During this heart-warming season of giving and receiving, I’m reminded of a story from a Christmas in my childhood. It’s about presents and labels, but even more importantly it’s about how we define who we are and what being successful means to each of us.  Warm Regards,  Coach Ida Kmiec

To give the story background, let me tell you that I was born in the mountains of Italy in a small farming village.  My father went ahead to Canada and my mother packed up our few belongings and somehow shepherded five children under the age of ten across the Atlantic to join him in Toronto.

All of us (plus our grandmother and another new sibling) lived in a tiny two-bedroom house that often gave shelter to relatives also en route to a better life in this wonderful new country.  As befitted the 1950’s era, my father worked, my mother kept house and all of us children dutifully attended school and church.  We never went hungry, we always had enough clothes and winter coats and shoes and it all seemed perfectly normal to me.

So, in the excitement-filled days before Christmas one year, the doorbell rang and my mother was the surprised recipient of an enormous basket of good cheer sent by our church.  We children were ecstatic to see such luxuries as candy, chocolate, store-bought cookies and baked goods and couldn’t wait to tear into the hamper.  We did not understand our mother’s troubled frown or her firm admonishment to wait until our father got home.

When he arrived, he was both puzzled and offended at having received such charity.  “We don’t need this — we HAVE everything we need. I’m taking it back so they can give it to a family that really needs it!”  In his confident mind, he was a complete success at providing for his family and we wanted for nothing.  But my nine-year old self was crushed to realize that our church had defined us as “poor”.  That mouth-watering present had come with a label, and it stuck.

It took time, courage and self-awareness for me to understand how we can recognize and change the definitions that we’ve unwittingly accepted from others about who we are and how we should measure success.

Seeing the world through a “coaching lens” helps us ask powerful questions about who we really are and to find some of those life-altering answers.  Contact us at [email protected] to find out more about what personal coaching can do for you.