What Drives You?

Close your eyes and go back to the time when you were nine years old. I want you to remember your most favourite place. I want you to remember your safest place. Is it your bedroom in your parents’ home? Is it your family TV room? Your granny’s kitchen?

I want you to remember the smell of that room. The feeling of your bare feet on the floor. Can you remember the voice of your mother? The feeling of your favourite jersey? Remember the faces of your sisters and your brothers….

Now, I want you remember: What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to be a doctor? A fireman? An explorer? Did you want to be a lawyer? What about a mother or a father? What was your dream? Did you want to explore the world and really be part of it? Or did you want to change the world? I want you to go into that nine year old, and I want you to find that excitement, that wonder and that joy you felt for what you wanted to be. Now open your eyes.

Drive is not something that you need to understand. It is something that you need to feel. In fact, as a nine year old child, you probably had more drive and ambition than you have now. To help you understand the power of a person’s drive, think about how motivated a baby is to crawl and ultimately, to walk. It seems an impossible task, to develop the strength and coordination for a tiny and helpless baby to pull themselves across the floor. This is one of early life’s biggest physical challenges. And yet, here we all are, standing tall. We accomplished this challenge as babies, and we succeeded against demanding odds. So then, what is holding you back from your dream now?

There will always be people who want to pull you down, and there will be times when the ones you love the most may have to take a back seat to your drive and to your dreams. There may even be times when you are fearful. And there will definitely be times, when you doubt yourself.

There will be obstacles on your way to greatness, however most of these obstacles will be in your mind and it’s up to you to decide whether you will overcome them or not. Hard work is not an obstacle. Giving it all that you have and dedicating yourself to your dreams will only strengthen you.

I shared this story with my leadership team a few months ago. It was at a time where, as a team we were still trying to find our feet and overcome many obstacles:

A man found the most unusual caterpillar. He thought that it would one day transform into a beautiful butterfly, and so he took the caterpillar home, put it in a box, fed it some leaves, and poked some holes in the box for it to breathe. He kept a close eye on the caterpillar, waiting patiently for it to spin a cocoon, so that it could start its transformation into a beautiful butterfly.

One day the man peeked inside the box, and the caterpillar had in fact created a cocoon. He waited in anticipation for the new butterfly to develop and to find its way out of the cocoon. Eventually one day, it began. The butterfly started to emerge. It broke through the cocoon and started pushing itself through the tiny hole that it had created. The man noticed that it was struggling. It just couldn’t seem to make its way through the hole in the cocoon.   

With all good intentions, the man tried to help the little butterfly. He broke the cocoon ever so slightly for the butterfly to emerge. Within seconds, the butterfly had made its way through the hole, and it rested in the box. It was the most beautiful butterfly the man had ever seen.

After a while, the man noticed that the butterfly’s wings, although exquisitely beautiful, were crumpled. The butterfly tried and tried to open its wings, without success.

The next day, the man opened the box to find that the butterfly had died. What he didn’t know, was that the butterfly needed to struggle through that tiny hole in the cocoon as part of the natural development of its wings. The struggle that the man had saved the butterfly from, was the only way that the fluid from the butterfly’s body could move into its wings to strengthen them.

Like the butterfly, we too have our own struggles. They are not here to destroy us, they are here to make us. During your journey, there will be times that you will fall. But remember, that when you get the wind kicked out of you, it only reminds your lungs how much they enjoy the air. Remember that learning is a gift, even if pain is the teacher. These are the times when you will have to visit your nine year old self. You will have to remember the promises that you made to that little person, that little you. Tell me, are you going to let that child down, because of your fears, your insecurities, or because of the people around you that are afraid of your beauty and your power? I often suggest to my coaching clients to keep a picture of their nine year old self close at hand. Maybe on their fridge, in their car or wallet, or next to their bed. Look at that little person every day.

There are times when your drive to succeed will become as important as your need to breathe. There are times when you need to break through for yourself, so that you can break through for others. Which nine year old child are you going to inspire to live their dreams?

Now, I want you to close your eyes again. This time I want you to imagine your life ten to fifteen years from now. You are exactly where you always wanted to be. Think about where you are. Are you in a classroom, on a boat, on a stage? Are you walking the corridors of a hospital attending to your patients? Are you defending the innocent in court? Are you breaking through glass ceilings in the corner office? What did you have to do to get there? What struggles made you? Who inspired you? Whom did you learn from? Who supported you every time your doubted yourself? Who believed in you when others turned their backs on your dreams? Who stood by you through the storm? Are you proud of yourself? Are you excited? Now go inside yourself, and feel what that success feels like. Open your eyes. Take that feeling, and let it drive you, because it is never too late to be what you were supposed to have been. Today may just be another day, but be sure to make it yours.