The path to greatness lies not in fixing things but in empowering yourself and others to learn and grow through challenges. In this episode of Winning Mindset Mastery, April Shprintz reveals the counterintuitive secret to achieving greatness and shares how to empower others to achieve their full potential. With her signature blend of insight and empathy, April challenges listeners to examine their beliefs about success and fulfillment, emphasizing the importance of fostering resilience and confidence. Join April on this enlightening journey of self-discovery and transformation, and discover the key to achieving greatness in every aspect of life.
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The #1 Technique For Achieving Greatness
Holding Space
I am so glad you’re here. If you were to ask me the number one thing that you need to achieve greatness in your life, hands down, no delay, I would say self-belief. It is the number one most important thing. Yet if you were to ask me, “What is the number one thing to create greatness in others?” I would tell you something totally different. I would say holding space. What does that mean?
Holding space is really allowing people to grow, to make mistakes, to learn, and to become in a way that can be incredibly difficult when you care about them. You see this the most with kids and how we want to prevent them from making mistakes, having failures, and feeling pain. We just want their life to be as easy, happy, and wonderful as possible. However, we can totally get into the trap of protecting them from life so much that they don’t really live it and they don’t develop the self-belief and the confidence that they need to actually be successful in life, especially if their parents aren’t around.
If you think about it, instead of wanting their life to be easy, you look instead to allow their life to happen in such a way that they know they could easily handle anything that comes at them. Now it’s not something that is for the faint of heart. It can be a lot more difficult than fixing things, helping them, preventing things, or giving them things could ever be. It will also set them up to have a much happier and easier life across the board, whether you’re there to be their safety net or not. The same thing happens as a leader or a partner. When you want someone to have all of the advantages in the world, all the success in the world, you want really great things for them.
Instead of wishing for an easy life for your child, focus on creating experiences that will equip them to handle anything that comes their way. Share on XIt can be difficult to just hold space and watch them muddle through. It’s hard sometimes to just, again, be there, support them, care about them, but not fix things for them. Another great example of this would be if someone is experiencing grief, Brene Brown does a really great job of talking about holding space because she talks about being at an airport with a colleague who found out that they lost someone and sitting there with them, being right beside them, and just allowing them to grieve, allowing them to cry, allowing them to break down, and not saying, “Everything’s going to be okay. Look on the bright side. Here’s what we’re going to do to fix this.” That’s one version of holding space.
It’s really not taking action at all other than to show that you’re there and that you are there to support those people. The reason it’s such a great technique for greatness is because those folks know you’re there. They know that they’re supported, but they are figuring things out for themselves both in your partner when they are looking to achieve things and do things. This can be wonderful because they have that support, but they get to figure it out on their own. They get to own that win.
How To Do It
As a leader with your employees, allowing them to figure things out instead of telling them the answers or micromanaging what they’re doing or taking a project away from them because you were afraid of how it will reflect on you, really gives them that space to grow and become, and is what is absolutely needed to achieve any kind of greatness. How do you do it? You hold to the outcome that you want for them, regardless of who we’re talking about, whether we’re talking about kids or folks that you’re leading on your team or a partner, you hold to the fact that you know that they are capable of doing it.
You keep that vision in your mind the same way that you do for your own goals and just imagine them doing the thing that they want to do. Imagine them having that success. Imagine them getting exactly where they want to be. You focus on that instead of what action steps you can take to help them. It sounds difficult, but it may even sound easier than it is, candidly, but practicing on smaller things will make it easier and easier when the stakes are high. The added benefit is they always know you’re in their corner.
Reach Out
They know they have your support, but they get the gift of accomplishing things on their own, gaining that confidence, and using that confidence to then achieve even more and enjoy what they’ve been able to do. Give this a try and let me know what you think about it. Don’t forget, you can always reach out to me on WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com. All the way down towards the bottom is the Ask April section, and you can send me a private message and I’ll answer you right back.
