Rights Information
The 3 Gaps
Are You Making a Difference?
Hyrum Smith (Author) | Richard I. Winwood (Foreword by)
Publication date: 12/04/2015
We all eventually ask ourselves the question, “Am I making a difference?” We want our lives to have meaning. We want to contribute through our work, our family relationships, and our interaction with others in our community. But just as an airline flight attendant will tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others, getting your own life together is the first step to making a positive impact on the world around you.
In this new book, Franklin Covey cofounder Hyrum Smith shows that achieving a meaningful, fulfilling, and impactful life is a straightforward process. He identifies three root causes of stress, dissatisfaction, and pain, which drain the energy we need to make a difference: the gaps between where we are and where we want to be. The first is the Beliefs Gap: the gap between what we believe to be true and what is actually true. The second is the Values Gap: the gap between what we value most in life and what we actually spend our life doing. The third is the Time Gap: the gap between what we plan to do each day and what we actually get done.
Using inspiring true stories of people who have overcome difficult challenges, the author offers a practical blueprint that we all can use to close each of these three gaps in our personal and work lives. He shows how this will result in the inner peace so necessary in dealing with the chaos in the world today. Smith provides the concepts and the tools to move from the life you currently have to the life you really want.
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We all eventually ask ourselves the question, “Am I making a difference?” We want our lives to have meaning. We want to contribute through our work, our family relationships, and our interaction with others in our community. But just as an airline flight attendant will tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others, getting your own life together is the first step to making a positive impact on the world around you.
In this new book, Franklin Covey cofounder Hyrum Smith shows that achieving a meaningful, fulfilling, and impactful life is a straightforward process. He identifies three root causes of stress, dissatisfaction, and pain, which drain the energy we need to make a difference: the gaps between where we are and where we want to be. The first is the Beliefs Gap: the gap between what we believe to be true and what is actually true. The second is the Values Gap: the gap between what we value most in life and what we actually spend our life doing. The third is the Time Gap: the gap between what we plan to do each day and what we actually get done.
Using inspiring true stories of people who have overcome difficult challenges, the author offers a practical blueprint that we all can use to close each of these three gaps in our personal and work lives. He shows how this will result in the inner peace so necessary in dealing with the chaos in the world today. Smith provides the concepts and the tools to move from the life you currently have to the life you really want.
Hyrum W. Smith is a distinguished author, speaker, and businessman. Hyrum stepped down as Chairman & CEO of the Franklin Covey Company, Franklin Quest’s successor, in 1999. He continued as Vice-Chairman of the Board until 2004. For four decades, he has been empowering people to effectively govern their personal and professional lives. Hyrum’s books and presentations have been acclaimed by American and international audiences. He combines wit and enthusiasm with a gift for communicating compelling principles that incite lasting personal change.
Hyrum is the author of several nationally-acclaimed books, including The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, What Matters Most, The Modern Gladiator, You Are What You Believe and he co-authored Excellence Through Time Management.
Hyrum grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then spent two years in London, England. He returned from London and was drafted into the army.
He was married in 1966 to Gail Cooper while on leave. They have six children (five living) and 24 grandchildren (22 living).
After graduating Honor Graduate from Officers Candidate School, he commanded a Pershing Missile unit in Germany. Hyrum graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971 in Business Management.
In 1984, he became one of the original creators of the popular Franklin Day Planner. He also co
-founded the Franklin Quest Company to produce the planner and train individuals and organizations in the time management principles on which the planner was based.
Hyrum has received numerous honors and community service awards, including the following:
• International Entrepreneur of the Year by Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management in 1993
• Three honorary doctorate degrees
• SRI Gallup Hall of Fame and Man of the Year Award in 1992
• Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts of America
• Inducted into the Utah Business Hall of Fame
Hyrum enjoys golfing, shooting pistols and rifles, listening to classical music, horse riding and spending time with his family at his ranch in southern Utah.
“The 3 Gaps is a simple yet profound book that will enable you to live a better, more fulfilling life and have a positive impact on everyone around you.”
