Lightsabers & Leadership

I want to share a story about building a lightsaber.

Quick disclaimer: You do not need to be a Star Wars fan to get the value of the story—but if you are a fan, you’re among friends.

If you follow me on Instagram, then you likely know that I recently spent a weekend in Galaxy’s Edge, a part of Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. Galaxy’s Edge is essentially the Star Wars version of Harry Potter World. It takes the universe of Star Wars and makes it accessible to reality. There are amazing rides, people in costumes, and interactive experiences. I highly recommend a visit.

Anyway.

What brought me to Galaxy’s Edge was my husband, Paul, recently hitting a professional milestone. Paul works in healthcare, which can create careers with crazy and unpredictable hours. His goal for the past few months has been to transition to a hospital role that would allow him more flexibility, so he could spend more time enjoying his life.

Well, he got the position! He was offered a job that met everything he wanted, and his time at his previous hospital came to a close. We took a look at how we could fully celebrate and acknowledge this accomplishment—and given how Paul is a huge Star Wars fan, we decided to be adventurous and indulgent and book this trip to Galaxy’s Edge.

So, what the heck does Star Wars have to do with a coaching and leadership blog?

In transformational work, people are often introduced to the concept that being committed is different from being attached. It’s an empowering concept, but isn’t often offered with real-life examples.

Building a lightsaber became the perfect real example.

If you’re unfamiliar with Galaxy’s Edge or Star Wars, lightsabers are the cool laser swords that Jedi use to defeat evil. One of the most acclaimed experiences at Disney is signing up for a workshop that allows you to craft your own lightsaber.

The issue with the workshop is that it has a lot of buzz. Whenever new reservations slots open up 180 days in advance, they are booked within minutes.

Let’s pause our story and look at commitment and attachment for a second.

Attachment relates to things needing to go a certain way. There is only one outcome available for our satisfaction. If Paul and I were attached to building a lightsaber, we probably would have become frustrated and pissed off when all of the slots were taken. We might have even gotten righteous about it. We might have thrown a fit and decided the trip wasn’t worth it at all.

Commitment relates to an overall life experience that tends to be larger than the specifics. In our case, we booked this trip with an overall commitment to having this experience of Paul feeling celebrated and acknowledged. Even more, I was committed to letting one of my favorite things about Paul shine—his sense of wonder and imagination. So, you might imagine that getting bogged down by the specifics—it has to be a lightsaber—narrows the possibility of experiencing celebration, acknowledgment, wonder, or imagination.

Cool things happen when you take action inside of your commitment. By basing it on an experience rather than a fixed way it “has to go,” you open up a lot of space for getting creative.

In my case, getting creative looked like searching the internet for loopholes on how to create this experience. And I want to be clear, I wasn’t attached to getting to build a lightsaber. Instead, I realized it would be adventurous and fun – an experience aligned with my commitment – to try other routes and see what happens.

My route? I refreshed the booking page every few hours to see if a last-minute cancellation popped up. I didn’t lose sleep over it. I didn’t burn myself out. I didn’t get scared or frustrated. I simply took this on from the approach of “this would be so cool if it worked.”

It did work.

Within minutes of landing in Orlando, sure enough: I pulled up the page at the same time someone’s spot opened up due to a cancellation.  And I’m not going to lie, that workshop absolutely was the best part of Galaxy’s Edge.

So besides bragging about having a lightsaber, here’s what I want you to get out of this story:

When we hone in and get attached to a result, and when we get attached to things looking a certain way, we are much more likely to fall into patterns of feeling frustrated, or scared, or even giving up.

When we stay present to the big picture – in our case, our commitment to this experience while on vacation – we stay open to being flexible and creative about how we get to create that.

Let me know how you see this being applicable in your own life. Do you tend to create attachments or commitments? How are your results?