“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” Teach Different with Franklin D. Roosevelt – Self-Doubt

Transcript

Dan Fouts  00:00

Welcome everybody to the Teach Different podcast. We have a quote tonight from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which we’re going to get to in a moment. I’ll keep you in suspense. This will be the second quote, actually, Steve, I believe, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He’s a good president for quotes I’ve found, but tonight, we’re excited to share our guest, Hannah Pfotenhauer, who’s from the Denver, Colorado area, and she is actually our third teacher who is participating in Teach Different’s Building Bridges Colorado project, which is a really cool public private partnership between a local nonprofit in Chicago, Teach Different and then the DSST School District in the Denver Aurora areas. And all of it is made possible by Boulder philanthropists who we’ve been working with so everybody’s playing a role to make this happen and Teach Different Steve and I went to Colorado in February, and we presented to Hannah and her colleagues on her instructional leadership team. And I’m going to let Hannah introduce herself right now and what she does and how she’s actually already used the Teach Different method. So all of our listeners out there, this is someone who’s using it on the ground, who can give you a better, clearer idea of how it works. Hannah, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We’re so excited for you to be with us.

Hannah Pfotenhauer  01:42

Thanks, Dan, thanks, Steve. I’m so grateful to be here, and I’m really excited to discuss together and to engage in this discussion protocol. Like Dan said, I work in the Denver Public School District. I work at DSST, which is a charter school in the cold neighborhoods for people familiar with Denver, central Denver, and I work in a middle school.  This year I’m a literacy interventionist, and in that role, I teach small group classes for students with severe reading gaps in order to support students with reading on grade level. And the intention behind the class is to support students who do not have a reading disability, so students who have had maybe historical gaps in learning how to read did not receive phonics instruction at a younger age. And I’ve used Teach Different in my classroom in order to increase access to comprehension text and allow students that feel really engaged in what we’re reading. I teach a number of students who have a history of not feeling very supported or confident in reading classes, and so I use teach different as an opportunity for students to feel connected with each other, to feel excited for the content what we’re reading about, and to feel a personal connection with the content and open to being pushed in their perspectives. And so Teach Different has been really supportive for my students. Before we engage in a new text, engage in a new reading skill, to one just feel like really connected with our community by discussing in a small group, and second, to have more comfortability and confidence in our text,

Dan Fouts  03:23

That sounds awesome. I love the connection with with reading and helping kids feel more confident, you know, around each other, connecting with each other and the content, and you touched on something that’s so important. I think that the method is good academically and emotionally. It kind of combines those two and and I think you articulated that really well. Thank you. That was great. It was great. Well, again, happy to have you here. And why are we here? We’re going to take a quote and practice the method. That’s what we’re about here. And I mentioned it’s an Franklin Delano Roosevelt quote, so I’m going to say that in a minute. But for those unfamiliar, if you’re listening for the first time, we start with a provocative quote. We’re going to look at the claim of the quote. What does it mean? Interpret it in your own words, share your own personal experiences. And then we’re going to look at a counterclaim to the quote. What’s another way of looking at the world that maybe pushes against what the author is saying in a good way, right? And just to see the world differently, that’s the critical thinking piece. And then as we do this, as the tension of the conversation emerges, often questions surface that we then have to resolve, where we have to figure out what position we need to take and how to defend it. That’s the method. Here we go. Franklin Delano, Roosevelt, I’ll read it twice, and then Hannah. We always have our guests with the chance to weigh in first on the claim, or you can you know what start with the counterclaim. And if you want it doesn’t matter, you know, just do whatever you’re comfortable with. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”  Here we go. What do you think Hannah?

