My wife and I recently had an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. Our two regular, daytime childcare providers chose the same week for their summer vacations. Instead of scrambling to find replacements, we decided to take a little break ourselves and go to a nearby hot springs retreat for a few days.

While relaxing in one of the warm pools, I had an interesting conversation with a man who had been a ski instructor for over 15 years. The resort where he teaches in Utah has some kind of harness that allows the instructor to ski with a child as young as 2-3 years old. The harness gives the child the feeling of skiing freely while ensuring his or her safety. The instructor is always connected and supporting the child.
In this way a child grows up “knowing” that he or she can ski. They never have the awkwardness that older children or adults experience when putting skis on for the first time. Their bodies and brains get programmed early on to believe that skiing is normal, natural, and that they know how to do it.

The next morning, I took my daughter Ella for a walk in her new stroller. As we meandered alongside a gurgling creek, I noticed that she was having trouble getting her bottle out of the mesh cup holder. She kept trying, coming very close, until finally she looked up at me, clearly asking for help. My first instinct was to reach down and take the bottle out of the pocket for her. But I resisted that urge, and instead, encouraged her to try again. “You can do it, Ella.” She gave me a very cute, determined nod of her head, turned back to her bottle, and, sure enough, with just another 15 seconds of effort, she pulled that bottle out and took a nice long drink.

Now here’s the interesting part. Later on that same walk, I noticed her reach down casually I’m not even sure she looked! and pull the bottle out of the pocket. It was as if she had always known how to do it and there was nothing simpler in the world.
Just that one learning experience had shifted her entire perception. Instead of questioning her ability to succeed, she now knew from experience that she could do it, and that knowledge enabled her to do it easily and effortlessly.

Which brings me to now, to us, to you and me and to the attitudes and perceptions we bring to our projects and pursuits and to our entire lives. We are surrounded by taglines and clich