“We won!” the text read “And we are driving back.”

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Maybe because I believed in him. Maybe because I believed in his leadership skills. Or maybe because I felt he has already won in that moment a year and a half ago. Since then, my question wasn’t if he and the team would win. It was always about the when. “When would he and his team win?”

This is a success story. Maybe not in the terms in which society judges one’s success and maybe not how you see success either. Yet, for me it’s the story I have been amazingly privileged to be part of and to witness as it unfolded.

He had this dream for a long time. Since he was in 5th grade. He thought he found his place, the team to do it with and the leader to learn from. The place seemed just right, equipped with all the “tools” he needed. Possibilities seemed vast and achievable. He was planning to have many successful projects.

Then, out of the blue, from the left field, the leader called off the team. And with that he called off all future projects, all future wins, all future.

He didn’t see it coming.

Just like the previous time.

The decision that has been contemplated on for several months got dropped in his lap like a hot potato. And he didn’t know what to do with it.

He was angry. He must have been angry. While the leader thought he was saving him the trouble of involving him in his decision making, the leader forgot how hurtful it was to be told about a final decision.

He felt lost.

He felt abandoned.

He felt left out.

He felt left alone.

Not respected for all the work he had put into this team. All the enthusiasm, all the passion, all the energy, all the time, and all the effort he brought every day.

All felt like in vain.

He questioned himself. “How did I not see it?” “How was I so blind to what was happening?”

It hurt the first time. It really hurt the second time.

When he was punched in the gut by a similar decision the first time, he was hurt. But mostly surprised by the unexpected action. He was kind of figuring out what he was feeling because he was also surprised by those new sensations. His body felt different, and his adrenaline was running high. The first time he might have even been denying his feelings because they were so new and unfamiliar to him.

But the second time? The second time he knew what had happened. There were no surprises anymore. He recognized the sensations in his body, the feelings that were present again. And by feeling them again, he validated what he had felt the first time and felt double hurt, double the pain. Because this time he knew it was real. No question, no doubt. It was real.

And then the regret showed up and the self-bullying. “How did I let this happen again? Why? Why to me? Why again? What did I do wrong? Where did I mess up?”

In that moment, the world was shrinking and becoming a dark place to be.

He was sitting at his desk, facing outside. I could hear the birds playfully singing while chasing each other in the yard. The flower in the corner was still a beautiful shade of blue attracting everyone’s attention who was looking for a focus point to rest their eyes on.

Yet, I don’t think he saw nor heard any of that. He was deep in his thoughts, wondering among them like one wonders in an overgrown forest as if the new vegetation was not supposed to be there and was making the familiar landscape suddenly wild and dangerous.

I was a few feet away from him, in the other room, watching him from the back. I couldn’t see his face, yet I felt the pain settling on his young shoulders like a cloud settles low in the valley bringing a mystical foreign power and energy to everyone’s day. And even though everyone knows there is sunshine above the cloud, everyone starts to believe the sunshine has been taken from them and is gone forever.

I sat quietly on the small ledge between the two rooms and waited. I knew that was my role in that moment. There was nothing to do, nothing to say. It was only space to be. To be together. I knew if I was there, he would return from his wondering and he would find me there. I knew from my experiences of feeling left behind and left alone that the only thing I wanted in those moments was to not be left alone again by those who wanted to help me. Inside I was screaming “Please, if you want to help me, don’t give me space alone, don’t leave me. Stay with me. Stay.” I just couldn’t communicate that want as a child because the pain has overtaken my whole body and mind.

And that’s when it happened. My best work ever. The reason for my existence. Why I was born. My best work happens when I am not working at all. When I am with someone in this space between the known and the unknown. When we are so connected, we don’t even know another way to be. Like there is no beginning nor end nor boundaries to our beings, no him and no I, there’s only the space and we are in it, and we are the space itself.

He turned and looked at me. His eyes were like telescopes into another world. I felt my face slightly smiling and then my mouth opened. I don’t remember thinking about those words before, they just came out of me: “What if you could build your own team?”

I was just as surprised as he was by those words. Suddenly I felt like someone reached into my brain and turned the lights on and I received a flood of new thoughts, like emails popping into my inbox after having my phone turned off or travelling through an out-of-service area.

Ping, ping, ping. My mind was coming up with all those follow-up thoughts and questions and luckily I couldn’t choose which one to say next.

He broke the silence. “Build my own team…?” “Yeah”, I said. “Build my own team”, he repeated it with an echo.

He stood up and went to the bathroom. I felt something happened with him when those words landed on him. Yet, I stayed in my unconditional love towards him and in my unattachment to those words. I couldn’t claim them as my words, and I had no intention of making them mine either. I saw them as a gift that was sent through me to him. It was not about how I felt about them. Those words were pure in my heart, and they could only bring value to him. He had the choice to open the gift and see the meaning inside of them. His life was his responsibility. Mine was to understand his pain and to not minimize it.