—Stephen M. R. Covey, New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and coauthor of Smart Trust
“If you want to quickly and effortlessly close the gaps from where you are to where you want to be, read this book—by my dear friend Hyrum Smith—and apply it now!”
—Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and bestselling author of 500 million books
“Rarely are such profound principles taught with such simplicity and accessibility. Every work group should read and apply this message.”
—Catherine Hormats, entrepreneur and cofounder of Social Security Advisors
“To successfully manage a team, employees, or a family, we all must first manage ourselves. That is the great lesson of The 3 Gaps; and the great gift is that Mr. Smith so clearly tells us how.”
—Michelle Baron, award-winning producer-writer of worldwide family entertainment
1. Beliefs Gap
Tyler and Jennifer Wilkinson
2. Values Gap
Linda Clemons
3. Time Gap
McKay Christensen
4. Conclusion
CHAPTER 1
The Beliefs Gap
Closing the Beliefs Gap
The Power of the Belief Window
Because beliefs are such a powerful determining factor in our lives, the first gap I want to discuss is the gap between what you believe to be true and what is actually true: your Beliefs Gap.
There was a time when the vast majority of the people on this earth believed that the sun revolved around the earth. When Copernicus suggested and Galileo insisted that it was the other way around, people considered them heretics. The fact that they were right was irrelevant; and, at the time, believing the wrong thing about the sun’s relationship to the earth had no serious consequences (other than personal ostracism). Had we not corrected that erroneous belief we certainly would never have had the power to achieve the tremendous scientific advances spurred on by the space program. The correct belief allowed us to make a difference.
Consider the following story.
John walks into the yard of a friend, and is surprised to see a Doberman pinscher that has never been there before. At first he freezes in terror; then he runs out of the yard as fast as his legs can carry him without pausing to wonder how the dog got there or to notice if it is on a chain.
Later, Susan walks into the same yard. She is just as surprised as John to be greeted by a Doberman. Her reaction, however, is to squeal with delight, “Oh! How cute!” She runs toward the dog so she can pet it and scratch it behind its ears.
Why such different reactions to the same dog? It’s all about what I call the Belief Window.
Everyone has a Belief Window. I like to picture it as a small, clear window hanging in front of your face. I imagine it hooked in place so that every time you move, the Belief Window moves with you: you look out into the world through that window and you draw in information from the world through the same window.
On this Belief Window you have placed thousands of beliefs or principles that you assume to be correct. They have accumulated over your entire life and they are not all equal in value. Some are good, some aren’t. Some are rational, some are irrational. Some are productive and some are counterproductive. The number of beliefs on your Belief Window tends to be a function of your age and experience. We put beliefs on our windows because we believe that they are true and that by following them we will meet our needs over time.
John has a belief on his Belief Window that says that all Doberman pinschers are vicious; he has accepted that as a correct principle. So when he is confronted by a Doberman pinscher, his behavior is to run, to evade, to leap tall buildings with a single bound—whatever it takes to distance himself from that Doberman. He doesn’t go through an analysis of the situation. Reactions based on one’s underlying beliefs are automatic.
Susan, on the other hand, has a belief that says that all dogs are cute and sweet. Her behavior around a Doberman is drastically different from John’s because of what she believes to be true about dogs.
Your Belief Window is covered with beliefs, and that window governs your behavior. The issue is,
Do you have correct or incorrect beliefs on your Belief Window?
Everyone has correct, incorrect, and debatable beliefs that influence behavior. Keep in mind that in using the terms correct and incorrect, I am not attempting to make moral judgments about whether beliefs are “good” or “bad”; I use the terms only to simplify this discussion, and to indicate how those beliefs affect our lives.
If a belief reflects natural law or reality—such as “vegetables are good for people,” “gravity keeps me on the ground,” or “the world revolves around the sun”—it may be considered as generally correct. Beliefs contrary to such natural laws could be considered incorrect.
In addition to being based on natural laws, the things we believe can be reflections of personal values, such as “financial independence is important” or “I should treat others the way I want to be treated.”
