Reach for the Feeling
The Waiting
My son wanted to go to Georgetown Law School since he was in high school.
The year he applied, the process got complicated. Admissions timelines shifted. Instead of hearing back in January or February like most students do, he was waitlisted, and left waiting through an entire semester of not knowing.
He'd call me, frustrated, asking what he was supposed to do with all that uncertainty.
Reach for the Feeling
I kept telling him the same thing. Just reach for the feeling.
Not the outcome. Not the plan. The feeling. What does it actually feel like in your body when the thing you want finally happens?
He'd get annoyed with me. "What if I don't get in?"
"Then you'll be disappointed," I'd tell him. "But right now, reach for the feeling anyway. It feels better than reaching for the fear."
Barcelona
Fast forward to May. He's in Barcelona with his best friend, a friend who for years knew about his yearning to go to Georgetown Law. They were walking into a football stadium for a tour. On the tour, they pipe in crowd noise as you walk through the tunnel, like you're a player taking the field.
Right as he stepped onto the pitch, his phone buzzed. The email. Congratulations, you've been accepted.
With actual stadium noise roaring around him.
Barcelona is his favorite place in the world now. Not because of the city. Because of that feeling, arriving exactly when it did.
What This Taught Me About Attention
I think about that story often. Not just because it's a good story, though it is. I think about it because of what it taught me about attention.
Most of us spend our waiting periods reaching for the worry instead. We rehearse the bad outcome. We build the disappointment early, as if getting ahead of it will make it hurt less if it comes.
What if, instead, we practiced reaching for the feeling we actually want?
Not blind optimism. Not pretending the waiting isn't hard. Just choosing, on purpose, where your attention goes while you wait.
The BQ™ Connection
This is close to the heart of BQ™, your Better Quotient. It was never about controlling outcomes. None of us can do that. It's about noticing where your mind goes by default and choosing something more intentional instead.
A leader waiting to hear back from a board. A team waiting to find out if a project got approved. Someone waiting to hear from a person after a hard conversation.
In all of those moments, there's a choice, even if it's a small one. Rehearse the fear or reach for the feeling you're actually hoping for.
I've learned this the slow way, over decades, mostly by watching my own default settings and deciding some of them weren't serving me anymore.
My son learned it in one semester of uncertainty, standing in a stadium in Barcelona.
Either way works. The point is noticing you have a choice at all.
What are you waiting on right now? And what would it look like to reach for the feeling instead of the fear while you wait?