Limits – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

Sometimes the hardest limits aren’t what we believe we are…but what we’ve decided we’re not.

Leader: I’m hitting a wall. No matter how hard I try, something’s stuck.
Coach: Where?
Leader: Connecting with my direct reports. The one-on-one meetings. All the details. I’m just not wired for any of it.
Coach: You sure?
Leader: I’ve never been good at connection. I’m not super technical. I’m not touchy-feely. I’m not a detail person.
Coach: Sounds like you’ve got your “not” list down cold.
Leader: Isn’t that just self-awareness?
Coach: Could be. Or maybe you’re protecting yourself with that list.
Leader: I’m not trying to be someone I’m not.
Coach: Are you avoiding someone you could become? What if the growth you’ve been chasing is on the other side of “I’m not”?
Leader: What if I do all that work and don’t like what I find?
Coach: Then you’ll learn something real. But what if you find a strength you didn’t know you had?
Leader: That feels like a stretch.
Coach: Growth usually does.

“Ego is as much what you don’t think you are as what you think you are.”
– Joe Hudson

We usually spot ego in people who overestimate themselves. Their arrogance and swagger enter the room before they do.

But ego has a quieter side. It hides in the limits we quietly accept. Not in who we think we are, but in who we’ve decided we’re not.

“I’m not technical.”
“I’m not good at details.”
“I hate public speaking.”

These negations, the things we distance ourselves from, might feel like declarations of strength and clarity.

But often they are boundaries we’ve unconsciously placed around our identity. Once we’ve drawn these lines, we stop growing beyond them. They protect us from challenges, discomfort, and the hard work we know will be required.

Leaders who define themselves by what they aren’t often:

-Avoid feedback that challenges their identity.

-Miss chances to adapt or grow.

-Choose the path of least resistance.

-Struggle to connect with different types of people.

-Dismiss skills they haven’t developed (yet).

If you’re feeling stuck, ask yourself:

-What am I avoiding by saying, “I’m not that”?

-What am I protecting by holding on to that story?

-What might open up if I let it go?

Sometimes the next chapter of growth begins not with a new strength, but with a willingness to loosen our grip on the stories we tell ourselves.

If you want to grow as a leader—or help others grow—it’s not enough to ask, “Who am I?”

You also have to ask, “What am I willing to become?”

Photo by Amir Mortezaie on Unsplash

If you haven’t tried mountain biking, you don’t know what you’re missing. It combines many of the best things in life:

Being outdoors, hard work, freedom, speed, some risk, and fun.

Like many sports, it’s also a great way to find your limits, and extend them a bit.

Mountain bike trails are either climbing or descending. They may be smooth, rough, tight, rocky, rutted, or any combination of these.

Steep downhills have always scared me. Way too fast for my taste. That impossible battle with gravity, choosing the safest line, avoiding rocks, and leaning far enough back to avoid being pitched over the handlebars, make most steep downhills a game of survival for me. Definitely outside my comfort zone.

I prefer climbing. Give me a long, steep climb and I’m happy. Tired, but happy. Sure, gravity’s against me, but it’s not trying to throw me over the handlebars, or off the mountain side. I get to focus on my pedaling rhythm, staying within myself, and seeing how fast I can climb the next steep hill. It puts my mind in a quiet place.

Until someone goes around, gives a wave, and climbs out of sight! He may be half my age, but that’s no excuse. He’s found a way to put both himself and his bike in the next higher gear (or maybe a few higher gears).

That’s when I noticed my habit of shifting to a lower gear as the trail gets steeper ahead. I haven’t reached the steeper section, and yet I’m already downshifting. One could call this good preparation.

Or, fear. Fear of being caught off-guard by the steeper trail. Fear of actually finding my limits. Fear that I can’t handle the next higher gear. Fear that I’ll blow-up and have to stop, gasping for air.

Napolean Hill was right when he said, “the only limitation is that which one sets up in one’s own mind.”

As I watched that guy climb out of sight, I decided to experiment with the next higher gear. Catching him wasn’t my goal. That wasn’t going to happen. Finding my limit became my new goal. Whenever my habit said I should downshift, I purposely clicked to the next higher gear and left it there. Suffice it to say, I found my limit a few times.

More often than not, I merely climbed faster, and clicked to even higher gears.

Since I was climbing, I had time to think. The question that kept rolling around my head was whether I have the same habit of preemptively downshifting in other areas of my life.

Time to find out.

Photo Credit