Hello Reader,

Welcome to the conversation.

I'm not a basketball (or any sport for that matter) person.

But last night I stayed up late with Paul watching two legendary programs, UConn and Duke, battle it out for a spot in the Final Four. And I could not look away.

UConn had been down for most of the game. Down big. And then, in the final five minutes, something shifted. They clawed back. And with seconds left on the clock, down by two points, a young man caught the ball near the edge of the court and did something remarkable.

He didn't hesitate. He didn't negotiate with the moment. He looked at the shot clock, five seconds, and he shot from way out. A three-pointer. The only shot that could win the game.

It went in.

The place erupted. Paul and I erupted. And I sat there thinking, I'm not even a basketball person, and this just changed something in me.

Because here's what struck me most: he didn't take that shot because he was sure it would go in. He took it because not taking it was the only way to guarantee losing.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

But the deeper question, the one I haven't been able to shake, is: what made him able to take it?

“ You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. — Wayne Gretzky

From My Chair to Yours

This weekend, I took a trip I didn't plan for.

I've built my life and work around a model (Depletion to Fulfillment), with stages like: depletion to resolve to reflection. I know that arc. I teach that arc. But somewhere quietly, resolve slipped into deflation over the past week of so, and this weekend I found a trapdoor I didn't know was there. I fell through depletion it into defeat.

Not dramatic defeat. The quiet kind. The kind where you've been gripping a vision so tightly that you don't realize the grip is the problem.

I had picked up the anvil without knowing it. The weight of needing my business to succeed exactly the way I had decided it should. And what I couldn't see was that weight wasn't ambition or commitment. It was attachment dressed up as leadership.

And then a kid on a basketball court showed me something. He took the shot without needing to win the game to justify taking it. The courage was in the release, not the result. I had been taking shots too. I just couldn't feel proud of the shooting because I was so attached to the W that I'd stopped asking the more important question: How is this wanting to unfold? How am I being called to serve?

The attachment to winning a specific way wasn't protecting my vision. It was just keeping me from seeing clearly.

The Lens

That player didn't shoot because he was confident it would go in. He shot because the clock made the decision simple: act, or lose by doing nothing.

That's the thing about non-attachment that people misunderstand. It isn't apathy or giving up on what you want. It's releasing your grip on how it has to look so you can fully commit to what's in front of you right now.

Attachment to outcome is the anvil. And it's sneaky, because it disguises itself as caring deeply, as high standards, as vision. But underneath, it's fear. Fear that if it doesn't happen your way, it doesn't count.

There's a detour on the path from depletion to fulfillment that most of us don't see. It runs through deflation, that quiet erosion of energy when things aren't unfolding as planned, and forks at somepoint with either a return to depletion or a trapdoor marked defeat, which opens the moment we decide our version of success is the only version worth having.

The anvil pulls you through it.

Fulfillment lives on the other side of the shot. Not in whether it goes in, but in the fact that you trusted yourself enough to take it. The shot clock is a gift. It removes endless deliberation. And in that forced clarity, the anvil drops, the attachment falls away, and something truer takes over.

Reflection

So I'll ask you what I've been sitting with overnight:

What shot are you not taking right now?

Where are you holding the ball, watching the clock run down, waiting for better odds, or waiting for a guarantee that doesn't exist?

Where has attachment to a specific outcome become the very thing keeping you from the fulfillment you're after? Where is the anvil hiding, dressed up as a plan, a standard, a vision you're protecting?

And here's the gentler question underneath all of it: What if the way it's wanting to unfold is actually better than the way you've been insisting it should?

I stayed up late with Paul watching strangers play basketball. And somehow, in the final five seconds of a game I had no business caring about, a young man reminded me what it looks like when someone puts down the weight and just takes the shot.

The clock is running.

What are you waiting for?

Until we see each other again, I hope you have a powerful day.

-Joanna

Joanna Douglas
Conscious Leadership Coach, Speaker, Teacher Founder of Enneagram Ensight