Embracing The Yet Mindset...Yet Again

My fingers were clenched and full of chalk as I stared at the rock climbing problem in front of me. My right knee was turning black and blue from the many failed attempts. “I can’t climb it,” I said, barely audible, unaware that people were even listening.

“Yet,” said the teenage boy to my right. I looked over at him, wondering how long he’d been standing there. He continued, “Whenever you feel like you can’t do something, just add the word ‘yet’ to the sentence.”

And so I did what probably made me look like a madman. I laughed. Then I told him he was right.

I’m constantly amazed at the wisdom children can possess. Here I am, a 35-year old man whose entire career has essentially been in motivating people... and I’m schooled by a teenager whose simple lama sage wisdom helped me realize my own limited thinking.

I'm reminded now of this lesson as our world is starting to open back up. The heartbreak of those lost remains fresh on our hearts. Fear is prevalent every time we hear a cough. And the unknown of when another outbreak may occur is in the back of our minds.

Yet...we're doing it. We're coming back together. We're re-engaging in this new world of work. We are birthing into a whole new way of being and doing. We just may not be that good at it...yet.

Because here’s the thing. We only have so much time here on this earth, and it’s up to us on how we want to use that time. Moreover, this pandemic has brought with it an opportunity to fix the broken systems of yesterday by starting anew.

If you’re like me, you want to laugh as much as possible, help as many people as you can, and suck out all the marrow of life, as Thoreau put it.

I want to have real meaningful impact in my work. And perhaps you do too. But working to make an impact in the world means constantly pushing ourselves to do things that challenge our skillsets, some of which may drive us to say, “I can’t.”

To do that, we need to develop and maintain a limitless mindset. That's why I'm adding the word “yet” to my daily lexicon yet again — right up there with “please”, “thank you” and "remember the face masks."

It’s going on my screensaver, on little Post-it notes I paste on the refrigerator, and I'm even thinking of creating a coffee cup with the word “Yet” on it so every time I take a sip, I’ll be reminded of this teenager's wisdom.

Yet, yet, yet. That’s a three-letter word that I’m going to be using a lot more in the future, and perhaps you will too. Just remember that it wasn’t me who said it. We have a starry-eyed young rock climber to thank for the reminder.