Hannah Pfotenhauer  05:24  Counterclaim

So I actually do want to jump on the counterclaim. And I want to jump on a counterclaim, because I think the counterclaim is a little bit more uncomfortable for me. I heard that quote, and I really resonated with it, so it took me a while to dig into how could I see this alternate perspective? And I find oftentimes, also in the classroom, with students telling students to push against you, or, like, push against something that you have on the screen, is really hard. And so when I read that quote, something that I was thinking about is how healthy doubts, having healthy doubts in the day, having maybe even realistic expectations is what can prepare us to be extra prepared in the future. It’s what can allow us to be prepared for mistakes that might happen, that to maybe guardrail things that could go wrong. So for example, I was thinking through we had a field trip today, and when we were planning our field trip last week, we went through like, what are some obstacles that might come up? Obstacles with, like, students, being safe, being engaged, transportation, obstacles with communication. And then, because of that, we were able to plan and prepare for the field trip. So when we did experience those obstacles, it was okay. We had a streamlined response. We knew how we were going to support students, support each other, and went really seamlessly. And it’s hard for me to do that, because I’m somebody who, like, loves to jump in and ignore doubts, but I think that there’s a level of healthy skepticism that allows us to feel a little bit more prepared, certain, confident, knowing that, like, if something goes wrong, we have a plan to resolve it. 

Steve Fouts  07:18

I love it. I didn’t take that angle on my counterclaim, which I won’t even get to I want to talk about yours now. This reminds me of the military and contingency planning, how when they make battle plans, they have to come up with five things that are going to go wrong in order to know what exactly they’re going to do and accomplish the mission with confidence. So ironically, doubting what might happen isn’t making you less confident. It’s actually making you more confident, in a way, because you’re realizing that you’re going to be able to overcome anything, and you’re just sitting back and you’re preparing, 

Dan Fouts  08:10

Yeah, another, I like how you said that. Maybe another way to say it, it’s playing the game of worst case scenario. Do you ever do this, Hannah, where, what’s the worst thing that can happen in this particular situation? Am I ready for it? Can I prepare my mind and really doubt myself and think negatively enough so that when it happens, I’m mentally prepared to persevere through it? Sometimes that can be a very engaging, healthy way of navigating life. So I really like your counterclaim. I didn’t think of the counterclaim that way either. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  08:54

Well. And Steve, I don’t know if you remember when we met at DSST, I was talking about my vision to move abroad, and I am still pursuing that, and I’ve had a lot of experience with this idea recently, where I am of the belief that if I put the work in, and I have a clear vision, it’s going to happen, or if it doesn’t happen, whatever happens is what is meant to happen in that experience of whether I’m falling flat in my face or having to pivot, or everything works out exactly how I had planned, I’m going to learn something valuable from it. On the other hand, some people in my family, are like Hannah, but you need a visa and it’s a little bit unsafe to fully, you know, leave the security that you have right now, the community, the professional community, the social community that you have just go and go into something that isn’t confirmed. And and so I was thinking about this claim, from that perspective of, I’m living right now without the doubts,  I’m living like I leave on Thursday, I’m flying to Europe. I’m going to be there for two and a half months. I’m applying to programs. I’m in this big transition phase. Nothing is confirmed right now. I feel calm because this feels like the right leap I need to take. And also, I’m hearing frequently from a lot of loved ones, the question of, well, what are you going to do? Like, what if it doesn’t work out? Or are you sure this is the right move before it’s secured? And I don’t think that there’s one definitive yes or no, I’m choosing one path right now, but that, the counterclaim, I think that is kind of what anchored it when I was reflecting,

Steve Fouts  10:43

What a perfect example that applies to your life right now. And I see your, I don’t know how you see this, Hannah, but I see your decision to go as maybe even being as supportive of the claim that’s being made here. If you were doubting yourself, or had so much uncertainty as to what you were going to do and got negative thinking about what might happen if you did that and giving up everything here, you would have been less inclined to step out there, right? So I don’t know where you are on that, not that it matters per se, but that feels like you’re following the claim more than the counterclaim, at least with your life right now, although I’ll bet you you did contingency planning when you get there, right? You already have ideas of how you’re gonna if this doesn’t work out, I’ll go do this. Or maybe you haven’t planned out. I don’t know. 

