BRANDON - DON’T GET INTO A FIGHT TODAY. WALK AWAY!
These words were written on a white poster board that hung above my bed when I was ten years old. A response to the last straw, when my elementary school principal met with my mom and me, pulled a binder off the shelf that was dedicated to my write-ups and explained that one more infraction would result in expulsion.
Mr. P was one of the good guys. He invested in all of us kids at Weibel Elementary. He walked around the schoolyard with a whistle around his neck and those blue and orange cards in his hands. When we were doing something good, like sharing or including someone in the basketball game, he would blow his whistle, wait until your eyes locked with his, raise the blue card, and smile, nodding his head cooly as if to say, “Well done!” When we were arguing or shoving a classmate, the whistle blew, and that orange card accompanied by a disapproving head shake signaled that you were off track. In this way, he was a walking feedback loop.
My collection of orange cards, write-ups, and a particularly harsh fight in class (in which I beat a fellow child with a chair) had prompted this meeting. Looking back now, I feel like I was the childhood version of Happy Gilmore, and mostly acting out of the chaos in my home. Regardless, I knew that this was serious. My mom sat beside me and cried as Mr. P flatly shared the facts of the matter. I had more write-ups than anybody else, and one more would have me kicked out of school. I had to get my ten-year-old shit together, and quickly. Mom needed me to.
Night after night, she pleaded with me, “Brandon, please just keep your mouth shut! Brandon, don't let those other kids get your goat! Brandon, please stop fighting!” I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Until I could. Until I had to because I wanted to change and needed to change. Until I took responsibility for myself and the direction I was headed.
Brandon at 10 years old
That poster was my poster. Those words were my words - my sloppy ten-year-old handwriting in massive Sharpie on a project poster board. No one made me do it. No one recommended that I do it. I just knew there was a lot at stake, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. And I needed a reminder rooted in my own desire to change. I didn't want to get kicked out of school, and I didn't want to make my mom cry anymore.
Taking responsibility for myself and writing down the desired objective changed my trajectory. I stopped fighting (in school) and mostly behaved (though rarely kept my mouth shut). And I’ve never stopped using the written word to prompt my actions. As I write this now, I look at my note-littered wall: “Hit record,” “Don’t say ‘um’ or ‘you know’,” “Your keyboard is your camera - show, don’t tell,” and my favorite, “DO. THE. WORK.”
I’ve learned that writing down our intentions is a powerful catalyst for action. It puts the onus in our hands, from our hearts to the pen to the paper, and keeps that goal front and center every day. When the prompt is in our own handwriting, it reminds us that the desire is ours and ours alone. We own the goal and every choice and action that takes us there.
Sure, my mom wanted me to stop fighting with others, but that wasn’t enough to get me to change. I had to want to change, feel it inside of me, and choose to take action. I had the need to change. We all must need to change and choose to own the change if we ever aim to transform into who we need to be and reach what we hope to achieve.
This is tough to grasp. As leaders, parents, friends, or mentors, it’s damned hard to see someone we care about succumbing to their lesser angels. Often, we see them hurting themselves and their loved ones most. And it feels like we are watching them stand on the same train track, time and again, waiting to get run over - again, and again, and again. We can plead, reason, and cry for them to turn back. We can beg them to just step off the tracks. We can write stacks of letters to others, but little changes until we write a handful of words to ourselves. Because words have power, especially when they are your words, written to yourself, from your heart.
I pray we never stop writing those letters to others, pleading, reasoning, and crying with them, never lose heart, and wait for that growth. I pray that we all pay attention to those opportunities to grow and write ourselves as many notes as it takes to influence our actions.
