Kay:
Hey there Questers and welcome back. We hope you’re having a fabulous Friday here on February 19th. This is episode 295 of the Mentorship Quest. We have a Katherine Johnson quote for you today. But before we get into the quote, we just want to tell you a little bit about this incredible woman.
Shi:
Dude, this lady was amazing. An American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent US crewed space flights. During her 35 year career at NASA and its predecessor she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her “historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist.” In 2015, Barack Obama awarded Miss Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2016, she was presented with a Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut, Leland D. Melvin, and a NASA Group Achievement Award. In other words: she was a badass.
Kay:
Super BA. In 2019, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Katherine Johnson breaking the norms, not just for women. Let’s just take women in the STEM industry, in science, technology, engineering, and math. That is humongous but then to also be a black woman in this space and to be a BA in it too…I almost cussed!
Shi:
If you’ve seen the movie “Hidden Figures,” the 2016 movie, she’s one of the portrayed characters and it’s incredibly inspiring.
Kay:
Absolutely incredible but what she says here, I think is even more astute for someone who faced such a steep climb in the realm that she is in. She says, in this quote, “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you.”
Shi:
Whoo! I just feel like this puts you right in that center place of operation, that awareness piece, where you sit in the captain’s chair and you drive your life with integrity and dignity for the character that you are shaping and want to become. “You’re no better than anyone else.” Don’t get that ego up, don’t think too much of yourself. You start to have the whole world revolve around you and you fall into the trap of always wanting more for yourself, self, self, and then, “And no one is better than you.” Stop beating yourself up. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are similarly equipped mentally with your mental faculties, intellectually, physically, like everybody else and you have as much right to be here as everyone else. So, that fine line right in the middle just makes it even more powerful.
Kay:
One of the things that I love about the idea that “you are no better than anyone else,” is that it takes away any idea that you might have inside. It’s okay, we’re not going to get mad at you because we are still fighting this idea inside as well, that you reserve the right to judge other people. If you are better than someone in any way, shape, or form, then you might be convincing yourself that you have the right to judge them for whatever it is that they’re doing. It’s hard. These judgmental patterns are pretty deep, not just into us individually. As a society, it’s very accepted. In fact, it’s encouraged especially for women to be in this space. So, you are no better than anyone else takes this idea that you have the right to judge them completely off the table.
Shi:
Well, it’s that, as you’re watching somebody else garden their row, and you’re thinking about them and looking at them and observing them, you’re not gardening your row. You’ve got one little row and it’s your job to garden it and plant it and tend it to the very best of your ability. If you’re looking at somebody else’s row, you can’t, and that’s the trap that so many of us fall into. I know I fall into that trap of looking at other people’s gardens and then you justify it by thinking: well, I’m encouraging myself or now the decisions that I’ve made. Kay and I have a little bit of a hard time not getting a little bit righteous about not drinking anymore. The farther that we get from it and the more stark the reality becomes the harder it is not to judge those who really indulge in alcohol at the same levels that we did just three years ago. So, reminding ourselves that just like Katherine Johnson tells us, “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you,” is really helpful.
Kay:
Before we wrap up today’s quote, I couldn’t help but think of the second half, “No one is better than you.” Into the animal kingdom, do the drones in the beehive lament that they’re not the queen? Do they spend their time that they could be used making honey and exploring flowers, crying to themselves that they aren’t the big fat one that births them all? Probably, maybe not, we don’t know, but that just came to my mind and I wanted to share it here. But we do have a buzz, a No Better Quest for you today. This weekend, we want you to look at life through the lens of Miss Katherine. Know that you’re no better and know that no one else is better than you. How might that affect some of the things you do and the way that you move through the world? It might even cause you to examine some of your more ingrained biases…Let’s take a look. Are you ready?
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
