The Bell Didn’t Change. I Did (The Friday Ficks S6 E9)

My initial reaction was not favorable.

After finishing second in my age group at a local 5k, I was awarded a tiny handheld bell. It didn’t exactly scream “victory.” Instead of pride, my mind went dark. I heard AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.” I thought of Black Sabbath and the ominous tolling that opens their debut album. Then the church bell that chimed 29 times for each man lost in the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

All that negativity...over a two-inch bell. It would have been easy to dismiss it. To toss it in a drawer. To mutter, “To hell with the bell.”

But the bell wasn’t the problem. My interpretation was.

So I made a choice, calling to mind the words of Marla Runyan, the legally blind runner who finished as the top American at the 2002 NYC Marathon: “Some people have a negative attitude, and that’s their disability.”

Attitude is a lens. Change the lens, change the meaning.

Leaders do this every day, choosing how to interpret what’s happening and deciding whether a moment becomes a weight to carry or a lesson to use.

When I looked again, I saw a factory bell signaling the end of a hard shift. I saw the Liberty Bell - freedom earned. I saw the last-day-of-school bell launching summer vacation. I heard the bell my father rang on Christmas morning.

Same object. Different story.

That little bell still sits on my desk. Not as a trophy, but as a reminder.

Mindset is a choice. Perspective is power. And attitude can either disable you, or drive you forward.

The bell didn’t change. I did.

Own the day. Own the weekend.

Carl