The Eleanor Roosevelt Tests

Eleanor Roosevelt is more than just a historical figure; she's a blueprint for challenging conventional norms and doing the things you think you cannot do. And while the odds are you won't be like Eleanor, one the few individuals who changed the course of history, there are two traits—what I like to call the Eleanor Roosevelt Tests—that if you can cultivate, can do you wonders as they did for Eleanor herself.

The First Eleanor Test: What's Your Going Capacity?

Eleanor Roosevelt's early life was far from easy. While she was born into a well-off family and a prestigious lineage, life dealt her a rough hand when her mother, just before she turned thirty, passed away.

Eleanor was just eight years old.

But the loss of her mother, as heartbreaking and devastating as it was, taught her a crucial lesson: "No matter what happened to one in this world, one had to adjust to it."

Life went on, and so must she. It wasn't about hiding her emotions or suppressing her feelings while buckling up her bootstraps; it was about embracing those emotions while she kept the feet moving.

It was the start of a rare trait she would develop as the years went on: a high-going capacity.

When her husband fell ill with typhoid fever in 1911, Eleanor nursed him tirelessly, even while battling the same disease herself, without a word of complaint, for two full weeks.

During World War II, she sliced her finger to the bone while making sandwiches for the soldiers. She simply bound it up and continued working.

No complaint. No thought to stop. No time away. She just kept going.

Eleanor had a unique ability to endure, to persevere, to keep going. Even as a girl who lacked confidence, which carried well into adulthood, her going capacity showed her one important thing: what she was capable of.

Every battle she won, or at least fought, instilled "a certain confidence in myself and my ability to meet emergencies and deal with them."

She built proof of what she was capable of. Proof and evidence that isn't possible without a high going capacity.

Ask yourself: What are you able to endure? What are you able to keep running through? Is there anything that stops you?

Your life, your potential, and how far you will go depend on your going capacity.

Increase it, or get comfortable with where you're at.

The Second Eleanor Test: Do You Have a Low Give a Shit Meter?

There were two mottos in Eleanor Roosevelt's life.

The first was the mantra she lived by: "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

The second were the words her aunt gave to her growing up,

You will never be able to please everyone. No matter what you do, my dear, some people are going to criticize you. But don’t let what they say upset you. Just be entirely sure that you would not be ashamed to explain your actions to someone you love and who loves you. And if you are satisfied in your mind that you are right, then you need never worry about criticism.

They guided Eleanor when she took position as First Lady in 1933.

As she said the days before entering the White House,

I don’t exactly know what is before me, or what living in the executive mansion entails. But I expect to solve problems as they come along. That has always been my way—and things always get done.

There was just one problem. Eleanor lived in a time when women were expected to be "seen and not heard." The First Lady's of the past stayed out of the public eye, tended to their husbands, and took care of events. Anything related to politics, they were exepcted to stay out of.

But Eleanor had an important trait: she didn't give a shit.

There were problems to be fixed, people to help, and a country to improve. If she stepped on some hands, hurt some people's feelings, and had to give a middle finger to some people, so be it.

The only thing that mattered was progress, and she would make some.

She was criticized by citizens, fellow politicians, and even other women. Thomas Edison’s wife asserted that the wife of a great man could lead a more useful life, “ministering to him and making life flow more smoothly for his work than if she had sought a career of her own.”

Forces, voices, and pressures can easily, even effortlessly, alter the path one takes. But Eleanor had a rare ability—a trait the world needs more of.

A low give-a-shit meter.

Eleanor cared only about what was right and what she wanted to do. Everything else passed by as if it didn't matter. Voices. Opinions. Criticism.

It's a trait you must embrace. To care what others think is often a deliberate choice to throw your life away.

You’ll work a job you don’t like because of how it will make you look.

You’ll chase things you don’t want to chase.

You’ll live in a way you don’t want to live.

All because you give a shit about what the world thinks. 

But when you don't care, when you're like Eleanor, and you don't give a shit, you live your life your way, doing your own things.

And after all, that's the only way—the best way—to live.

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