Dan Fouts  11:53  Claim

Can I read it a slightly different way? I think, Hannah, what you’ve said is you’re saying you have doubts, but that your confidence and your risk taking spirit is overcoming those doubts. So you’re using the doubts to get prepared, as you said earlier, you feel like it’s it’s helping you, but you have this, this confidence that is soaring above it. I feel like it’s both. Other people are doubting. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  12:30

There’s this, yeah, I agree. I think it’s, it’s a little bit of both, because Steve, I think that initially I’ve been I’m going in on this claim and not the counterclaim. I I’ve been kind of pushing against the counterclaim. I don’t need the doubts. The doubts aren’t supporting me. The doubts are creating fear and nothing, nothing fulfilling is going to come out of a choice of fear. However, I have been sitting with those counterclaims, a bit like sitting with those thoughts like, Okay, well, what’s the validity here? And it’s essentially, I think what we just discussed is what you said, the military perspective of or any kind of structured organization. What can I do if this original plan doesn’t work out? And what can I kind of keep floating what are some passions and parts that are still a part of my values that I can continue to go back to? But I yeah, I think that that I know that also in Teach Different a big drive is thinking about personal experiences. And I could tell when I was writing, I felt a really strong pull to my current life situation with this quote, 

Steve Fouts  13:48

You just made me kind of bring things full circle in a way, with this idea of a worst case scenario and having doubts before you step out. I think that what it does, if the doubts are not if they don’t destroy your spirit, but they kind of linger. I think what it does is if you doubt it for a moment and think that maybe a bad thing will happen. Maybe I’ll get there and regret this, but live in that world mentally. You know, this may not work out. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Well, I could just realize, after two months, that this was sillY. if you can live with the consequences of things not working out, that almost builds your confidence, because then it’s like, okay, now I don’t have anything to fear. I’ve already gone there, so now I’m definitely going to do it, because I can live with the possibility that it’s going to not work out, and there’s no longer a tension between what you’re doing, you’re owning doubt and it’s okay. So I don’t know, I don’t know if that made any sense, I think I do that personally. I’m going to think about an experience, if I can get one that comes to me.

Hannah Pfotenhauer  15:26

That resonates a lot, and it actually sparked this, like a metacognitive moment of I lead the social emotional learning curriculum at our school, and something that we teach students in order to cope anxieties and stressors is to think of this worst case scenario, like, what are the possible outcomes? Because oftentimes middle school age students, you know, executive functioning is a big struggle, and so they’ll often jump to what am I most afraid of? And because I’m most afraid of it, I’m going to avoid it. I’m afraid of failing, so I’m going to avoid taking this test, because better or not try than to fail. I’m afraid of failing in sports, so I’m just going to not try out for the team. Or I’m afraid of communicating this, so I’m going to actually scream it, because I don’t know how to control it, right? And I kind of wonder, what you just sparked for me is, like, how this quote and that model of thinking, of thinking through worst case scenario, is also just something that’s so central in the social learning capacities being a present human, because then we don’t get so caught up in what are my anxieties and fears to the future? And instead, we’ve already thought through like, this could happen and it’s going to be okay.

Dan Fouts  16:42

You’ve validated your fear, you’ve said, you’ve looked at it, you’ve had dinner with it, and– okay, that’s, that’s, that’s my fear. I’ve confronted it. It could happen. I am mentally prepared. Let’s get it. Let’s go for it, yeah, you have to see it. I liked how you explained that Hannah was great. 

Steve Fouts  17:08

We’re ganging up on the counterclaim here. 

Dan Fouts  17:13

But man, our doubts can really hurt us. And to your point about anxiety and students–  I mean, every classroom is filled with certain students who are paralyzed by self doubt. They don’t, they don’t raise their hand. Just, let’s just go with that. They do not share their opinion in class because they doubt their own intelligence. 

Steve Fouts  17:49

And that’s crippling. And the quote is, “the only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” Now we haven’t broken this up, but Hannah, when I was talking to you about how you introduce these quotes, at times, I remember you focusing in on certain words that might want to talk about before you talk about the claim and the counterclaim and the questions with the quote– this word realization– are we to infer that realization is a positive word? “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” I mean, tomorrow is going to happen whether we have doubts or not. I’m wondering what he means by realization. I don’t mean to step back here. Did either of you think of that word? 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  18:45

That was when I saw this quote and I was first to give my own reflection on it, that I thought through, what would I do to support students with accessing this quote and the word, the word that stuck out to me was also realization. And I teach a number of multilingual students where English is not their first language, and I think that when they see realization, they’d be like, realize, like, oh, I realized something. I know something. So the only way to limit what I know tomorrow is my doubts today and so I think that then also brought me to a similar journey, what’s the meaning behind this term realization here, is it the only way to achieve our successes of tomorrow, the only way to be present in tomorrow, the only way to enjoy and meet our dreams tomorrow is through doubts today. And I don’t think it needs to be narrowly defined to one of those three, because I think all three of those would have very different interpretations. They’d all be really meaningful. 

