“Some people are capable of nothing and others are capable of anything,” said Maître Rocher about Robert de Charance (“The Parrot and the Chicken” by Robert Thomas).
It didn’t matter that Robert was in love with Clara, Maître’s wife. It didn’t matter that Robert arranged dates for her at his place with another man (!). What mattered was that Robert was capable. And everything was forgiven. Ambition and talent move mountains. Make or break fates. Pave the path with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) cushioning… And what is left to the ones that are “capable of nothing”?
OK, let’s slow down for a second and review the definition. Because it’s very easy to jump on the horse of a bright quote and ride it into the horizon till the end of time. Are there truly talented people who are capable of many things, if not “everything”? Yes, there truly are. Overachievers. Overperformers. Driven and bright…
Are the rest just as unworthy? Are they really?
The “turtles” of success. The ones in quiet cubicles that are happy to have a job, even if it’s not “the job.” The ones that crawl, not fly? They may be slower, but are speed and luminosity the only factors defining capability? One may say, “Turtles are still needed”—while others are flying, somebody must be filing.
You gotta love Maître Rocher. Zingy quotes like these don’t just sink into oblivion. They are remembered. They are repeated. They get mentioned in forewords to leadership manuals. But that’s exactly where leadership is needed.
Life is not that black and white. And although there is some truth in what Maître Rocher said, there may be “the brightest” and “the rest”—there is the whole spectrum of “the rest.” But most importantly, this preferential compartmentalization excludes one important notion that keeps Maître Rocher the Maître from being Maître Rocher the Leader.
People can change. People change all the time. People are capable of growth. From crawling to walking. From walking to jogging. From jogging to sprinting. They may never reach the clouds. But they can still win the race—with stable precision, careful planning, and smart application of their own abilities. And sometimes, while the brightest rest in the heat of their own glow, the slowest continue pushing forward and… win.
Nurture your spacemen. And nurture your turtles. There is always a way to be a little bit better—every day.
And, with all respect to Maître Rocher, I dare to rephrase:
Some people are capable of everything. The rest are capable of much more than we think—if someone believes in their capacity to grow.