Beliefs can also simply be a subjective judgment or matter of opinion, such as “European cars are better than American cars,” “broccoli doesn’t taste good,” or “I can eat anything I want and it won’t affect me adversely.” Matters of opinion are not easily categorized as correct or incorrect. Whether your beliefs are backed by strong scientific evidence, grow out of your values, or are completely subjective doesn’t change the fact that because we believe them to be true, we will act as if they are true. The key is to identify the beliefs on our window and change those that are incorrect, inadequate, or counterproductive.
Because there is no way to print out a list of the beliefs on anyone’s Belief Window, we need to find another way to determine what those beliefs might be. The only way to do this is to examine the behavior they produce. (It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what John has on his Belief Window about Dobermans based on observing his behavior pattern whenever he runs into one.) If you analyze a pattern of behavior in your own life that has negative results, you are the victim of an incorrect or inadequate belief. In other words, you have a Belief Gap that needs closing.
In another book, You Are What You Believe, I discuss more fully a model of human behavior known as the Reality Model. I will not discuss it in detail here, but will suggest that you pick up that book for a complete explanation.
It suffices here to point out that incorrect beliefs on your Belief Window lead to patterns of behavior that produce negative results. You will experience stress, emotional pain, relationship disruptions, and/or employment disappointments (among other things) when this is the case.
Let me point out here that all of our beliefs and behaviors are designed to meet basic needs common to all of us. Those generally accepted needs include the need to live (survival), the need to love and be loved (relationship), the need to feel important (have value), and the need for variety. If we are not meeting those needs, we will feel pain in one way or another. (John was no doubt trying to meet his need to live when he ran from the Doberman, and Susan was meeting her need to love and be loved.)
What is important to understand is that even though we put beliefs on our Belief Window that we think will meet these needs, we are not always correct. Perhaps because of a bad experience early in life, or because someone taught us something at an early age, or because we might misinterpret events around us, all of us get beliefs on our Belief Window that fail to meet our needs.
This is a good time to point out that determining whether or not your behavior meets your needs takes time to measure. Something that may seem to meet your needs in a one-time situation takes on a whole different dimension when measured over time. An obvious example might be the use and abuse of alcohol. If you believe that drinking relaxes you and makes you more socially adept, you may try that a few times; it may even work the way you intend it to. But many people have found that, over time, the results from that belief do great damage to their relationships, employment, and mental health. Remember, results take time to measure.
You can choose to believe whatever you wish; just remember that your beliefs drive your behavior. A correct belief will lead to good results—results that are positive and beneficial to you. In other words, it will meet one or more of your four basic needs over time. An incorrect belief will lead to bad results—results that are negative or damaging to you. It will not meet your needs over time. It’s as simple as that.
Let’s take another example. Let’s say that you have a belief that was mentioned above: European cars are better than American cars. If that is your belief, then you set up your (invisible) behavior rules so that when it is time for you to buy a new car, your choice is rather simple. What kind of car will you buy? Behavior is automatic; it grows out of the principle that you have accepted as true on your Belief Window. Will the results of choosing to buy a European car meet your needs over time? Possibly.
Here is another example. Let’s say that a belief that you hold is that you must never lose at games. If that is true for you, then when you start to lose a game, what will be the probable behavior? It could be to cheat, quit, or even throw a tantrum. It depends on the behavior rules that you set up as a result of this belief. Then the question must be asked: Will the results of this behavior meet your needs over time? Probably not, in this case. You may have to replace this belief with an alternative one in order to close the gap and create inner peace in your life.
Some examples of possible beliefs that may be on a Belief Window are:
• Schools should go back to basics.
• My self-worth is determined by things I own, the job I have, and the praise I receive from others.
• Mom and Dad will always love me regardless of what I do.
• My family will never understand me.
• Men are inferior.
• Women are inferior.
• I’m a pawn of outside forces and I can’t do anything about it.
• I’m not an addict. I can quit any time.