Dan Fouts  19:55

Yeah, that was a good summary of that. I mean, I think that– my inference is that he’s speaking generally of a positive future. You will not have a positive future if you spend time doubting yourself in the present moment. In fact, in a weird way, you don’t have a future because you are so trapped in fear in the moment, you’re not able to realize your potential.  It limits you. So I would infer just a general, kind of positive way of looking at the future is what he’s getting and it’s hard to know. 

Steve Fouts  20:41

So really, it’s like positive thinking and self esteem, in a way, that’s a message here, don’t doubt things. Be more forward looking. Think positively. The only realization of great things happening to you are your doubts in yourself, or you’re holding yourself back by being negative. It’s a, I don’t know. It’s just, it’s a positive thinking statement. 

Dan Fouts  21:14

If life is a process of becoming who you are, you’ll never be able to become who you are if you spend your time doubting.  You will not be the best person you can be. You will not flourish. 

Steve Fouts  21:29

Well, here’s another angle, then, on a counterclaim, I don’t like the word only. The only limit to our realization will be our doubts of today, our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Can we all think about some external factors that are present in some people’s lives, and I don’t care what your positive attitude is or your negative attitude, but there are lots of limiting influences than just doubts, and it’s different for each person. You know, it’s not equitable. So I don’t know– that’s a big I think that’s it would be a counterclaim to this that there are lots on that. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  22:26

I love that push, because I think of students who I work with who are incredibly curious and hardworking, and some of the limits I haven’t set on them are actually, when I think of their reading skills, for example, where they start the year. Some of the limits I’ve set on them have been external factors. They were never taught phonics, or that they did phonics online during covid, and now we have the opportunity to work through it together, but that was a big limit, that was an external factor that has impacted many years of their confidence. And when you’re a young kid, it’s hard to have the awareness of like, this is a gap that I can fix. And oftentimes kids will blame themselves. The story they’ll tell themselves is, I’m not good. I’m just not good at this. And that is a product of many barriers that are, some within teachers control, and also some not because it was really hard to teach online no matter how hard elementary teachers taught, and I also, and we don’t have to pivot to this part right now, but I was thinking about the word ‘our’ a lot. The only limit to– if I were to take this as an internal only limit to my realization of tomorrow is my doubts versus in schools the only limit to the realization of our student success is our school communities doubts. If I think about our country, the limit is like our collective doubts, our collective animosity, our collective disapproval. And a family, a friend group, parent relationship and internal relationship. And I think that word ‘our’ is interesting because it changes the meeting based on the environment that you’re placing it on. 

Dan Fouts  24:39

And this is, this is what reminds us that it’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt speaking. So he’s actually talking collectively as a nation, which is an interesting angle to this. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today, so the Great Depression, that’s what he’s referring to, and he’s trying to bring people up in that way. I thought of other external factors, like prejudice, racial discrimination, lack of resources, things that people don’t have externally, that have nothing to do with their mentality. But they don’t start in a place where they have advantages, like other people have advantages, and that becomes a limit to your possibilities even more so you could argue.

Hannah Pfotenhauer  25:48

And being undocumented or being LGBTQIA – identifying. I think, like any marginalized identity, depending on the environment the language, the rhetoric, what’s viewed as acceptable, what’s viewed as not acceptable, being a young kid with marginalized identity markers and how you then internalize different narratives that I think about 2016 election, and the language around marginalized identities and how that was internalized so much by young children and that is out of kids’ control that language being used, and I don’t think it’s kids duty to have the wherewithal to say like that’s not going to impact me, and because they’re learning their stories of themselves and those like those factors can be deeply, deeply limiting, and can completely change an ability to have the confidence to also feel like you don’t have to have the doubts – that kind of like harmful narrative can change the internal confidence to say I’m going to cut down the doubts, because it ruins trust and community. 

