The Hug Verger

Some years ago my good friend Sophia Husbands started a LinkedIn Group called “What’s Stopping You?” When I joined the Group in September 2012 a number of trains of thought arrived in "my station" ... and, like many of our new places, involving new people with new ideas and new perspectives – this got me thinking!


Folding the T Shirt

A few years ago I was a County U14s Cricket Manager, and I would do an interactive presentation with every new intake at our first session in January.
One of the exercises involved folding a T-shirt very neatly so that it appeared in ‘new’ and ‘shop shelf’ condition. It demonstrated 2 main things –
a) To the players – that this is a quickly learnt skill to execute the task in under 15 seconds, and is a timely reminder that we can all learn new skills easily in the right environment.
b) About the players – their open-mindedness, confidence and beliefs; which most times throws plenty of light on their world-view.

Now, if this task was required for every one of them to do, then all we (the management team) would get would be information on levels of expertise and speed of skills acquisition. However these lads didn’t ALL have to do the folding task – so straight away the reticent ones would take the road of “I’ll watch the others before I have a go”.
And this is where it connects with “What’s Stopping You?” and – “Why are the reticent, reticent?”

Reticence and Judgement

To a young teenage mind there are not very many grey areas, so although we might see degrees of expertise or making a good fist of attempting, they will invariably judge it as either I CAN do this or I CAN’T do this.

Another thing is that they will also judge themselves - IF they think they are being judged too.

If left to their own devices, with no critical eye looking on, then most of them will keep making attempts, go after go, until they are satisfied it conforms to the model they were shown what and how to copy.
However, if their beliefs are such that they are already on the road to being perfectionists, then – even when left to their own devices – they will sabotage their learning abilities by damning self talk, and give up trying.

Fortunately when we are really young and learning to walk or speak we start out with no comprehension about the ability to be reticent or judge ourselves. It’s all about the game called discovery and we play it very well. Our parents, siblings, other family members and people around us, give us (as a rule) plenty of encouragement in this game of learning by discovery.

Gremlins

In my book “Lamplighters” I talk about recognising and dealing with our gremlins, and how they get into our lives. Probably the first gremlin we encounter is the linguistic one DON’T. Don’t leads us very quickly to its brother gremlins WON’T, SHAN’T and CAN’T. The thing is, the older we get and the more we get familiar with – especially in terms of our own usage – these four linguistic gremlins, the more we allow them to twist our beliefs into shapes that were never there when we learned how to balance, walk and talk.

In terms of “What’s Stopping You?” therefore, the answers always tend to lie within ourselves.
“I can’t do this because ...”because there’s always a reason, an excuse.
“Yes, but what if ...” I mess it up, or make a real hash of it.
“I’ll look stupid ...”and they’ll laugh at me and see me for what I really am.
Or – “I’ll feel stupid ...” and then I’ll know that I’m really not that good at stuff.

Take a look at our Paralympians. As far as their capabilities were concerned, once they’d excluded or banished or never let in that quartet of linguistic limitations then a whole range of possibilities opened up. Their answer to “What’s Stopping You” was, pretty much, “... nothing, unless I make it so.”

Reframing excuses is a great way to start, because it challenges a particular world-view.
“I can’t go and talk to that good looking stranger at the bar.”
“Why not? What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“They wouldn’t want to talk to me. They might say something like 'Get Lost Creep!' And that would be awful.”
“How lucky would that be, though? Discovering that they aren't nice! Imagine having to spend time, let alone a life, with someone as awful as THAT? Wow – what a narrow escape from hell on wheels that was!”

Limiting beliefs, especially in the area of our capabilities, often start out quite innocently. Once the gremlins have sneaked in though, whether through the open door or under the threshold, then they can set to work. When we’re young the signs of their handiwork can soon be on show, while sometimes they can often lie dormant for years and then emerge. Quite often we’ll apply a youthful strategy to deal with a gremlin’s action only to discover as we get older that it has come back – with a vengeance.

The Hug Verger

I remember when I was quite young, I would sit with my mother and we would read a story together. She’d read part of a page to me and then I’d read the rest of the page to her. Now we’ve all been party to such an activity, and I used to really enjoy it – the story unfolding through her voice and then my voice. From her I got to learn what lots more words looked like and sounded like – and I got a really good handle on pronunciation and other aspects of speech for myself as well. It was another innocent and fun learning activity.

One particular day I remember reading out loud, “... and a Hug Verger came out from the shadows.” There was a suspension of time which was broken by my mother asking me to repeat what I’d just said. “A Hug Verger came out from the shadows.”

She smiled and chuckled, “That’s pronounced h-u-g-e   f-i-g-u-r-e. A huge figure came out from the shadows.” I repeated how she said it, and very soon got it right. English is not an easy language, and here was a two word phrase with a hard and a soft ‘g’ AND two different ‘u’ sounds. Think about it - not many words rhyme with ‘huge’ or look like ‘figure’ – and I certainly had no references for anything like these words!

The thing was – I was young enough to make an attempt to say them without thinking, using my current knowledge and what words looked and sounded like. I paid no thought to making a mistake, because I often made mistakes when reading with my mother like that. And yes, I saw how funny it was in context, when she told me what a Verger actually was and did.

Trouble was however – The Hug Verger became a source of some amusement for other adults beyond the confines of our mother and son read-and-learn exercise. To the adults my parents shared this anecdote with, this was just a funny sounding linguistic joke - but to my young mind I was the joke. They were laughing at me – not at what I’d said.

I never revealed these feelings to my parents - or asked them to keep the story private. And, in this small boy's view of the world, the discomfort and embarrassment were agonising.

The almost instant end result was I became very cautious at reading words I didn’t immediately recognise by pausing and letting the silence hang there until my mother said the word. Then I could say it ‘the right way’ and this wouldn’t lead to any more Hug Vergers, or embarrassment and discomfort. Silence was my safety mechanism.

And this was the start of my shyness ...
When meeting people I’d have to speak – I might say ‘the wrong thing’ so I’d be as silent as possible. In contemplation of meeting people I’d go through the next stage of silence – avoidance. I’d avoid meeting people. When avoidance was not an option, and silence was not an option, then I’d just have to speak. And the consequence of this conflict between speaking and avoiding was the next stage – stammering. From the smallest beginnings this was growing and growing.

There’s an old nursery rhyme about a horseshoe nail -

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

And for me, this became true. I lost a large part of my personal kingdom for many years - all for the want of an explanatory and comforting “Hug”.

So when people talk to me about what’s stopping them, I’m happy to share my own cautionary tale – AND to invite them to reframe their experiences; experiences that have fashioned and crafted their limiting beliefs.

Hopefully this enables them to hug their vergers, embrace their fears, banish their gremlins and start enjoying the life they really want to lead.