• Some people are simply worth more than others.
Remember:
Any belief that drives behavior that does not meet your basic needs over time is an incorrect belief.
The key to monitoring your Belief Window, to deciding what to accept as correct and what to adjust or discard as incorrect, is to follow these four steps:
Step 1: Admit. To begin the process, you will need to admit two things to yourself. First, you will need to admit that there is behavior in your life that is causing pain, stress, or chaos. It is often easier to identify the pain than it is to see the behavior that is causing it, but most of us will get there if we are honest with ourselves.
Second, you will have to admit that you must change yourself in order to improve your life. We all tend to externalize; we tend to blame others or outside forces for our pain. We think it so often that we truly believe it. A willingness to admit that we are the problem is the key to progress. (And because we are the only persons we can change, putting the blame on others means that our pain will not go away.)
Step 2: Ask Yourself Why. You now need to ask yourself why you are behaving in a way that leads to the negative results noted in step 1. If you keep asking why, and if you are honest with yourself, you will ultimately find the answer. And the answer to the question “Why?” always comes up as a belief on your Belief Window.
Why do I run away from dogs? (I believe that all dogs are dangerous.) Why do I make jokes at inappropriate times? (I believe that being funny is the best way to make friends.) Why do I cheat at games? (I believe that my value as a person is based on winning at games.) Why do I continue to hang out with an abusive person? (I believe that I deserve the abuse I receive.) Why am I always late to meetings? (I think my time is more valuable than that of others.)
This may take some time, and it will definitely take some honest self-examination. You will usually know when you have hit bedrock, when you have surfaced the belief that is at the root of your behavior.
Step 3: Adopt an Alternative Belief. This is the part where you must get creative. You must identify a new belief, one that is an alternative to the belief that is causing your troublesome behavior. The first example above (all dogs are dangerous) could be replaced with a different belief (most dogs are friendly). You can test various alternatives by projecting how you would behave if you actually believed the alternative principle. In this over-simplified case, you would no longer run every time you saw a dog; you would look forward to the experience. (And even if you found the occasional mean dog, it would still fit with your new belief that most dogs are friendly.) If that is a better result, better meeting your needs over time, then it is likely that you have found the belief you need to write on your Belief Window.
Now, this is easy to write about, but it is not as easy to do. The reason you have a belief in the first place is because you think it is true, and you are now trying to substitute something you don’t think is true. Move on to the next step, and you will see how this can work.
Step 4: Act as If. Up to this point, everything has been an academic exercise. You have examined your stress points and have tied them to behaviors that produce them. You have asked yourself why you behave that way, and examined the beliefs that dictate your behavior. But none of that has required you to change anything.
You are now at that point. But how do you change a belief that could be the product of years of reinforcement? Once you identify an alternative belief, even if you “know” it can’t be true, you take the most important and most difficult step. You begin to act as if the new belief is true.
Neuroscience has taught us that behavior creates neural pathways in the brain. By acting a certain way over and over, those actions begin to feel normal. This is sometimes known as “fake it till you make it.” In the beginning, it will take conscious thought to do this. Over time, it becomes easier and, ultimately, automatic.
I will promise you this: once the belief has been changed, the behavior it produces automatically changes with it. And the pain caused by the old behavior goes away.
Remember, until you change the belief on your Belief Window, your behavior will never change.
Your Belief Window and the Belief Gap
Anytime you’re getting results that are causing long-term harm, such as missing promotions, experiencing unemployment, losing important relationships, struggling with your weaknesses or addictions, or any other form of missing out on things that are important to you, your Belief Gap—the gap between what you believe will meet your needs and what will actually do so—is too wide. As a result, you are like Indiana Jones, stranded on the wrong side of a chasm. You are not in a position to make a positive difference in the world, and it’s time for a change.
The key to closing the Beliefs Gap is being able to put into practice the four steps outlined above. The results in your life flow automatically from your behavior, and that behavior is a function of the beliefs on your Belief Window. This all happens automatically, without even consciously thinking about it; but what you allow on your Belief Window is the key.
