My cat Nala has no fear of the unknown, in fact he craves it. He’s forever sneaking into the crevice of a
cabinet opening where he has no business going; he’s gotten stuck numerous times. He never tells
himself, “You haven’t tried that before, it might not work out for you so you better be careful and go
where you’ve been before; stay safe.” By the way I know Nala’s a girl’s name, but I was not aware my
cat was male when he adopted me, and the name stuck.
I’m mentioning this “cat courage” of facing the unknown because I had a medical emergency in my
family recently. On the third day of a ten-day European vacation my son fell and broke his back and
three ribs, starting a saga of incredible frustration for everyone, not counting my son’s pain. We ended
up in a foreign hospital where language was a barrier, but much worse we were told if my son moved he
would be paralyzed and if he flew his lungs would explode due to where and how the ribs were broken.
Long, long story short we escaped the hospital, flew home and my son made it to his doctor and a great
surgeon who told him rest for three weeks was fine, no surgery needed. Why share this story with you?
Because my family was hurtled into complete unknown, no idea how this hospital worked (emergency
waiting room was outside for instance, where my son—with the broken back—was told to wait). And
unlike Nala, the unknown terrified us.
We are very, very fortunate that my son is healing and will be fine, but the experience made me realize
just how much we all fight against anything that is not how we “normally” expect something to be done.
“That’s not how we do it here” is a recurring theme in board rooms all over corporate America. It
was our mantra as well, as we navigated all the differences in this foreign environment. And it’s the end
to innovation, creativity and growth.
Back to our experience, we needed to get my son home where he could be diagnosed and treated, but
our incredible resistance fueled by fear, didn’t help us in the process. It ended well for us and I’m
incredibly relieved, but in the future I want to remember to listen before I disagree, to consider before I
unilaterally know someone is wrong, and to open up to the possibility there could be other options that
also work. And finally I would like to be a little more fearless, addressing the unknown with curiosity and
courage, much like Nala.
