Amazing things happen when you put your mind to it. Natalie Strand has proven it for most of her life. Diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes when she was just 12 years old, she didn’t let it hold her back. At an age when most adolescents would view such a diagnosis as a barrier, Strand viewed it as an opportunity.
The changes to her body brought on by diabetes led to an intense curiosity about medicine. That curiosity led to medical school. Medical school led to Oxford. Oxford eventually led to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and then to the faculty of UCLA. These days most American television viewers don’t know Dr. Strand by her title, they know her by her victory—winner of The Amazing Race.
Dr. Strand shared her story and her secrets to success this weekend with the families connected to the MinnDakotas chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Each step along her journey Dr. Strand says she’s succeeded by eliminating the words “I can’t” from her vocabulary.
“I think it’s a very simple thing. You just have to decide to do it,” Strand said. “Whatever it is that you are doing, if you decide at the onset that no matter what comes up, you’re going to do whatever it takes. You’re never going to say I can’t.”
For most of us, the keys to success are not that simple. To be sure, they weren’t for Dr. Strand either. Social psychologists have come up with a unique model to explain how we approach personal obstacles. In their Theory of Trying, Richard Bagozzi and Paul Warshaw explained that people evaluate goals based upon their attitudes of success and their attitudes toward failure. (Journal of Consumer Research, 1990) Failure combined with fear can be powerful motivators—we are often more afraid of loss than we are motivated by success. (Kahneman, 1979) It’s all about framing. Dr. Strand has succeeded by continuously framing her life in terms of success. Failure is not an option.
How refreshing in an era of unemployment, stagnation, and polarization. At a time when our economy and our political system prove “it can’t,” along comes an amazing winner who shows that as individuals “we can.”
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