Monday Motivation: 9.7.26 - Exorcising Demons

The gym coach walks into our classroom and whispers something to my teacher. She looks up.

"Duane, can you come to the front of the room?"

My mind starts racing, trying to figure out what I did. I take a few timid steps to the front.

"Coach says that because you missed gym class last week, you have to make up your physical fitness test. It'll just take a minute."

Okay, I say nervously.

Coach looks at me. "We just need to see how many sit-ups you can do in a minute. We can knock them out right here."

Okay, I say, now a bit terrified. Not of the sit-ups. I was an athletic kid. But I had never done sit-ups in front of an audience.

"Come on down here, son. Let's knock them out."

So I get down in the sit-up position, and he holds my feet in place. Thirty pairs of eyes on me.

"Let's get started."

One. Two. Three.

I'm doing the motion, but my mind is somewhere else. I'm so nervous, and I feel it in my stomach.

Four. Five. Six.

What is everyone thinking? I'm sure I look stupid. My stomach rumbles.

Seven. Eight.

It's too much for me, and my stomach isn't cooperating. I don't know if I can hold it.

Nine. Ten. Eleven...

"PPPPPFFFFFTTTTTTTTTT."

Everything goes silent.

Did that just happen? Did I just let out a fart in front of the entire class, with everyone watching? What does my teacher think of me now? What does Coach think?

I sheepishly look at him.

"That's enough for today, son."

I can hear the snickering in the back. The giggles. The whispers as I get up and walk back to my seat. I can't make eye contact with anyone.

That was the day the story locked in. But it wasn't the first time I'd told it to myself.

A year or two earlier, it was pop quiz day at school, and everyone was upset about it. We all begrudgingly took the quiz. I hadn't done my normal studying the night before, but I took it and handed it in like everyone else.

The teacher, who I know saw the fear in our little eyes, gave us a choice. You can keep whatever grade you got, or you can choose one student and everyone gets their grade.

The class looked at each other. Then they all looked at me. I was the smartest kid in the class. I aced everything. Of course they picked my grade.

Here's the thing. This was the one time I wasn't fully prepared, and now all of that weight was on me. I didn't know how to say that I may not have done as well as usual. So I froze, went along with it, and hoped I somehow didn't screw it up.

I did, though. I got a C (which was death to me, a straight-A student).

My teacher could see how disappointed I was in myself. I know she said something to console me, but I don't remember it. I just remember being a failure in the moment people had chosen me to come through for them.

So when I passed gas in front of the whole class a year or two later, my brain already had a place to file it. It happened again. This must be who I am.

That's where my key limiting belief started. If I had to write it on an index card, it would say:

When everyone is watching, I'm going to let them down.

I didn't choose that rule. I collected it. Two moments, maybe four minutes combined, and I let them write my identity.

That's how these beliefs work. They don't announce themselves. They show up as evidence. Two data points feel like a pattern, the pattern becomes a story, and the story becomes who you think you are.

The cost wasn't dramatic. It was small and constant. I passed on the mic. I let someone else lead the room. I stayed one step behind the moment where people would need me most, and I called it humility. It wasn't humility. It was a fourth grader still holding his breath on sit-up number eleven.

It's haunted me for a lot of years, but today I'm releasing it.

Here's what I finally understood. Every action is a vote for the kind of person you believe you are. I had two votes for "the guy who freezes when it counts." I also had thousands of votes for "the guy who shows up." I've led teams, run rooms, carried people through moments a whole lot bigger than a pop quiz. I was just counting the wrong pile.

It's not who I am. It's just old stories from a different version of myself. Duane today is not Duane of then.

So I'm not trying to argue with the old story. You don't win that argument. You outvote it.

So I wrote a new card.

I'm someone people can call on, and I'm ready when they do.

That's not a pep talk. It's just what the record says. I've spent most of my adult life being handed things people cared about, their teams, their money, their plans for what comes next, and taking care of them. I didn't freeze. I got to work. And I've watched the people around me do the same, because that's the kind of person I make a point of working with. So when the moment comes, we're not hoping we're ready. We already are.

And when we fall short, because sometimes we will, we own it and go again. You only fail when you stop working on the unfinished product. Winners are the ones who keep building with the lessons of their last attempt.

We don't always have control of what happens to us. We do have control of what it means. And meaning, it turns out, is just a story you practice until it's true.

What demons do you need to exorcise? What new meaning do you need to make?

And what's written on your index card right now? Take a look at it. If it's an old rule from a different version of you, you don't have to keep it. Tear it up. Grab a fresh one. Write down who you are today.

✌🏽. ❤️. 📈 . 🤲🏾