If you want results that meet your needs over time, change the beliefs on your Belief Window!
You close the gap by changing the belief. When the belief changes, everything changes.
Change is almost never instantaneous. It can, at times, feel like two steps forward and one step back. But as you continue to act with your new belief, positive results will occur and you will know that you have closed a gap between something you believed would meet your needs and something that actually will.
Always ask yourself this critical question:
Will this behavior meet my needs over time?
If the answer is anything but a sincere and confident yes, then begin surgery on your Belief Window.
Tyler and Jennifer Wilkinson
I’ve known Tyler for many years; he attended high school with my son, and was one of the best high school running backs ever to come out of the state of Utah. In my opinion, Tyler and his wife Jennifer are probably the most powerful and compelling example I have ever known of two people who were willing to close the Belief Gap.
Tyler and Jennifer have had to deal with an immense tragedy in their lives and decided that they were not going to be beat by it. They had to examine what they believed about themselves and their opportunities in the world.
What follows is their story. You will see how changing beliefs became fundamental to their lives as they evolved. As I spoke with them about the power of closing the Belief Gap, their responses were so natural and free-flowing that I decided to let them share their experience with you, the reader, just as they shared it with me.
(Tyler) I grew up with two older brothers, who were athletes, and three younger sisters. Being five and a half and three and a half years younger than my brothers, I looked up to them. And sports were important to me too; anything I could do to impress them was a big deal to me, the little brother. We lived in a small town, and I always wanted to be a football player and a baseball player.
I always felt that I was competing against not just the people locally but with other kids all over America who were getting up early, doing pushups and sit-ups, and running. I always kind of looked over my shoulder. With that focus, I improved and became a better athlete. My dad and mom supported me in sports. Of course, they also wanted me to do well academically. I did okay; I recognized that it was important. I got 3.3s, 3.4s, and occasionally 3.5 or 3.6 maybe even a 3.7 grade point average, but if it came down to a homework assignment versus athletic practice, I chose the practice. My parents recognized that my hard work could pay off in a scholarship.
As I got into middle school, I started getting interested in social life quite a bit more. I met Jennifer in eighth grade and kind of started liking her in ninth grade. Now, I think I recognized in Jennifer attributes that I felt were different from those of other girls. There were a lot of neat girls around, but Jennifer just carried herself differently; she seemed to live the standards that I hoped for. Even though we were young, we associated with each other a lot. We did date other people, but we were often together with just each other. I did feel like there was a maturity in our relationship. Even during high school, we talked about what things we felt mattered most. I obviously understood that faith was very important to her, and those values and things associated with our faith were important to me as well.
(Jennifer) I am the oldest of five kids, and we grew up in small-town America. I had a very similar childhood to Tyler’s. We did start dating—well, we started “liking each other”—in ninth grade. So we actually dated for six years before we got married. I feel we had a level of maturity in our relationship that maybe a lot of high school couples don’t have.
We weren’t that lovey-dovey high school couple. I mean, we liked each other for about three years before the accident, but we hadn’t ever said, “I love you” to each other. We just felt like that was a little premature—like that was a serious kind of adult thing, to really fall in love with somebody.
We just tried to keep our relationship a little more on a friend level in some ways. So my thoughts were always that I would graduate from high school and go to college. I was never a great student. I got similar grades as Tyler, and education wasn’t my highest priority. My mom loved being a mom—at least I felt like she did. She told me many times that she loved being a stay-at-home mom, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t have career goals or aspirations; I thought that if I needed to work, I could be a teacher or work with kids somehow.
In high school I was excited about someday getting married, picking the colors for my reception. I kind of pictured my future husband. I don’t know if you know this, but girls sometimes live in a fantasy land. I remember dreaming about my husband carrying me across the threshold on our wedding night.
(Tyler) Just a couple of weeks before my accident, in the middle of our senior year, I met with the football and baseball coaches at our local university. I signed a letter with them to play both baseball and football. Other schools had shown interest in me, and I had gone on some recruiting trips, but this school would pay for everything; plus, I was going to be able to play both sports. Everything was lining up.
