Kay:

Hey, hey, Questers welcome back. It’s Tuesday, August 17th and this is episode 422. We have a quote for you today from the absolute iconic French fashion designer and businesswoman Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel.

Shi:

She tells us, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall hoping to transform it into a door.”

Kay:

I love this imagery.

Shi:

So good.

Kay:

So good. First off if you’re beating a wall you’re not going to get anywhere.

Shi:

You’re probably hurting your hand.

Kay:

Probably hurting your hand.

Kay:

So, what I love about this quote is that first off, whoever is beating on this wall has a completely unreasonable expectation that it’s going to turn into a door, and then second of all, they are taking a completely wrong action to get the door in the first place.

Shi:

What we know about most rooms, in fact, every room I’ve ever been in, is that it has a door. They have doors and they have walls, and sometimes they even have windows, and beating on a window would at least be half of a door. But just beating on a wall by itself, especially if there is the door in the room, means that we’re still spending energy. So, we’re still doing some of those things that make us successful. Putting in effort, working hard, consistently applying ourselves. But as Tony Robbins likes to say, “You can run west all day long, you’re never going to see a sunrise there.” That’s very similar to the imagery that Coco is giving us here.

Kay:

Well, what I love about Coco Chanel saying this is that she really trail-blazed in a time when women weren’t considered businesswomen. “Businesswoman” wasn’t even really a term in the thirties when she really started her career and she helped to shepherd forward the era of post-World War I fashion, that brought the core set life and kind of that high society lookout and brought women into more practical wear that was still chic and beautiful. So, this is a woman who, if she spent time beating on the wall and hoping that they’d be doors instead of looking for a door or creating a door or going and talking to a demolition crew to come and beat on that wall so that they can turn it into a door she probably wouldn’t have changed the world.

Shi:

She doesn’t tell us here don’t create doors and she clearly used her life as an example of the power of being able to create doorways and possibilities and pathways where there wasn’t any before. But your fists are no match for a wall, at least in the physical sense, but they are a match for using them to find the resources, find the demolition team, find the architect, find the plans and the resources that can bring it together to create the door. So, we’re not necessarily trying to transform a wall into a door, but being able to create a door, she says nothing about it except with her life, obviously, giving us that example. But here in this quote, I just love it because I think many of us beat on walls, hoping, wishing, scraping, trying to have it transformed into a door and the desire is usually pure. You want what’s on the other side or else you hopefully wouldn’t be beating on that wall. There are other ways to get around that don’t result in bloody fists at the end of the day.

Kay:

Bloody fists are only the physical, I guess, consequences of this. Whereas the emotional consequence of doing that same action over and over again, expecting a result that never comes is going to be really frustrating and draining for someone. So, if you have places in your life where maybe you’ve continued to take that same action over and over again and that wall continues to not become a door that maybe this is time to take that consideration and say, “oh, I might need to find a demolition team” or “I might need to go to a different place in the room and start looking for a way out.”

Shi:

You guys have probably heard the imagery before of like the fly who’s just beating against the window and they see the outside and they’re trying, and they’re trying, and you’re like the sliding glass door is literally on the other side of the room, but you’re not far. They are like, you’re right. I’m not far-right. I’m an inch away from outside. But that fly is never going to break through that glass and our fists are never going to beat down a wall and transform it into a door, which is what Coco Chanel is telling us here in this quote, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall hoping to transform it into a door.”

Kay:

Alright, guys, we’ve got a Tuesday Transformation Quest for you today. Today we want you to transform yourself by trying something brand new. Explore something new and open a door. Remember growth doesn’t happen inside your comfort zone especially if it is closed, locked and you think that there is no door because you’re beating on a wall. Are you ready? Transform it with us now

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!