Mother, May I?
Simon Says…
Red light. Green light

3 Little Childhood Games, Untold Adult Casualties
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On the surface, these were just silly children’s games. But their message was more insidious: Don’t move without permission, and if you do, you’re out!

Who would have thought that all these years later, untold numbers of adults would still be bringing up the rear, awaiting random permission from others to advance in the game of life?

We look for the green light from our parents, our friends, our siblings and other significant people in our lives. We play it safe. We avoid. We dumb ourselves down. We act like we don’t know what to do when, in fact, we do.

Why? Because of two, powerful emotions: fear and doubt.

These two words cause us to believe others know better than we do about our own lives. Actually, fear and doubt do serve a positive purpose. They warn us of clear and imminent danger and allow us to act with caution in our physical surroundings. But if we internalize them and make them part of our story, we’ll develop false beliefs about who we are and what we can achieve.

And it doesn’t matter how many degrees we have, how sound our strategy is, or what tangible skills we’ve attained:

Unless we learn to master what I call the Emotional Side of Success, we’ll be credentialed, talented, full of potential—and STUCK. 

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