Write down all the reasons why it won't work!

I’m sure some of you sat in on my talk at the A4D meetup. And or read through my Deck I posted a  week ago. But If you only saw the deck then you might have looked at this one point and said “oh yeah that makes sense” and then moved on.

But out of my whole talk I think this was one of the most powerful points.

> It’s counterintuitive.

We come from a world of people that tell entrepreneurs

“you just have to stay positive and think about the good things.” Self help book junk.

It’s all about focus and destination. If you’re not going anywhere, and just on the golden hamster wheel, no matter how positive you stay you’ll eventually run out.

Imagine talking with a someone and asking them where they’re going. They answer you “not quite sure but I’m going somewhere. All that’s important is that I have a full tank” No matter how full the tank that person is obviously going to eventually run out of gas and that’s when things start to break down.

Take a deep dive into all the problems

My point with this is if you only stay positive and think about the good stuff it makes it hard to plan for the bad. And planning for the bad is what keeps businesses in business.

So now that you have a very specific defined goal and destination start building you plan. Because we’re humans a lot of people within your organization, sometimes including yourself is going to have all the reasons in the world why something wont’ work. Some of this self talk and company beliefs sound like:

• It is always this way
• That's just how this business is
• You can't do that in this business
• You can't hire those people
• There's so much to do it's overwhelming
• ...

Notice most of these are absolutes? Are they really absolutes? These absolutes run a lot of peoples lives and limit them from becoming great.

So how do we fix this? The most important part is to become aware of the corrosive communication. Both between employees and in your own head. I was talking with one of my staff members yesterday and he used most of these. All in the same conversation. I brought it to his attention and he paused… Then said I didn’t even notice.

What are you saying to yourself? Be Careful!

What should you be saying instead?

As you now start to become conscious of these absolutes. It’s really just as easy as turning them from absolutes into questions.

Try this:

• How specifically could it be different?
• How could this business be different? How could I overcome those challenges?
• How could you do that in this business?
• How could you hire those people?
• How could I break things into bite sized chunks so I feel like I'm accomplishing things effectively and efficiently? Why is there not really that much to do?
• ...

You see just by asking a different question you get a very different outlook on life and opportunity.

So ask yourself how could you become even better and start down that path.