Catching More Green Lights In Life
2 min read
One of the most powerful things my mom said to me…. You write your own life script. When I finally listened to her, when I was ready to hear it, the world opened up to me.
In Matthew McConaughey’s book, Greenlights, he shares that his life story is about catching more yes's in a world of no's, and how to recognize when a no might actually be a yes.
“This is a book about catching green lights and realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green.”
Catching more green lights is an exercise of identifying where the red lights are in your life, and then changing course to hit fewer of them.
Where are your red lights?
What if your red light was actually one decision from becoming a green light for you? Ask yourself, where are you creating green lights that if you doubled-down on them would become a game changer for you? Ask yourself, where are the yellow lights in your life that are simply a sign of caution or fear in disguise?
Fear of the unknown is often what prevents us from writing our own life script with more green lights. Fear is often a mask for what we desire most. How often do you default to no? A quick response to an unknown that could be that green light.
Martha Stewart was given a red light when Time Inc., who owned her brand at the time, said no to expanding the brand's footprint into products and TV. This red light drove her to create a multi-year partnership with K-Mart to fund the buying of her brand back from Time. Inc. That’s a green light.
Steve Job’s yellow light came when he dropped out of Reed college just a semester in as he felt his focus was better spent elsewhere. His green light came when he began dropping into a calligraphy course the next semester which became the inspiration for the landmark digital typefaces of the Macintosh computer.
A more personal example, a diagnosis of cancer on April Fool’s Day 2019 was a red light that turned green for me as I opened up my executive coaching and leadership development practice while in treatment.
If you want help creating more green lights, let's connect for a discovery call.