Achievement doesn’t come easy! We’re all running uphill, and fully loaded these days. Obstacles abound, and getting around them takes creativity. This favorite lesson – don’t you stop it – it came recently from one of my mentors, but it’s also one I lived long ago. My mentor’s full advice was,“just don’t you stop it by saying I can’t”, and it really demonstrates the power of our core beliefs, the foundation of how we view the world.
Our core beliefs form our take on – and what we expect of – the world, ourselves, other people, and our past, present and future. I’ve mentioned that I come from a Scottish/Irish heritage, but my core beliefs in fact run counter to some of the Scots’ immigrant mentality that I grew up around. Two generations before mine, my grandmother and her sister worked as maids in mansions along Lake St. Clair in Grosse Pointe Shores. Matter of fact, take a look at Downton Abbey sometime and you’ll see that most of the characters doing the disagreeable work downstairs are all Scottish. On the show as in the lives of some of my family members, the traditional immigrant paradigms of the day were to mind your station in life – and don’t think about rising above it!
But when my parents moved out of urban Detroit in the 1960’s, instead of moving to the expected and appropriate neighborhood on the west side of Detroit, they sought out anything they could afford in Grosse Pointe Woods. Believe me, it wasn’t along the lake (far from it), but it was within the five “Pointes” and we then attended Grosse Pointe public schools. The difference was, in that very different environment, young people believed they could do anything in their life. I then grew up with that core belief as well, even though we didn’t have much money. In fact, my mother worked outside the home her entire life in an era when it was not the norm (especially in Grosse Pointe). The traditional “mind your station” mentality had been broken.
Yours truly would not grow up to be one to think or say, “I can’t”. On the contrary, I might even be described as just delusional enough to think I can, regardless of the facts. “Just don’t you stop it by saying I can’t”. These are words to live by, especially in an age of uncertainty and unpredictability.
Let’s do something different – we can’t help but get better:
1. Know your enemy – take some time to reflect upon you own core beliefs. Which ones might be limiting your very success? “I’m no good at … I can’t do … I’ve never been able to”. Which single belief might be holding you back the most?
2. Make a decision – is this part of you something you wish to accept or to change? I don’t advocate change for the sake of change. I do advocate conscious choice.
If you do want something, once you decide on a course of action, then “just don’t you stop it by saying I can’t”.
-Don Brown
don@donbrown.org
Don Brown dedicates his career to ‘helping people with people’ in leadership, sales and customer service. Bilingual and experienced at the executive and line-level alike, you see the results of his work across dozens of industries, including brewing, automotive, airline, banking and medical equipment.
Speaking, writing, coaching and selling to the best – Ford Motor Company, Anheuser-Busch, United Airlines, Harley-Davidson, Jaguar Cars, Hilton Hotels and many, many more – Don takes great pride in long-standing customer relationships (some running well over twenty years).
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Achievement doesn’t come easy! We’re all running uphill, and fully loaded these days. Obstacles abound, and getting around them takes creativity. This favorite lesson – don’t you stop it – it came recently from one of my mentors, but it’s also one I lived long ago. My mentor’s full advice was,“just don’t you stop it by saying I can’t”, and it really demonstrates the power of our core beliefs, the foundation of how we view the world.