Steve Fouts  27:16

Really, good, yeah, Hannah. I’m going to throw in privilege. Part of the blind spot of privilege is that you you aren’t growing up with doubts that other people have, not because you’re some grand, positive thinking, forward thinking, strong character, but it’s just that you haven’t ever had to deal with a negativity that certain people have to deal with, and you’ve never had to struggle with doubts in you and your acceptance in your society, and you know your basic the way others look at you and whether you gain respect just by who you look like. So I see that as also kind of an external factor that prevents even the need to have doubts for some people, so they have a maybe a brighter tomorrow, although I’ll sit here and argue till I’m blue in the face, that obstacles and perseverance are what build real character. So you know, you can have an easy life, and that’s good, and you can accomplish things, but you’re not going to accomplish certain things that you can only accomplish if you had to overcome them on your own. So I guess that’s the price you pay for that type of privilege. 

Dan Fouts  28:58

This makes me think of a dichotomy in philosophy. Steve and I both have backgrounds in philosophy. Hannah. It’s probably pretty obvious by now, but it’s called free will and determinism. It’s debated for 2500 years– How does the world work? Does the world move because of our free choices and our ability to control our minds to get where we need to get in life, or is our world determined for us by factors out of our control? And I’m looking at this quote now, and I’m seeing that emerge.  The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was essentially saying ‘you have free will’, and if you use your mind in the right way, you can overcome anything. And again, back to his context. If we were to use this in a history class, a good question would be, why would FDR say something like this in the midst of the Great Depression? How is he trying to bias people towards action in a certain sense and he’s not trying to get people to consider their difficult circumstances there. He’s calling them to action, to overcome them and through use of free will. Anyway, that’s what made me think of that. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  30:32

Was this quote during the Great Depression, or like at the onset of World War Two?

Dan Fouts  30:40

I don’t know. I didn’t, I didn’t research that. I’m gonna do that right afterwards.

Steve Fouts  30:44

I’m going to look it up right now. Keep talking. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  30:46

I have some curiosity about that too, because that changes my interpretation of the intent behind the quote.  I was thinking also through, Steve, in response to what you were sharing about marginalized communities, about racial discrimination, about going through challenges because of systemic racism, because of sexism. I’m also thinking about, like the invisible identities and so people who struggle with mental health disorders, people who have I think that’s one of the strongest ones. Also nationality and maybe insecurities around immigration, things that might not be visible, that we don’t know when we interact with somebody we never know, like the stories inside people’s brains and oftentimes, those kind of struggles can feel similarly debilitating. And we can jump, we could talk, I think, endlessly at mental health, around supports, your mental health, what is in our control mental health and what do we just simply need extra support with to work through. But I think that’s like another layer of barriers and challenges and like areas that mental health impacts disproportionately, communities and age groups, and parts of the country where mental health has larger impacts that are left unaddressed. And speaking of FDR during the great depression, PTSD from the great depression, anxiety, scarcity mindset from the Great Depression, war. PTSD from war. I’m thinking through a lot of those kind of barriers too, that we often don’t see, that we also often may never know that others are experiencing. 

Steve Fouts  32:50

” Be kind, everyone’s fighting a hard battle.” Plato.  Look what I found. Franklin D Roosevelt said this quote in his address to the nation on April 13, 1945. The speech was part of a radio broadcast, which was also his last public address he made before his death. The full quote is “the only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.” 

Dan Fouts  33:44

So it sounds like it could be applied both to the Great Depression and the war. It just as a general life statement. That’s great. Thanks for looking that up. 

Steve Fouts  33:57

And notice did you mention faith, Hannah? I didn’t mention it. That’s a word that just leaped out– this idea that this may be part of a religious sentiment. When your life is not going the way you want it, you have to persevere and have faith and be strong to overcome things. I was looking at it a little bit more of a limited way, and self confidence and positive mindset, but faith is a little deeper, another way to look at this. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  34:35

Yeah, that level of faith also adds some predetermination. This idea there’s a higher power, and that higher order, as opposed to free will. I think you could read it both ways, like this is in your control free will, or it’s all going to be fine. There’s a higher power, and we have to have faith in that higher power. When we doubt that higher power, that’s when there starts to be more barriers. It’s interesting. 

