Kay:

Hey there Questers and welcome, it’s Monday, November 9th and this is episode 221. We’ve got an Albert Einstein quote for you today that was submitted by a listener Anitza San Miguel. Albert Einstein says, “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”

Shi:

Many variations of this quote are out there and the idea is one embraced a lot by most of us in the personal growth and development space. But it’s so easy to speak about conceptually and sometimes it’s so hard to experience this in the moment.

Kay:

Well, when you’re in the middle of a difficulty it can be very difficult to stand back and say “hmm where might the opportunity here inlay?”

Shi:

Right, because human nature and our brain is designed to DO DO DO, like scan out all the things that are bad and wrong and so it’s doing its job by doing that. But your job, as the soul, as the driver, as the observer, as the witness, is to take control of that wheel and decide where you’re going to point that focus. So, the brain is automatically going to focus on the difficult part of it but your mind and that driver piece of you can take control of the focus and say, “Okay, I recognize the difficulty now let’s figure out how we can leverage this and use it to help ourselves.”

Kay:

Just because there’s an automatic engine inside that looks for all of the problems around doesn’t mean that you can’t put a filter on top and maybe make it a little bit less noisy. When you’re viewing problems as opportunities or maybe those difficulties as opportunities it kind of helps you to just put a more empowering filter on your life.

Shi:

One of the ways that we have found really helps us do this is shifting our language by making ourselves aware of any time we use a word like problem, or difficult, or challenge even. Trying to instead, replace that with a word like opportunity – opportunity for improvement, opportunity for growth, opportunity for perspective – there’s lots of different ways that we can spin it, but we definitely have put in our own governor so that when we’re using language like “problem,” we can try and see the way to shift it to opportunity instead.

Kay:

In fact, in the restaurant industry, as I’m sure you can imagine, we’re having a bit of a “go” right now. A go through the throws of the coronavirus and I actually wrote an email just earlier today in which I had to be a little bit more serious with our team. There are some serious issues happening and in the email I use the word problem no less than 3 times and at the end of the email I went back through and I deleted out everywhere where I said problem and I just shifted in the word opportunity instead. And I didn’t have to change anything else about that email for it to make sense and it gave it a much more empowering message that helped our leaders feel good with the kind of feedback that they were being given.

Shi:

Right, like you think about approaching somebody and saying hey we have a real problem with your attitude. Versus we have an opportunity to grow in the area of your attitude. It’s the same message but shifted completely so that the delivery allows the recipient to stay mindful and to stay ultimately receptive to what it is that our idea is to get them to course correct. Because if you’re in a leadership position, “Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” You’re getting in 2 quotes for one of those special episodes! That last one is John Maxwell’s most famous quote. But, if leadership is influenced that means one of the best ways we can influence is through our language. Which means making shifts like “problem” versus “opportunity” can make all the difference for you, in terms of getting your influence to work the way you want it too.

Kay:

Well, think about the conditioning that we even had in society around the word “problem”, right? Like the kid who always got sent to the principal’s office was the problem kid. Or like, you know the family that was always fighting was a family with a bunch of problems, right? Like, we kind of have heard about this and it’s been stigmatized in a way. So some people try to hide their problems and some people will try to glorify their problems, but wherever you are on that spectrum seeing your problems or your difficulties as actually an opportunity to gain something out of it is extremely important. It helps you to also be more intentional about what you gain so that when you go into the opportunity, the difficulty, or the challenge even more of a winner than you were going in!

Shi:

Well, speaking of “winner” today’s quote guide is Albert Einstein. So most of us take heed when someone like that gives a lesson like this and he’s certainly faced difficulty, both in the laboratory as well as socially. But if someone with this esteem can say that, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity,” then we would all do well to benefit from it, and we want to give a shout out to Anitza who submitted this. Anita, we love you, we’re so grateful for all that you do and we hope that you keep kicking butt in the Stem industry doing what you do!

Kay:

Yes, so that means today’s quest is an opportunity quest. Today, when you’re faced with a problem, we want you to find at least one opportunity that could come of it. Remember to flip the script on your life and you’ll see how your scenes change…Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!