decided, like that boy did, that who you are was never up to anyone else, but you.
It's all possible.
If you believe it is.
I do.
ps. that photo above is Joseph (Jr) and I on the ferris wheel in Seattle. Everytime we go, we conquer our heights fear and get on it anyway! and pss.. we have a new family member! Meet Leo, our Great Dane puppy who joined our family this week. It took a few days for us to know his name, but at 8 weeks old he already had a hernia surgery and infections from the breeder conditions he was in. Leo comes from the Lion heart he definitely has. Here he is!
FOR THE LEADERS IN THE ROOM
You can feel the human spirit in an organization the same way you can feel it in a person. It's the difference between a team that is going through the motions and a team that is genuinely connected in what they are building. This is when you feel “part of the mission” versus only doing your job description and quietly quitting each day.
The thing most leaders miss is that this energy is not created by perks or mission statements. It's created by whether people believe that what they contribute matters and that they are capable of more than their current circumstances suggest. When a leader can see potential in their people that they cannot yet see in themselves, and reflect it back to them, something comes alive that no strategy can manufacture.
That is leadership at the identity level, and it's the most powerful lever you have. That is the work I do with senior teams, let's talk. Reply to this email or learn more about my leadership advisory firm HERE.