Hi everyone - Robert here, Frank’s colleague at Kairos.
Before we step into today’s story, I want to name something many of us silently wrestle with:
We grow up in systems; schools, families, workplaces -- that teach us how things are supposed to be done. And for some of us, those instructions fit. But for many of us (like myself)… they don’t. Not because we lack ability, or effort, or talent but because the method wasn’t designed with our cognitive preferences in mind.
When we bump into those mismatches early in life, the world tends to rush toward labels:
“You’re not paying attention.”
“You’re not trying hard enough.”
“You’re not doing it the right way.”
But what if the “right way” for you has always been a different way?
And what if your breakthrough isn’t about trying harder—but about trying differently?
The story below is one of my favorites because it reminds us that there is nothing more powerful than understanding your own cognition and giving yourself permission to operate in alignment with it. It’s funny, humbling, and deeply human. and it beautifully captures why cognitive self-awareness matters for every kid, every leader, and every one of us still carrying the remnants of those early labels.
One fall afternoon in Los Angeles, I went out to the playground to check up on the sixth-grade recess. I was an elementary school assistant principal and the annual arrival of hormones to the sixth grade was always fraught and required careful monitoring and management. The kids were still emerging from their classes when I stepped on the blacktop.
From across the playground, Rafael yelled, “Hey Mr. Sopper,” and threw a football at me. I said, “at me” rather than “to me” on the basis of hard experience. I have severely limited vision in my left eye, and therefore no depth perception. I was 35 years old and had never caught a football in my life. My custom whenever anything was thrown in my direction was to step aside to avoid being hit. Since my handicap isn’t obvious, I’d usually then mutter some kind of apology/explanation referencing my lack of visual acuity.
Today though, as I was about to step aside, out of the corner of my good eye, I noticed a cluster of sixth grade boys and girls watching me. They were standing there with that cold evaluative look that led me to believe the question under consideration was, “will he conform to cisgender, heteronormative stereotypes, or what?” From experience, I assumed that if I stepped away and let the ball fall to the ground, I'd be exposed.
I was an adult, married, father of two children, and successfully engaged in a career I enjoyed. Ha. I could hide behind stereotypes and leverage them to my advantage.
But at that instant, I was transported back to sixth grade.
I had received instruction in how to catch. There was a conventional instruction for that place and time. My father took me out, held a ball out in front of me with “Look at the ball. Ready. Here it comes.” Bonk. The ball bounced off my head. “Okay. Let’s try again. Concentrate, Keep your eye on the ball. Here it comes.” Bonk.
This lead to a couple of years of instruction all coalescing around, “Concentrate. Keep your eye on the ball.”
Bonk. Bonk. Bonk.
Off my head, off my nose, off my fingers, off my chest, with increasingly harder and faster spheroids.
With failure came diagnoses. My father said I wouldn’t keep my head in the game. My cousin, Jimmy, said I was a stupid. My mother said, “You know Frankie. He has a mind of his own.” Eventually the neighborhood consensus developed: “failure to conform to cisgender heteronormative stereotypes” in the terms of art of those days.
Pretty soon, I started treating as a physical assault anything thrown in my direction. Now I had “anger management issues” and maybe “oppositional defiant disorder.” Eventually, nearly everyone knew better than to throw things at me.
All this went through my head while anticipating the diagnosis of the sixth graders. This time, however, the sting was too much to bear. I decided I was going to go down trying. By this time though, it was too late to concentrate, too late to keep my eye on the ball. I just reached up my hands and pulled the ball into my chest, just like they do on television. I had just caught a football for the first time in my life.
I wanted to spike it and do the little dance, just like they do on television, but I thought I knew by so doing, the kids would roll their eyes, curl their lips, and I would throw away all the cool I just earned.
So I calmly threw the ball to Rafael.
He threw it back.
Now the perspiration is breaking out. I try to think, “How did I catch it?” I realize I didn’t concentrate; I didn’t keep my eye on the ball. I just reached up and let my peripheral vision guide my hands to the ball.
I caught it again.
Now a cluster of sixth graders were at the other end of the playground shouting, “Mr. Sopper. Throw it to me. Throw it to me.” And I spent the next 20 minutes, perspiration breaking out, throwing and catching while practicing the Zen of concentrating on not concentrating.
So it turns out, I can catch. I can’t look directly at the ball. I track it out of the corner of my good eye, and let my peripheral vision guide my hands. Even now, I’m not sure exactly how it works, but it does. Pretty much. The scout for the Red Sox says I’m still not ready for Big League pitching.
What I do know is that I can’t concentrate and can’t keep my eye on the ball. Not only does conventional instruction not work for me: the conventional instruction guarantees that I will fail. I would go to my grave believing that I couldn’t catch if I hadn’t somehow broken out of my limited instruction.
In therapy, my analyst, Maude Ann Taylor, agreed that I’d done a powerful thing by reaching outside my limiting beliefs. And, at the same time, she allowed me to see I’d done it motivated by a desire to conform to a limiting archetype. And I had projected a whole set of stereotypes on those children under my care.
I still had a lot to learn. I still wrestle with limiting beliefs created by instruction, labels, and identities.