Author: Franz Malten Buemann

When we look in the mirror, who do we see?

[A note I sent to a young friend.]

The person we see when we look in the mirror is the person we become, the person we fight to defend and persist with.

If you see someone who doesn’t have a lot of friends, then every time a potential friend comes along, you will find a way to distance yourself from the heartache of being rejected, and you’ll continue to not have a lot of friends.

If you see someone who isn’t happy with inputs you can’t control, then when new inputs come along, you’ll find something wrong with them and seek more control not less.

If you see someone who thrives on challenges, challenges will become a chance to thrive.

Each day gives us the best chance in the world to see a different person in the mirror.

A chance to change the stories we tell ourselves.

Airplanes rarely crash. It doesn’t matter. Turbulence isn’t fatal. It doesn’t matter. If you want to tell yourself a story about air travel, that’s your story and as far as you can take it, it’s true. It’s your story and no one can take it away from you.

Perhaps you’re homesick. Home is great. Home is wonderful. Missing home is a sign that you have a home worth missing. Being homesick is a story we tell ourselves about who we are.

But who will you become? Who can you become?

It turns out that when you’re surrounded by people who care about you, when you have freedom and a chance to lead, you can become a different, more generous, happier, more powerful, more friended version of yourself.

If you want to become the kind of person who can teach an 8-year-old how to play basketball, you can start doing that right now.

If you want to be the kind of person who leads, you can begin to lead.

If you want to.

Because you’re smart, you care, you have something to say. Because there are people who love you and care about you.

And the best way to honor those people, and honor yourself, is to become the person you were born to be.

If you want to.

Today is the best day to begin that journey. If you wait, it gets harder.

Who do you want to be when you look in the mirror?

It doesn’t matter how sure you are that this is a winning ticket, the ticket doesn’t care.

And there are lots of lotteries in our lives.

I was talking to a fifteen-year old the other day. He’s decided to devote the next decade of his life to getting drafted to play in the NBA.

Without a doubt, effort and skill make a huge impact on whether you’ll even make the final 5,000 people who have a shot at making the NBA. But after that, it looks a lot more like a lottery than a meritocracy.

The resilient approach is to bring discipline and effort to the work, but to know, deep down, that you better have a plan B. That’s not a lack of faith. That’s simply smart.