A few weeks ago, earphones in, on my almost daily walking ritual we’ll call Spotify-in-the-Suburbs, I listened to Lauren Graham on Call Her Daddy. [Stay with me here] So it’s Alex Cooper, Lauren Graham. Now Lauren…
(Note: I feel I can maybe refer to her as Lauren as I walked past her once. It was the 2002 premiere of Tuck Everlasting in Los Angeles…she was posing for Extra and E! on the red carpet and I was wondering how in the world my friend (also named Lauren) got us tickets to this thing. So we go way back…Lauren and I).
Anyway, Call Her Daddy. Alex Cooper. Lauren Graham. Lauren made a reference that there are 25ish years between the host and herself. And that those 25 years likely felt very different to both of them. Now, I’m paraphrasing the explanation. To the 30 year old, it was an eternity. 25 enormous years of possibility and progress and potential still ahead. And to the just-above 55 year old, those 25 years feel about as close as last Tuesday. Fast.
So if we know it will feel fast, how can we keep that feeling of possibility and progress and potential?
How about: yet?
Imagination, creativity, entrepreneurship, growth mindset. They’re some of the words we use to describe the pursuit of possibility. And they all have their teacher’s aides: coloring books and workbooks and self-help books as we age into new life experiences, and aisles of the bookstore.
As a child, it’s all about imagination and dreaming. You’re given 5, 64, or even 152 colors in a box and you just create. There are layers and what-ifs and yes, ands. Everything is “yet” before you even know the word, because there are no boundaries or limitations.
And then somewhere you start to realize the yets because you start to compare. I remember being 5 years old, laying in my bed in Roanoke, Virginia. It seemed like broad daylight at 7:30pm, and I could hear older kids still playing outside. I wasn’t old enough to stay up that late. Fast forward a few years, when my bedtime was 8:30, and that meant I only got to watch the first 30 minutes of Matlock every Tuesday, never knowing which guest starring girlfriend, football player, chef or stripper bludgeoned the mayor. (Reflecting now, I’m positive this is the origin story of my all-too-basic true crime interest).
When you’re younger, you know it’s there, you just can’t experience it…yet. Drive at 16. Vote at 18. Drink at 21. Run for a US Senate seat at 30. It’s there, just not yet. There are parameters, but somehow those parameters may kind of fuel imagination.
Then you get past all of those external markers - usually from parents or the government…and for some reason we feel like we’re late for everything. Or we missed something. Or we failed. The comparison to the kids who were still allowed to play outside at 7:30 becomes comparisons against title, and status, and wealth, and experiences - with no “yet.” They could come from all over. Didn’t go to grad school. Haven’t written a book. Didn’t get promoted. Didn’t hit quota. Haven’t visited Australia. Haven’t gotten married.
Didn’t, haven’t, didn’t, haven’t. You can hear it. There’s a big thud at the end of those sentences.
But what if every single one of those sentences ended in….yet…? (Of course, only if you want them to). It totally changes. Didn’t go to grad school….yet. Haven’t visited Australia…yet. And while the mindset might not be immediately and radically transformed from the “thud” version, you may be teaching yourself, training yourself. Setting a new pattern.
Yet…
So let’s go to the research…in the form of modern memes. There is one that scrolls around every now and again referencing Morgan Freeman, Vera Wang, Samuel L. Jackson, and Colonel Sanders (what a dinner party THAT would be). Got his big break at 50, entered fashion at 40, became a star at 46, franchised KFC at 62. If I can be so bold…that meme is meant as a reminder of our own “yets.” Morgan Freeman was absolutely a working actor before what that meme calls his big break - an Academy Award nomination for Street Smart. But what if he had gotten to 25, or 30, or 40, said “I haven’t made it.” And left it at the thud. Yet had to have been there.
It’s a relentless pursuit of and a relentless belief in the yet. It’s this simple, monosyllabic word that may just have the power to change our mind, our mindset, and reignite imagination. Go back to using all 152 colors in the box.
So here I am, today, a bit older than Vera when she entered fashion and a bit younger than Morgan when he received his first Oscar nomination.
I haven’t sat courtside at a Lakers or Warriors game, or watched the Derby from the Paddock Club.
I haven’t written a book.
Haven’t bought a second home in London.
Haven’t emcee’ed SXSW or led a panel at ComicCon.
I haven’t had Robin Roberts introduce me as ABC’s Chief Leadership Correspondent on Good Morning America (because as far as I know, the job doesn’t exist…)
…yet.
More musings to come.
Share this post