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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I think elephants love to swim because they always have their trunks, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
What comes to mind first when you think about an elephant? Perhaps you thought about physical attributes related to their size, trunks, or ears. Maybe you thought of a movie featuring elephants like Dumbo. Okay, what if I ask you to think of a saying or adage related to elephants? If you’re like me, you thought of the saying of “elephants never forget.”
That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? It’s a phrase that seems to be based on observation, and modern science backs it up. Elephants do indeed have excellent memories. If you’re like me, you think of this fact as a good thing. That is, if someone says you have a memory like an elephant, you’d take it as a compliment. Today I’m going to flip that on its head, show how it can be a negative, and hopefully help you examine your own life to see if you have a memory like an elephant.
I’ve talked about marching band a few times since I brought back SILY and the reason won’t surprise any of you marching band families out there. The fact is, marching band is life! We got involved when our son, Colby, joined marching band as a high school freshman and it changed all of our lives.
During his time in the high school marching band we went to every single parent or booster meeting, every single performance and contest, and every band banquet. We volunteered to feed the kids before contests and football games. We worked to build and manage props, and even worked the concession stand to help raise money for the band. My wife even served on the band boosters board for one season.
Being so closely connected to the band was an experience that changed my life. Simply put, I saw 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 year old kids do things that I didn’t know were possible. The level of musicianship and performance was awe inspiring. I saw up close the hard work, dedication, and passion the kids brought to the program, and yet they were just normal, goofy, fun-loving, teenagers.
Each student was tasked with memorizing a piece of music around 8 minutes long and perform that music in unison with up to 200 other kids. All the while, they had to learn 8 minutes of choreography, and perform that choreography while keeping in step with those 200 other kids.
Frankly, my description doesn’t do it justice. You’ve likely seen marching bands perform all your life and now you’re not impressed by them. Perhaps you’ve never been impressed by them. After all, marching band is just a bunch of non-athletic nerds walking around on a football field.
If that’s your impression of marching band, I implore you to go spend a Saturday at a local marching band competition. If you watch with a perceptive eye, you’ll discover you’ve grossly underestimated the skill, athleticism, and hard work on display with each student.
My brother was a jock in high school. A few years ago his step-daughter was part of her high school color guard program. In case you’re not aware, color guard is the group of students handling the flags or rifles during the marching band performance. After he’d seen what they do up close and understood all that goes into a performance, my brother called me one day to tell me how much new found respect he had for band kids. He’d always thought band didn’t require much skill or athleticism, but he now realized that band requires a high level of each.
I don’t blame my brother. After all, what he and I experienced in high school was much different. Our marching band consisted of about 30 kids my freshman year up to about 50 my senior year. At halftime they’d line up in one end zone, march out to the middle of the field, play their music, and then march off the field. There wasn’t much movement from them while they were playing.
When I first considered the differences between the marching band program at my son’s high school and the marching band from my high school I was blown away. I had no idea performance at such a high level could be achieved by high school kids. So that got me to thinking: what’s the difference between the kids I went to school with and the kids Colby went to school with that made them able to achieve this?
After giving it some thought, I realized what it was. It was absolutely nothing. The kids I went to school with were capable of doing everything Colby’s friends did, but I don’t think any of us realized it. So why didn’t our band do those things too?
I’m not sure why our band didn’t do those things. Perhaps we didn’t have the funding for participating in marching band competitions. Perhaps there were no competitions for bands of our size in those days. Perhaps the band director did not have the experience or other resources required to put together a choreographed marching band show. Knowing the resources of the school I attended, I’d bet that some or most of that is true. Of course, I have no way of knowing for sure.
Having said that, our kids didn’t even memorize their music. Each student read the music off of a small flip binder that was attached to their instrument. I always assumed this was due to the difficulty of memorizing the music required for a half time performance. However, after seeing Colby’s group memorize music week after week after week, I now realize that the kids I grew up with were capable of the same thing.