Dan Fouts  35:03  Essential Question

So I’m always thinking of different questions, Hannah, I had a question just percolating a little bit. How do you maintain a positive mindset in the midst of struggle? That’s the question, one question that’s coming from this, from me, it’s this going with the positive mindset. How do you maintain it? He’s saying our doubts are going to limit the realization of tomorrow. Okay, well, we are going to doubt though, whether we like it or not. How do we overcome those doubts in the midst of obstacles? 

Steve Fouts  35:56

Faith. 

Dan Fouts  35:57

Okay, and faith could be one angle to that. 

Steve Fouts  36:02

Faith that it’s going to be okay, and like in your case, Hannah, your faith that going to Europe, although you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, you’re ready to do that, and you have the faith that It’s going to work out, even if it doesn’t work out. It’s like you’re letting tomorrow happen without judgment. You’re not getting the doubts in the way of not taking an action. You’re almost just letting it go a little bit. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  36:40

It’s almost like, I think in the language I I would use for myself, is my intuition is guiding it. My intuition is telling me this is right. I have the gut feeling this is right. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. And I think that is often what guides my decisions. I like Intuit feeling and then, and then I will look at data as well, and like, see, does my logical, rational brain also find value in this? And if there’s those who are at odds, and I’ll sit with it and kind of ask questions of, why? Something that I was thinking about is if I were to use this with students, we came to that question of how do you have a positive outlook? And I had students write down what is it that makes you feel good every day?  I’d be curious about, like, what they would generate, and it also would prompt, I think, a consistent gratitude practice. I did in a Master’s class, I took once, a gratitude project with students and track their like anxiety and happiness levels. And it was pretty remarkable with this group of sixth graders, how committed they got to their gratitude practice, because it became a part of their routine and how much they craved it. So when we finished the project, they were saying “I want it every day” I still want to do this every day. And I’m left wondering. I’m curious. This is now five years ago. How many students have that skill, continue to develop that skill, and also being reinforced every day that it is a skill. It’s like a workout plan. It’s like a physical routine. It’s like reading before bed. It’s something that we would have to maintain every day, whether it’s gratitude or faith, whether it’s  cultivating your intuition, whether it’s following like your intellectual curiosities. it’s a practice and a routine that for it to stay sturdy, we have to continue to pour into. 

Steve Fouts  38:48

I like skill, It demystifies it, you know, maybe it is a routine like anything else, and you speak it into existence. Here’s a question, how do our beliefs influence our ability to achieve future goals? 

Dan Fouts  39:24

What role do they play? 

Steve Fouts  39:26

What role does belief play? And belief is feeling like faith. How much do you have to believe something that you don’t see in order to achieve it and have faith in something, and have perseverance and not get caught up when things don’t work out your way, and get rid of that doubt, and don’t listen to what people are saying. And if you lose once, you lose twice. Don’t get down on that. That’s almost like a, it’s a belief. But it’s also, I feel like it’s a lot more, it’s almost emotional, 

Dan Fouts  40:16

What’s the limit of positive belief? You could go into that angle as well. I really like, Hannah, what you said earlier about using your intuition to make decisions. I think if I could go on a 10 second rant here, I think in education, we don’t appreciate the power of intuition in making decisions in the classroom; we rely a little bit too much on raw data, when a lot of times that data isn’t just not there, and we make decisions because it feels right, exactly what you’re doing with Europe. There’s something that is pulling you. Your rationality is trying to match up with it, but you’re moving from your intuition. 

Steve Fouts  41:05

Your family’s rationality is trying to match up with it. 

Dan Fouts  41:08

Yeah, right.

