Writing my last entry, I had to think back of a passage in the book The Other 90% by Robert K. Cooper, that I’d like to share.
His grandfather was in the hospital, expecting to die and he says the following.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, gently pointing toward the frame (which contained a fountain pen written script, bearing the words ‘give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you’) and gazing at the expression it contained. “My whole life I thought I knew what these words meant. It was simple. Either you gave your best or you didn’t. First you went to school and worked hard to get good grades…”
He drew in a breath, gathering himself.
He had been the first in his family of seven children to finish high school. He went on to graduate from college at the turn of the century and earned a master’s degree. “Then,” he continued, “once you get a job, you arrived on time and every day and worked hard. That was giving your best. From there, the best would come back to you, as a paycheck and a sense of pride.”
He looked at me intently, as he almost always did.
“My whole life I have been wrong,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“In the hospital, I was thinking about the most exceptional people I’ve known. They were the ones who kept going when others quit; the ones who found ways to do what everyone else thought couldn’t be done. They didn’t just hold down a job or work hard. They were reaching deeper inside and finding something more. They made a greater difference. I don’t believe they would have understood these words” – he held the frame so we both could see the inscription – “the way I did.”
“I remember my parents and other adults in my hometown saying, ‘Study hard and work hard but don’t let your dreams get too big. If you do that, you’ll only be disappointed.’”
“Learn to fit in and go along, they said, ‘that’s what successful people do.’ I got very good at fitting in and going along.” His voice trailed off.
“Robert, you’re going to hear the same kinds of things from people around you. They’re well-intentioned but they’re wrong. What if I hadn’t accepted it? What if everyday I had questioned yesterday’s definition of my best? What if I’d listened to my own heart instead of their words? Then I might have kept looking deeper and giving the world more of the best that was hidden inside me.”
“And if I’d done that,” he said, “more of the best would have come back to me, and to this family, and to you, Robert. But it won’t,” he said, “because I didn’t do it.”
“So this is my challenge to you, to live these words.” He handed me the frame. There was no glass in it; I ran my fingertips over the words and felt the brittle paper. “But grandfather,” I said, not wanting to disappoint him but unsure of how to accomplish what he was asking me, “maybe when I’m older…”
“Age has nothing to do with it. Every day you can learn something more about who you are and all the potential that’s hidden inside you. Every day you can choose to become more than you have been. I’m asking you to start right now.”
“But how?”
“By looking inside yourself. By testing new possibilities. By searching for what matters most to you, Robert. Few of us ever do that for ourselves. Instead, we hold our breath. We look away. We get by or go along. We defend what we have been. We say, “It’s good enough.” I pray you don’t wake up one day and say, “I’ve been living my life wrong and now it’s too late to make it right.”
Young as I was, I could still see the pain his regret was causing him, and even then I recognized that the gift he was giving me was as much in his honesty as in the specific words he was so determined for me to hear.
“Robert, all of us are mostly unused potential. It’s up to you to become the most curious person you know and to keep asking yourself, What is my best? Keep finding more of it every day to give to the world. If you do that, I promise that more of the best than you can ever imagine – and in many ways beyond money – will come back to you.”
And it has. Despite my struggles and mistakes along the way, I have learned that there are opportunities, for each of us that exist beneath and beyond conventional thinking and self imposed limits. What my grandfather realized too late that he had not done, he challenged me to do. In this book, I pass the challenge to you.