When he finished in the bathroom, he sat back down in his chair. He put his face in his hands and sat like that for a few minutes. Then he got up and walked straight towards me. Now he had a slightly awkward smile on. Like he was trying to fool me that everything was all right. Then he wrapped his arms around me and gave me the biggest hug. Like I needed it, not him. Like I was hurt, not him. Like I have given him many times, when he was a small child.

We didn’t talk about those words again that day. Actually, we didn’t talk about them for days. We didn’t feel like talking about them, yet we both felt something happened because of them.

And this is where the story really begins.

A few days later, he says “I think I have a team.” “A team?” I reply. “Yes, a team. A few of my friends are interested in joining me in building robots. There’s a robotics coach at the other school who might be interested in being our coach.” He was talking with an excited yet shy voice. He himself was not believing what was happening. He went from feeling crushed to feeling afraid of feeling hopeful.

“I get it” I thought to myself. When I wanted something so bad in the past and then the possibility to have it showed up, I was scared from my toes all the way to the top of my head. “This cannot be real. No way! Really? I must be dreaming. I must be making this all up.” I literally couldn’t believe my own eyes. Isn’t that funny how we play this game with ourselves? We want something, but then we want to reject it once we are about to receive it because we don’t feel worthy of getting it. Yet, we were the ones wanting it in the first place. It’s our want, our dream. It’s our piece to our puzzle called life. It won’t fit into anybody else’s puzzle. Even if we would give it to someone else. It wouldn’t fit.  

“Tell me more!” I finally said with a curious voice.

“Well, I kinda asked V. if she was interested and she said yes. And then I asked H. and he said yes. And then V. said she knew of some other guy who was interested, too. And this guy from my class said he might be interested, too. So, I think I have a team. And I emailed the coach again and he said to call him next week.”

As he finished talking, I stood there totally overtaken by awe. In awe of him doing all this asking. In awe of ‘the team’ saying yes. And in awe of his joy.

“This is what happened!” I realized. Those words were the bridge for him to stand on and believe in himself and in his dream. Those words were the bridge for him to call from to others for help. Those words were who he has always been: the creator of his life, the builder of possibilities, and the owner of a big heart.

Over the next few months, I watched him reach out to friends of friends, to strangers, to other friends. He started learning about leadership. About how to motivate others. About how to run an effective team meeting. About how to introduce others to building robots. About so many things he has never thought about before.

He built a team, yet the momentum dropped when the Vex Robotics competitions where cancelled due to Covid-19.

Yet, he kept pushing forward. His belief in a successful future has become an unshakable belief. “Maybe the competition was cancelled this year, but that just gives us more time to get ready for next year” he told me. Not even Covid-19 could shatter his vision as a leader. And that vision was sticky. People got attached to him and started to believe in the future as well.

And so new team members joined, V. never left, the coach became their coach, and I became his biggest supporter.

Our shop became the new place to meet. It was the place where the first robot was built and never worked right. Where the next and the next robots were built. Where V. and others learned how to cut metal and use tools they have never seen before.

Yet, it was at my dinner table where he asked the scariest question ever “I want to go and ask businesses around here to sponsor our team. Would you drive me tomorrow to them, please? I have a list with the names and addresses.”

As a leader he learned his team needed the funds and the space to be able to build and drive the robots, and to attend the upcoming competitions. He created a flyer and was determined to introduce himself in person to the small businesses close to our home.

“Yes, sure. I have time in the morning” I answered. He was seemingly excited and frightened at the same time.

But he has never done anything like this. This was not his thing. His shyness has been holding him back all his life. But not anymore. When you have a dream that is bigger than your fear, the fear of not going for your dream eats up the fear of being afraid to talk to people about your dream.

For a week I drove him around, going from one address to another one. I will never forget the first business we went to. He almost didn’t get out of the car. He was so nervous, so afraid. I think he believed for a minute that the person on the other side of the desk would eat him alive if he would say hello to her.

He literally was back before I could turn the car off. “Did you even go in?” I asked. “Yes, it was super scary.”

That same person after entering through many more doors and talking to many more strangers – who probably were wondering what he was doing in their offices – learned that some people were kind, some people were not, and that he was actually brave. Braver than he thought he was.

He didn’t feel lost anymore.

He didn’t feel abandoned anymore.

He didn’t feel left out anymore.

He didn’t feel left alone anymore.

He understood that when one door closes, he still has a choice. He can keep knocking on it, he can sit in front of it quietly crying inside his heart, or he can stand up and look for another door.

A year and a half ago, he had nothing. A year and a half later he has built a team, enlisted a coach, asked for support, asked for sponsorship, found good people as sponsors, found a new place for the team, and today, he won the first competition his new robot participated in.

He wasn’t surprised either. “I knew we would win” he told me later that day. His confidence was rooted in his devotion to his vision and his discipline to put the hours, the effort and the energy in.

He learned to not question his belief in himself.

He learned he was all the help he needed.