It’s Not About the Event, It’s About How You React to It (Shift your Mindset)
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. — Charles R. Swindoll
Last week, my friend Céline told me a very interesting story.
This story is about a carrot, an egg and a tea bag (no this is not the beginning of a joke).
The three of them are put into boiling water and this is what happens:
The carrot becomes soft.
The egg becomes hard.
The tea bag releases its flavor in the water.
What’s the moral of this story?
All of them are confronted to a difficult experience (I don’t know about you but I personally wouldn’t like to dive into boiling water) but react in three different ways.
If you would transpose this story to real life, you can compare the boiling water as a tough event happening to you and the way you react to it will make you a carrot, an egg or a tea bag.
Being a carrot would mean that the experience made you weaker and you experience a hard time to recover from it.
Being an egg would mean that the experience made you feel anger, bitterness and you may behave in a way that would hurt yourself or someone else because of that.
Being a tea bag would mean that the experience taught you a lesson and, even if it was difficult, it will make you become a better person in the future.
Let’s take a simple example to illustrate this: you were in a relationship with someone and you experience a hard breakup.
If you react like the carrot, this experience will make you lose your confidence and can have negative consequences on your future relationships.
If you react like an egg, you may want to get a revenge and hurt someone so that person experiences the same bad feelings you had. Also, thinking “All guys are asshole!” or “All girls are b*tch!” is typically reacting like an egg.
If you react like a tea bag, you will take the lessons from that relationship, analyze what worked and what didn’t so that your next relationship will be better. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t feel sad or need some time to recover from the breakup but at least you learn from that relationship to become a better person.
The next time you are facing a tough experience, ask yourself this question:
“How would I react if I was a carrot, an egg or a tea bag?”
I know that reacting like a tea bag in every circonstance is easier said than done, especially when emotions are involved but being conscious that you can react like a tea bag is the first step to shift your mindset. That change won’t happen overnight, it takes time. If you feel sadness, anger or any other emotion because of a tough event, that’s fine don’t try to retain your emotions.
I can also transpose this story to e-commerce. Let’s say you are getting started and lose $200 after launching bad ads on Facebook.
If you react like a carrot, you would be afraid to spend more money on Facebook Ads and take the risk to lose it.
If you react like an egg, you may want to get that 200$ back as quick as possible and take bad and risky decisions because you couldn’t control your emotions.
If you react like a tea bag, you will analyze what didn’t work in these ads, learn from it so that you become better at it next time.
This can apply to any situation in life. Before my friend told me this story, I realized that I naturally trained my mind to act like a tea bag in many situations but there are some others where I reacted like a carrot or an egg. Being aware of this story will help me to act more like a tea bag in the future.
Hope this story will open your eyes as it opened mine!
Conclusion: Be a Tea Bag!
Call to action:
Remember 3 tough experiences that happened to you recently and ask yourself if you were acting weather like a carrot, an egg or a tea bag. Figure out how you would have reacted if you were the two others.
Share your experience in the comments, would be happy to discuss it with you!
FT
Thank you for reading my story, I really hope you enjoyed it and found some inspiration for yourself. If so, please leave some claps and if you have any questions, post them in the comments and I’ll be happy to reply! :)
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