Mount Vernon High School

October 25, 2024 Obstacles as Opportunities A recent study showed that couples who visited a restaurant for the first time and had a flawless dining experience had a 60% chance of returning to that establishment in the future. That same study showed that couples who visited a restaurant for the first time and encountered some unexpected problem - their reservation was messed up, their order was wrong, or their food was cold, for instance - but where the employees went out of their way to try and fix their mistake? Those couples had a 92% chance of returning in the future. Isn’t that ironic? The obstacle the restaurant encountered actually made a more positive outcome possible. There’s an important lesson there that each of us can apply to our own winning pursuit. It’s easy of course to spend our time thinking and dreaming about a flawless path forward, where everything goes just according to plan. But reality is that doing anything meaningful and significant will probably require us to deal with and overcome some unexpected and unwanted obstacles. How we respond to those obstacles plays a major part in the outcome we create. I want to challenge you today to work on shifting your perspective - to see your obstacles as opportunities - so you can make your positive outcome even more possible. Shifting your perspective is important, but not easy. Most people, not surprisingly, see their obstacles as obligations they are required to endure, not as opportunities they’ve been blessed to encounter. And while it’s unreasonable to expect that any of us should be thanking our lucky stars when challenges arise, there’s value in recognizing the power of the perspective we choose. The American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau famously said, “It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.” That’s so true. Two people can encounter the same obstacle, but define it as part of their experience in entirely different ways. It’s worth considering today, when obstacles arise, whether your perspective is promoting your winning performance...or hindering it from happening. With that in mind, here are three specific ways you can work on shifting your perspective, and seeing your obstacles as opportunities… 1) Obstacles are an opportunity to show how much you care. People who win care more. That’s just the truth. And while it’s possible to demonstrate our care anytime, adversity provides us with a unique opportunity to prove it. Think back to that restaurant example. The mistake they made - the reservation that was messed up, the order that was wrong, or the food that was cold, for example - gave the restaurant staff the chance to show how committed they were to their customers. If your care is genuine and authentic, then the obstacles that arise will reveal it. 2) Obstacles are an opportunity to learn and improve. Stanford University professor Carol Dweck wrote one of the most important books I’ve ever read, called Mindset. In it, she outlines the differences between two opposing mindsets - the growth mindset, where obstacles provide you with valuable information you can use to learn and improve, and the fixed mindset, where obstacles create a negative and unhealthy sense of judgment around who you are and what you are or aren't capable of. Our mindset determines our perspective. It’s often in hindsight that we look back and see that the hard things we experienced, though frustrating or even painful at the time, taught us something we couldn’t have learned any other way. Only with a growth mindset is that important learning and improvement possible. 3) Obstacles are an opportunity to prove that you’re worthy of winning. Everyone says they want to win, but not everyone’s willing to do what winning requires. Overcoming some obstacles - a lot of obstacles, maybe - is a box that authentic success often requires you to check. So when those unexpected and unwanted obstacles put you to the test, recognize it as an opportunity to validate that you are in fact the kind of resilient, tough-minded person that real success requires you to be. Don’t miss the chance you’ve been given to offer up some real-life evidence about who you are and what you’re made of. Building that kind of winning mindset and perspective isn’t easy, but it is possible. And if you really want to win, you'll recognize that it's important work that must be done. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose whether or not obstacles will be a part of our experience. We do, however, get to choose what we do with them. That's the opportunity each of us - including you - have been given here today. -Travis