You Are Much More Powerful Than You Imagine

The basic idea: When I was in graduate school, one of my less traditional courses was called simply “Management.” I say less traditional because we spent much time sitting on the floor, out in the woods, or watching one or more classmates literally run from the room in tears or anger.

On the last day of class, the professor was asking for our comments on the course, trying to discover what, if anything, we had learned during the semester.

When my turn came, I spoke about the time we spent three days in the woods engaged in an imaginary community. During this “exercise,” the professor would occasionally appear to change the rules of the community. My comment was that I wished the rules had changed more often, that we got stuck for too long in unproductive situations.

The professor started jumping up and down, and shouting, “Yes, yes, yes!” He slapped his hands on my desk and sort of hugged me. I was just as confused as the rest of the class, but by this point we knew to be patient and wait for his explanation.

Eventually he settled down and said, “This is one of the greatest lessons you can learn. People always look elsewhere for change. They want someone else to change the rules. But in the vast majority of cases, nothing is stopping them from changing things themselves.”

A bit more background: We talked about this for a while. When things got stuck, could I have changed the rules myself? Could I have convinced others it was time for a change? Or could I have done something dramatic that would have changed the flow of the activity?

Absolutely yes.

Professor Kenwyn Smith dragged out of me all the reasons why I thought it would have been inappropriate to challenge his ground rules, to interrupt his process, or to otherwise take matters into my own hands. He said they were all wrong.

I made a simple and highly common mistake: like the rest of my classmates, I expected change to come from the outside.

Ever since that moment—which is the only time my actions caused a fully grown professor at a well-respected university to jump around like a monkey—I have taken this lesson to heart.

You can change your mindset, your actions, or your circumstances. You may not alter significantly the system in which you work, but you can vastly improve how you feel about what you do.

You have a much greater power to instigate change than you might think. The only real question is how much are you willing to pay to produce the change you desire? “Payment” is usually due in terms of time, effort and risk... not in monetary form.

If you think you can't change something, think again.

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