Who is your Model of Possibility?
Hiya hi!
Welcome to the new folx around these parts! Maybe you came from my interview on the Imposter Complex with Tiffany Han on her Raise Your Hand Say Yes podcast.
It was a great interview, wasn’t it? Tiffany asks SUCH fabulous questions, really tracks the answers and wants deeply and truly on behalf of her listeners. Plus she’s hilarious, deep, kind and ever working her edge and though she is seasoned, has really only just begun the kind of stratospheric rise that I can see for her clear as day.
She is one to watch, if you aren’t already.
And as I get ready to (re)launch my OWN podcast (two weeks and counting!) I am looking to her as a Model of Possibility. How to be generous, useful, kind, ask tough questions with grace, compassion, finesse, but without being overly tethered to the punitive leash of perfectionism.
There’s no way I will be able to hit Tiffany’s level of excellence right out the gate when we launch. Nor should I even try. But when I think of Tiff as my “Model of Possibility”, well I just feel my whole being relax, even as I lean into the challenges that lie ahead.
“Model of Possibility” is a term my pal Lauren Bacon turned me onto when we were doing deep analysis of comparison some time ago.
She read Laverne Cox say: “I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their lives after me but the idea of possibility. The idea that I get to live my dreams out in public hopefully will show other folks that that is possible. And so I prefer the term possibility model to role model.”
This really dials down the stickiness of comparison, doesn’t it? When we think about people we admire, and consider them through the lens of "possibility models" (rather than role models, heroes, gurus, etc.), it really shifts things, doesn’t it?
So...who’s YOUR Model of Possibility?
And why?
Tell me.
But then, and this is SUPER important, tell THEM. I guarantee they need to hear it at that precise moment. Because, just like you, they question their own magnificence. No one gets a pass on that.
One of the many things you don’t know about my mother was that she was an avid, and I mean, AVID reader of obituaries. I’m fascinated by fascinating people living well. And how they are recognized...and not.
So it’s not surprising that on my mind is this very cool project by NYT obit editor Amy Padnani called “Overlooked Obituaries”, a series telling the stories of remarkable women and folx of colour who never received a New York Times obit. And this talk...excellent. Book and TV series coming soon.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out my interview with Tiffany Han, do check it out here. Because in Tiffany’s words, “[Imposter Complex] IS A REAL THING THAT WE GRAPPLE WITH AND THAT BECOMES ESPECIALLY BIG AND POWERFUL WHEN WE'RE RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF SOMETHING DEEPLY MEANINGFUL AND IMPORTANT. (Yes. I'm screaming because oh my goodness, doesn't this just explain so much?!)” She’s fun, that one.
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