A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.

al-logo

How Big Is Your Frying Pan?

Championship football coach Nick Saban often asks his team an odd question: how big is your frying pan? 

Coach Saban is referencing an experience he had once while fishing. He wasn’t getting any bites, yet another angler just upstream was pulling in fish after fish. 

Saban noticed he was releasing the big fish and keeping the small ones. 

Curious as to what was going on, he approached the angler asked him why he was only keeping the smallest fish. The angler replied with a straightforward explanation: he only had a nine-inch frying pan at home. 

A lightbulb went off for Saban. He realized many of the players he coaches have a limited capacity for success because of the beliefs they hold. 

Self-limiting beliefs keep us from accomplishing all we can. For Coach Saban, the question, “How big is your frying pan?” reminds his players that they have to jettison beliefs that prohibit their complete success. 

Don’t let what you believe get in your way of success.  Ask yourself what beliefs you have that are standing in your way, stopping you from full achievement. Any self-belief that hinders your performance needs to be overcome. Self-imposed limitations are a forced error only we can make. 

Sign-up Bonus

Enter your email for instant access to our Admired Leadership Field Notes special guide: Fanness™—An Idea That Will Change the Way You Motivate and Inspire Others.

Inspiring others is among the highest callings of great leaders. But could there be anything you don’t know, you haven’t heard, about how to motivate and inspire?

Could there really be a universal principle that the best leaders follow? A framework that you could follow too?

There is.

Everyone who signs up for Admired Leadership Field Notes will get instant access to our special guide that describes a powerful idea we call Fanness™ (including a special 20-minute video that really brings this idea to life).