I had the capability to make money before I had the capacity to keep it.
Money signified freedom to me, and owning a business made me feel important, so I was willing to do whatever I could to succeed.
I took risks, made mistakes, learned lessons, and kept going.
In other words, I had the capability to make money. And I did.
The problem was, for many years, I didn’t have the capacity to keep it.
As fast as I made it, I’d spend it on expensive trips, designer clothes, fast cars, and fancy horses. All the things I thought would make me feel special.
Significant.
Worthy.
My ability to make money was higher than my capacity to have it.
And it wasn’t just money. I did the same thing with love. I’d attract it and then find a way to push it away.
Same pattern, different arena.
Capability vs. Capacity
Capability is what you can do. Capacity is what your self-concept allows you to hold.
Just think of all the actors, musicians and athletes who crash and burn once they “make it.”
Their success grows faster than their self-concept.
Your self-concept is who you believe you are. It determines what you think you deserve to have.
My problem was that deep down, I didn’t really believe I deserved to have money. The more money I made, the more I felt like an imposter.
Which is why keeping it felt harder than earning it.
Then I learned that I could change my view of myself. That the way I saw myself was a collection of beliefs, most of which I didn’t consciously choose.
I began surrounding myself with people who already believed they deserved to be happy and successful. I started practicing new ways of thinking about myself until it became natural.
Slowly, I became someone who could hold what I had created.
How Do You Know?
How can you tell if you have a capacity problem?
When you really want something and you’ve been striving for years but still don’t have it, it’s almost always a capacity issue.
You think the answer is more knowledge or discipline but no matter what you do, it keeps eluding you.
This happened to me with the COO merry-go-round I rode for years.
I said I wanted a strong right hand leader, but I wasn’t willing to give up control. My capacity for trust and delegation was very low.
I believed no one else would really do it “right.”
This belief held me back for a very long time. I thought I didn’t know how to be a good CEO.
And that was true.
I had to learn the skills of setting priorities, allocating resources, evaluating results and hiring and coaching leaders.
No one comes out of the womb with all these skills, and there’s no one right way to do them that works for everyone.
I read self-help books, went to seminars and conferences, hired business and mindset coaches, and made lots of mistakes. Slowly I acquired the capabilities of a CEO.
But that wasn’t enough.
Intellectually understanding how to execute the role of CEO did not address my capacity to authentically be that person.
I had to transform my self-concept. That meant changing my identity from being the expert to being the leader who got results through others.
This was not easy or natural for me. I joined a leadership group for entrepreneurs and developed my capacity with the help of some great role models.
These CEOs had the same business challenges as me, but the successful and happy ones didn’t make it mean anything was wrong with them.
Slowly, my identity caught up to the role.
Skills Also Matter
It’s possible to have the capacity, but not the capability.
For example, I had the capacity to be a public speaker. I liked talking about data analytics. I could easily see myself being on stage doing it.
But in the beginning, I wasn’t very good at it. I had to increase my capability.
That meant learning how to engage the audience, developing compelling visuals and practicing my timing.
Because being a speaker matched my self-image, learning these skills was relatively easy. More importantly, they stuck.
Having the capacity first, makes it easier to add capability later. I’m sure you can think of similar examples in your life.
A Bigger Bucket
Here’s an easy way to think about capacity:
Picture water from a hose overflowing a small bucket. You have 3 choices:
- Bail water out as fast as it comes in (take frenetic action, overwork, control everything)
- Reduce the flow or turn it off altogether (stay small, retreat, give up)
- Get a bigger bucket (expand your self-concept)
The third option is the growth one.
In life, that might mean increasing your capacity for rest, connection, and love by believing you deserve all three.
In business, it might mean increasing your capacity to lead through other people instead of proving you can do it all.
A few questions worth exploring:
What situations keep repeating?
What do I believe I don’t deserve to have?
Who would I need to become to hold what I want?
Get curious. Sit with the exercise.
Decide to make your bucket bigger.