That Saturday morning I got into my dad’s truck. Jennifer was dancing for the high school drill team, and I planned to hang out with her family that day. I was excited about our relationship, about my prospects for the upcoming baseball season; everything was good. Then I fell asleep at the wheel. The truck rolled, and my life changed dramatically.
(Jennifer) We were at the state championship for our drill team. February 16, 1991. I didn’t know if Tyler was coming; he still wasn’t sure when we left. And, because it was before cell phones, we had no way of knowing. I was in the middle of our competition; we had done a couple of our dances when my mom found out Tyler had been in an accident. She didn’t immediately come and tell me because she knew my team needed me to stay focused, and she knew there was nothing that we could do right then to help him.
(Tyler) I was lying there in my truck, suspended in the air by my seatbelt, with my arms out in front of me. My arms were jerking up and down; I didn’t have any control over them. In my mind, I was temporarily paralyzed and in shock, but then things really started to kind of hit me: this could be a lot more serious than just being in shock and temporarily paralyzed.
When I was a kid growing up, I had a neighbor two houses down who had broken her back. She was maybe in her early twenties. My friends and I would play football and baseball on their lawn, and I remember seeing her transferring out of the wheel-chair and into the car. Years later, as I hung upside down in my own car, I remember that I thought I would rather be dead than in a wheelchair; I wouldn’t be able to play ball any more.
Fear just started to cave in on me. There I was, waiting for the ambulance, thinking that this might be a spinal cord injury. Then I remember waiting for the Life Flight helicopter to take me to the closest major trauma hospital. I asked the local doctor to pray for me. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember I thought everything would be okay. I didn’t think that twenty-something years later “okay” would include me still in a wheelchair.
It is interesting how our beliefs change. We have to evolve in how we see ourselves. When the helicopter landed, I knew I would never play football or baseball again.
Still, I thought I was going to work so hard. I was going to have this drive. It didn’t matter what the doctor said, I was just going to work and work my way out of it. But every day that passed, it got harder and harder to say that things were going to get better.
I remember thinking about a poem that Hyrum used to quote, by Henry Van Dyke, about a sundial:
The shadow by my finger cast
Divides the future from the past:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Behind its unreturning line,
The vanished hour no longer thine . . .
That’s kind of how I started thinking. I started thinking okay, maybe I can’t walk out of here tomorrow or the next day, but maybe I can get off this ventilator.
(Jennifer) As soon as my mom came and told me, I started to cry. I remember being alarmed by my reaction. I wasn’t superdramatic in high school; I wasn’t a girlie-girl in that way. I didn’t react to things like that; I was more low key and mellow. Those tears began to show me how strong my feelings were for Tyler.
My mom and I took off at that point; we drove up to Salt Lake, to the hospital where Tyler was. We spent the next few days there just trying to make sure he was okay. I think we stayed through the weekend and then came home.
It was a little bit difficult coming home and going back to school, because everybody loved Tyler. He was such a great athlete, and a really nice person. He was popular not only for the things he did but also because of how he treated people.
The following Monday, on my way to school, I had to drive past the baseball field. I knew how much Tyler loved baseball, and the season was just starting. I started to cry. I knew things would never be the same. I mean, spring was an exciting time; baseball season was just starting, and there is just something about that. And yet I just felt so sad for him. I didn’t feel sorry for him; I just felt sad that he had to go through this really difficult time and his life was changing so drastically. He couldn’t do those things that he loved anymore.
During all this time, our relationship just continued to move forward; we had to figure some things out. I remember something when he was in the intensive care unit. I don’t know if I was helping him eat, or maybe he was in rehab. I said something about helping feed my kids, like I was practicing to help feed my kids. I wasn’t saying it in a rude way, because to me it was kind of like a temporary thing; I didn’t think this would be something I always had to do.
He did not like that very much, so we had little bumps in the road like that, but for the most part I believe that we both worked through everything together, took things as they were; and with time it all worked out.
