My son, Cole, is 14 years-old. 8th grade. You know what that means, right?

#drama

He goes to a small Christian school in CO and he just broke up with his first “real” girlfriend. They agreed they were going to try to remain “friends”…but unfortunately, that hasn’t been going so well :-(

Haven’t we all been in a similar situation at some point?

The ex-girlfriend has been communicating with a lot of kids at school (via text, of course, because that’s what kids do) and saying things that are hurtful and untrue.

Cole told me this when I picked him up from school on Wednesday. Then he said to me:

I think she’s a bad person.

I responded:

“Cole, there’s a difference between being a bad person and doing bad things. In my 44 years on this planet, I can count the number of people on one hand that I’d consider to be ‘bad people.’ She’s obviously struggling with something right now that’s causing her to do bad things, but I seriously doubt you would have been boyfriend-girlfriend if you thought she was a bad person.”

The difference is separating identity and behavior.

One is labeling who someone IS; the other is labeling what someone DOES.

For the record, I don’t expect him to fully grasp what I’m saying. If he only gets 10% of it, I’ll count that as a win.

And he’d be light years ahead of me at 14.

In fact, I spent 35+ years of my life labeling identity…

That person is selfish, lazy, or untrustworthy.

But labeling identity is easy, and when we do it, we miss one essential Outperforming skill:

EMPATHY.

Think about it – if I’m going to label someone as lazy or as an “under-performer,” am I ever going to seek to understand what circumstances may be contributing to them behaving lazily? Or what beliefs are causing them to under-perform? Or what my role may be in the process?

No, I won’t. Identity is fixed, so why would I?

Now, you can make a compelling argument that chronic behaviors become our identity, but let’s save that discussion for another day…

To close with a line from Brene Brown:

It’s better to assume positive intent. Most people are doing the best they can. We rarely know the full story.

Keep Outperforming!