I have always seen my daughter as someone who is kind, considerate, forgiving and obedient. However, one thing that always worried me was her ability to take a stand. I wanted her to express her thoughts confidently but I knew it was not going to be easy for her to let go her fear.
So, I decided to do something that my parents didn’t do when I struggled with the same fear. I decided to walk the talk.
A couple of weeks back her class teacher approached me asking if I would be interested to conduct a small session for the kids as a part of the ‘Friday Fun’. I immediately said ‘Yes’. Her class teacher was delighted while my daughter was clueless. She kept asking me for the next few days ‘Mamma, what exactly are you going to do?’
It was Thursday and I had to do the dry run. I presented to my daughter and my husband, asked them for their feedback and continued practicing till I was confident enough. As a standard practice I logged in 15 minutes before the start time but to my despair, found that the screen was frozen, the document sharing option wasn’t working, slides were not changing etc… It freaked me out. This was not new to me. This happened to me multiple times before in a training session or a meeting and yet I was panicking.
Guess who came to my rescue? My daughter. She swiftly pulled the tablet, started trouble shooting like a pro by asking me a bunch of questions and finally sorted it out for me. She also helped me navigate through the platform quickly and stayed with me throughout the session to ensure everything was working fine.
When the session ended, she had a big smile on her face. It spelled approval all over. With her smile, she was telling me – ‘You did well’. I took up this assignment to help her understand that anyone can be scared, but it is important to face fear. However, I learnt a lesson instead.
Sometimes we are so focused on our ‘area of improvement’ that we forget to ‘optimize our strengths’. We keep chasing something that does not come naturally to us to create an identity and fit in to the archetype of an ideal which may not be us. All this effort to be someone while we don’t even realise the strength of a character does not come from the number of unique traits we have but from the authenticity of those traits.
Being able to take charge of a situation and staying put when things are chaotic is a strength that I overlooked in my daughter. Have there been situations when you have overlooked someone’s strength? Did you ever underestimate your strength of character?
Author: Sumitra Paul Chatterjee
Associate Director
I Train Consultants India Pvt. Ltd.