Hannah Pfotenhauer  41:11

Well, and it’s so interesting because I have a sister who’s also my best friends, who fully departed from her job about now four years ago.  She’s a lawyer, and she left her job and didn’t have a plan, and her response is follow it. Our body and our intuition has knowing, and it’s fascinating to see the different responses of different family members, because they’re pretty polarizing. There’s not much in the middle. And nobody is doubting my ability to achieve something, but many have a fear and I think others, especially people in education, love to plan. There are big planners in schools and huge planners. And so I could even sense the stress, the anxiety of “Oh, you don’t know. ” Okay, 

Dan Fouts  42:13

They’re projecting it on you, Hannah, they’re projecting it 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  42:16

Exactly. And initially I sat with that, and I was like should I be more scared? And I was like, Nope, this isn’t about me, and I don’t need to carry this. But, it takes skill then to say – Oh, this isn’t mine. I’m actually going to let go of this. And when you were talking about different questions and questions that popped in my mind were, how are we connected to our communities?  How do our communities impact our ability to trust our intuition? Impact our ability to let go of doubt? 

Dan Fouts  43:01

Community as family. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  43:07

Also professional communities, learning communities, social communities, physical communities.

Dan Fouts  43:15

That’s a great question. 

Steve Fouts  43:17

Those are powerful determiners of this. I mean, even something as simple as peer pressure.  Oh, I think I might want to do this, but what would they say? Well, how would they look at me? All of a sudden, you’re not as sure you want to do that, not because of you, but because of others. I think that stuff is probably the most powerful. I had another question, but you already answered it. What are strategies we can employ to overcome self doubt, and I love your gratitude practice. It’s as simple as that, that’s a strategy, that’s a routine. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  44:16

I also think that being able to verbally process with people when we have doubts, because ideally, a good friend or trusted person will be able to say – “Yeah, that could go wrong. But also, what could go right?” How incredible could this be and like, are you willing to give up that incredible dream because of a doubt? And sometimes we are Sometimes, depending on how big or severe the doubt is or the life circumstance, I feel I have a lot of gratitude that I am able to have some space right now without too much doubt. And also the security of knowing that if I do need to teach or tutor, I have that skill set – that’s a piece of security; I can leave, and then if I’m in a bind, I can, I can find professional stability, and that is a piece of privilege too, that allows me to make this big risk. 

Steve Fouts  45:25

It’s less of a risk, you know, and that’s calculated. 

Dan Fouts  45:33

Well, we covered a lot of ground. Look at where we got from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s quote, we have interwoven it — I don’t even know if that word is correct, but connected it to so many different things, and most importantly, connected — Hannah, actually, to your experience, your upcoming experience is sort of the feature of this podcast. It’s really cool. Now you have to keep in touch with us and let us know how this goes. There’s a lot there. And congratulations is maybe what is in order for you. I think a lot of people are going to listen to this and say, “That’s what I want to do.” You know, she’s doing what I want to do, and maybe you, in sharing your world, might inspire others on their own path. Wouldn’t that be amazing?  So that’s that’s great. 

Steve Fouts  46:32

At the very least, be more conscious of your doubt where it’s coming from.

Dan Fouts  46:38

Yeah, learn about how you’re processing things. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  46:47

I’m about to start with a few friends this book called The Artist’s Way, which is about cultivating your intuition and artistic creativity. And this preparation for it every day you have to do two to three pages of writing every morning, when you first wake up. And I’ve noticed that when I do this writing, a lot of depth comes in every day, and it’s like the process of writing is what’s helping me release it, and they’re becoming a little more real. But I just when you’re talking about skills and practices and having doubts, to go back to. That is something that has supported and being able to write it down and then let them go, 

Steve Fouts  47:30

Don’t run from them. 

Dan Fouts  47:31

That’s great. Whatever coping mechanism works well. Thank you again, Hannah, and thanks to you know, working with DSST, it’s been fantastic, and a big shout out to our Boulder philanthropists and our nonprofit partners that make the Building Bridges Colorado project happen, because that’s why we’re here today, and it’s wonderful. It takes a village to do this work and keep us posted, keep up with the conversations, and we really enjoyed you tonight, Hannah, thank you so much. 

Hannah Pfotenhauer  48:10

Thank you. 

Steve Fouts  48:11

Thank you, Hannah. It was great to see you again.