(Tyler) I left town, and I was, like, mister athlete. When I came home, I was meeting all of my peers again, all of my classmates, and I didn’t know if I wanted to eat in front of my peers because I had a special fork that’s strapped onto my hand, and I still wasn’t very good at hitting my mouth every time.
So I went from being like any other high school kid, and then—boom!—I had a fork strapped to my hand to eat. My life had been so defined by accomplishing things on a football field or baseball field; I remember wondering, how do I redefine who I am and the relationship I have with so many people?
A family friend who owned an airplane volunteered to fly me home from the hospital. I will never forget the moment we landed; a group of friends had come out to greet me. After talking for a bit, my dad put me in his car; we turned left, while all of my friends who had piled in a different vehicle turned right on their way to the lake. I felt like that’s where I should be; I should be with them, going that direction, but instead I was going to rehab. I remember that being kind of a real wake-up call, a dose of reality: this is your life. Life wasn’t fun for a couple of years after the accident. Then things finally started to change.
After the accident, I still wanted to graduate from college, and I wanted to get married to a wonderful person and have a family and a career. These were all the goals I had before my accident, and they were still my goals after it. I realized it was good to have those goals, but in the short term all I could really do was focus on what I was going to do each day. I got off the ventilator, and I got to where I could start sitting up in the chair, where I could start to feed myself with the assisted technology. Then I eventually started to push my chair, and things were progressing, though much slower than what I had hoped for. Then I began to believe I could rebuild my life and work on those original dreams.
My family was a great support; my friends were a great support, but Jennifer—she came up every single weekend, and as much as I loved my family and my friends, I worked all week long so that when Jennifer came she could see my efforts, because she made such a big deal out of just little incremental improvements.
(Jennifer) I wasn’t like a cheerleader. If you watch the movie about him, it portrays me as going, “Oh! You can do it.” I’m just not that way. I was just supportive, and I would say, “Good job.”
(Tyler) She noticed things. Even when she said she was sad that she couldn’t watch me play, she was much more sad for me. She was sad even more for my father, who she knew would never see me play again. She just made me feel great. And in the little progress that I would make, I knew was going to be rewarded by her, just by her subtle comments and how just great she was.
(Jennifer) And he was hoping for lots of kisses and stuff.
(Tyler) Well, I thought there would be some affection; that was a major motivator. In the many times I figuratively and literally fell on my face, I found the strength to get back up; it was due to her.
You have got to just get back up and keep going. Some of these beliefs, obviously, were instilled in me from my family—from my parents and my brothers. And from working hard in athletics—that things are hard, things were hard in athletics; that life is a challenge, and you are going to fall on your face. You are going to get tackled, or you are going to get hurt, and you just have to get up and keep going. That was the philosophy that kept me trying. But I have to say that Jen was a huge motivator.
(Jennifer) Before we got married, we had discussed everything that was going to have to happen in order for me to help him, to take care of him. His parents had been taking care of him, helping him with all of the things that he couldn’t do by himself: getting up in the morning, getting dressed, getting showered, all that kind of stuff.
I knew what I was going to be helping him with; then we got married. When we actually started living together and I was his primary caregiver, it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
I believed I needed to just suck it up and get things done—just do my duty, I guess. I was going to school, dancing on the college dance team, working full-time, and helping him. It was kind of going okay, but I kept thinking, I can’t do all of this.
I felt like I put myself in a position where I was basically on call for him twenty-four hours a day. It wasn’t even his fault; it was my own, but being so wrapped up in caring for him I kind of lost myself, which put me in a place that was really difficult for me.
Finally I had to step up and say, “Something has got to change here.” So I got a new job, and we ended up having some help come in. They would help him get up just a few days a week, just so that we could have a relationship. We were off balance. We were so off balance at that point that—and I had let myself get to that point—I was really discouraged and a bit depressed. We had to just make changes to make it better. It actually worked.
