Kay:

Hey there Questers, it’s a terrific Tuesday. February 16th here and this is episode 292. We have a Dave Chappelle quote for you today and he says, “If I put forth a legitimate effort, then I feel like, if that doesn’t work out, that’s all I can do.”

Shi:

The old, give it your all, leave it all on the field, play 110%. Dave Chappelle is reminding us of this simple, yet powerful concept because probably the number one reason for a “failure” is quitting.

Kay:

Yep. When you give up the game, the game is no longer even on your table. You have no chance of winning. So, how do you even expect to get to an outcome if you aren’t in the game? But one of the things that I love about this particular quote, it’s almost like, we’re going into Buddhist principles here.

Shi:

Alright.

Kay:

Dave Chappelle here is essentially telling us to let go of our expectations of the future and focus on the journey in front of us.

Shi:

Yes. That life is a journey and it’s not the destination. There’s a reason that things become cliché and this concept might be one of those. But it’s one that we do well to take heat to because life is that journey. You start at babyhood and you end at the end of your life and your life is what’s in between, literally that journey. So, understanding that the emphasis isn’t on that ending date on the tombstone or the ending date of your life, but really on those days in between it can help you shift especially when things don’t work out like Dave’s telling us here.

Kay:

Well, what’s interesting is that often when things don’t work out is when we don’t get what we thought we wanted, and we get what we actually needed instead. So, many times when we’re on the journey with only our eyes and are focused on the end game, we’re really giving up our present because we’re so focused on the future. Now, we’re not telling you to not focus on your future. You should have goals. You should have things that you’re aspiring to, and that you want to see come out of your life. But if you are so focused on that outcome, and it can only be that particular outcome, you’re going to be the person who makes $995,000 and you’re mad because it wasn’t a million.

Shi:

There was an interesting example in the book that Kay and I are both reading called “The Rhythms of War” where one of the characters told a story about a dog and a dragon. The dog sees a dragon fly over and he says, “I decide I want to be a dragon. So, he goes, and he glues seeds to his fur to have the scales and he figures out a pulley system with a rope to fly and he learns how to read and write so that he can form words like the mighty dragon. He gets laughed on all along by his peers and then a boy falls into a well, and he is able to write to the other animals or write to the humans what’s going on, use his pulley system and get down there and save the kid. At the end of the story, he’s laying inside while all the other dogs are laying out in the rain and he’s had this amazing meal and the humans are all loving on him. He thinks to himself, I failed at being a dragon and yet he was the hero of the story. So, don’t fail at being the dragon and miss all of the amazing things that you learned along the way.

Kay:

Oh, I’m so glad that you made it into “The Rhythms of War.” Sister moment right there. But my goodness, I think that is such a great underlining of this quote, that particular parable in talking about this dog. How often do we get so close to our mark, but say, well, because it wasn’t perfect, I didn’t hit it, or do we devalue our own success because it isn’t the picture-perfect we thought when we got there. Let me just pull my chair here. Can you guys hear the noise there as I pull up that chair? Life is not the picture that is in your head. I’m just going to let that sink in. Life doesn’t always work out like the pictures you have in your head. Some days the pictures that you have in your head show the sky is green. It’s never going to be that way, no matter how bad you want it to be. It’s not going to work out like that. So, as we are told by Mr. Chappelle, we’ve got to put forth a legitimate effort and feel like it, and that if it doesn’t work out, that’s all I can do.

Shi:

It really is and before we launch into that quest, I think this also helps us just understand that “If you do put in all your effort and you don’t win, you can do everything right and still lose.” That was a quote we’ve done in the past that it’s not worth beating yourself up. You put in the whole effort, you played a good game kid, pick up and move on. That’s exactly what we’re going to do in today’s quest. It’s a Live and Let Go Quest.

Kay:

Alright. So, allow yourself to let go of feeling defeated or not good enough and replace those feelings with the realization that all you can do is your best and after that, you need to leave the rest on the table. Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!