So why didn’t they memorize their music? Again, I can’t be sure. I’m sure some of it comes back to resources. Colby’s group were the first to arrive at school everyday, practicing for hours before school started, and they also had evening practice once per week. I know other schools that have practices before and after school every day of the school week.
There is a massive time commitment necessary to achieve what Colby’s group did, and I don’t know that my school had the budget to pay the teachers for that time. But the fact remains, our kids were certainly capable of it. Had they been at a different school, I have no doubt they would have been able to perform at the same level as the other kids.
But when I was in high school, I didn’t know such things could be achieved. Until I saw other kids doing it, I never realized I had this blind spot. This got me to thinking: what other blind spots do I have?
Here’s what I learned.
I started this episode by asking you about elephants. There’s one other thing about elephants that is shocking and true. That is, if you take a baby elephant and tie him up with a chain around his leg, he won’t be strong enough to break free. Eventually the elephant will stop trying. As the elephant grows, it still believes that it is incapable of breaking free from the chain. Even if you tie it up with a simple rope, it will still believe that it doesn’t possess the strength to break free. After all, an elephant never forgets, and it remembers the limitations of earlier days.
The elephant believes it is incapable of breaking free, therefore it does not even try. Because it does not try, it is indeed incapable of breaking free.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about limiting beliefs, and I think I have us all primed to examine those again now. The last time I talked about them I believe I mentioned 4. This time I’m expanding that list to 12 in an effort to give more examples of how both known and unknown limiting beliefs can permeate our minds.
Limiting beliefs are self-imposed restrictions that hinder personal growth and success. Here are some common types:
- Self-Doubt: Belief that you are not capable or competent enough to achieve certain goals.
– Example: “I am not smart enough to start my own business.”
- Fear of Failure: Fear that attempting something new will lead to failure and disappointment.
– Example: “If I try and fail, I will be embarrassed.”
- Fear of Success: Belief that achieving success will bring negative consequences.
– Example: “If I succeed, I will lose my friends.”
- Negative Self-Image: Belief that you are inherently flawed or unworthy.
– Example: “I am not attractive enough to find a partner.”
- Scarcity Mindset: Belief that resources are limited and not everyone can succeed.
– Example: “There aren’t enough opportunities for everyone.”
- Perfectionism: Belief that if something isn’t perfect, it’s not worth doing.
– Example: “If I can’t do it perfectly, I shouldn’t do it at all.”
- Fixed Mindset: Belief that abilities and intelligence are static and cannot be improved.
– Example: “I’m just not good at math, and I never will be.”
- External Locus of Control: Belief that external factors, rather than your own actions, control your life.
– Example: “I can’t change my situation; it’s just the way things are.”
- Comparison to Others: Belief that you aren’t as good as others and therefore cannot succeed.
– Example: “Others are more talented, so there’s no point in trying.”
- Assuming the Worst: Belief that negative outcomes are inevitable.
– Example: “No matter what I do, it will turn out badly.”
- Overgeneralization: Making broad, negative assumptions based on limited experiences.
– Example: “I failed once, so I’ll always fail.”
- Mind Reading: Belief that you know what others think about you, usually something negative.
– Example: “They think I’m incompetent.”
These limiting beliefs can significantly impact all aspects of our lives, including career, relationships, and personal fulfillment. Identifying and challenging these beliefs is crucial for personal growth and achieving our full potential. Once we identify the presence of a limiting belief in our life, we can then work to remove it and overcome it, breaking free from the control that we’ve allowed it to have.
It’s sometimes incredibly hard to forget what we’ve been conditioned to believe by our upbringing, friend group, work environment, inner voice, community culture, and other influences. Elephants aren’t made to be held back by ropes, and neither are we. Let’s see these ropes for what they are, break free from them, leave them behind, and in doing so, discover the wonderful things we never thought were possible.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag on December 30th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page.