I was in an airport lounge two weeks ago, and side by side were two coffee and espresso machines. Both machines had screens, but both screens were blank. Despite this, the staff hadn’t put up a sign to say they were out of order.
People kept walking up to the touch screens, pressing them, and trying to activate the machines. Again, there was nothing happening. A woman sitting next to me watched someone repeatedly press every part of the blank panels with no success. After that person walked away, the woman next to me stood up and decided to give it one more try herself.
At first, I found this curious—why would she attempt to use the machines after seeing someone else try every possible way and fail? Later, I overheard her introducing herself to someone, mentioning how she built her own business from the ground up. That’s when it clicked: she was the kind of person who believed in taking things into her own hands, quite literally, to see if her actions could yield a different result.
Although my initial reaction was to think her effort would make no difference, I later realized the importance of her mindset. She believed in the possibility that her own actions could create a better outcome, even when the odds seemed against it. That’s an interesting lesson indeed.