(Tyler) One night we kind of got into an argument, and all of a sudden for the first time in six months, she got way emotional. She just said, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” I thought that for the first time we were actually communicating.
She had kind of bottled it up and then let me have it all one night. I mean, looking back, it was obvious, but at the time I was kind of clueless. I was oblivious, because I am kind of clueless. She helped me realize how things really were, as opposed to how I saw them through my Belief Window. I learned so many great lessons from her, and now we do a lot better. We don’t let things go on for extended periods of time; that’s something that we’ve tried to keep in check throughout our whole marriage.
(Jennifer) Yes, we keep things in check; we keep a balance. Periodically we will get into a rut where he starts asking us to help him with things that he can do himself. We have to take a step back and say, “Okay. It’s time for you to start doing this again.” Luckily, we have come to a point where I don’t have to get mad and he doesn’t have to get offended when that happens because we both want to make each other happy. If one of us is not happy with the situation, we both are willing to make changes in what we believe, what we expect, and what we do for ourselves and for each other.
We are equal partners, but I have noticed one thing in our relationship. As we have gone through our marriage, learning different things, we just have had different experiences.
I never dreamed of arriving at my wedding in a wheelchair accessible van. I drove, and he sat in his wheelchair beside me. That just wasn’t the dream; that’s just not a dream a teenage girl has. I never got carried across the threshold, but I built a life—our life—with the person of my dreams, and with all the ups and downs it has been such a beautiful life.
(Tyler) I don’t think that our life is really that much different from anybody else’s life. I don’t wake up and go, “I am still paralyzed.” I don’t wake up and just think, “What are all the bad things happening in my life?” We just get up each day and this is how life is; we just do it. But there are times we feel more paralyzed; I use that term because there are times when things just feel harder, when we have trouble moving forward just like everyone else does at different times in their lives.
One of my challenges, one of our family’s challenges, is out there for the whole world to see. I am paralyzed. We have dozens of stories like this one.
One day was with my oldest son, who was at the time four years old. He was sitting on my lap, and I was reading a book to him. I turned pages of a book by licking my right pinky knuckle; it sticks to the page, then I turn the page. So this time with my four-year-old, I licked my finger; it stuck; and I went to turn the page, and it slipped. I did it the second time, and it slipped. When I licked my finger again, a third time, it slipped. At that point my four-year-old looked up at me from my lap, and he said, “You can’t do anything.” I am sure I did not handle this the right way, but I looked at him, and I said, “I can read. Can you read?”
And he looked at me again; he kind of got that sheepish look on his face and was, like, “No.” And I said, “Okay, so how about you turn the pages, and I will read the story?” And he thought it sounded like a great idea, and then we finished the book.
But there are so many little things like that in everybody’s life where it’s a little decision point. I would love to go out in the backyard and play catch; I would love to go fly a kite. Oh my gosh! My son was trying to fly a kite, and down the street other dads were flying kites with their sons. My son couldn’t get the tail hooked on, so his kite would go up, and it would crash; it would go up, and it would crash. He was so frustrated. He turned around; I was sitting on the porch watching, and he looked at me and said, “Man, all I got is a guy in a wheelchair.”
When I tell this story to people, they respond, “Oh, man!” as if my kid had just shoved me under the bus, as if that’s the rudest thing any person can ever say. At the time I just said, “Come over here.” He came over and somehow, in some way, I was able to clip the tail on, and he looked at me, like, “Okay, you are good for something.” We live in a world where people take offense at everything. If I was ultrasensitive about being disabled, or this or that, I guess I could just curl up in the fetal position and life would kind of pass me by. But we have chosen a different road, and it has made all the difference.
Tyler and Jennifer have five children. Tyler is a highly respected financial management executive, and Jennifer is the mom she always dreamed of being. Together they are doing what matters most to them.
Remember Indiana Jones? For the Belief Gap, the cave with the Holy Grail represents correct principles. The ledge at the edge of the chasm represents what you believe to be true. When you cross that chasm so that what you believe to be true merges into what is actually true, you have earned the right to inner peace.
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