You Can Do Anything

Do you believe that you can do anything? If not, why? At what point in life did you stop believing in endless possibilities? (I have an idea on that, but we will save that for another post)

A couple of weeks ago someone on our team accidentally said that we can do anything we want. While I have no doubt that he doesn’t mean that carried out to the extreme, it has changed the way we started thinking as a team. It seems like all of the good ideas we have always wanted to share have begun to come out since we have had this sort of thinking, because the possibilities are endless now that we have taken off the restraints.

It is like a good brainstorming session now. A good brainstorming session always has one rule: there are no wrong answers; anything is possible. This encourages open thinking and permits people to say some of their crazier ideas. Here are a couple games we have used to help the crazy ideas come out:

• The Empty Chair – “Invite” someone who is well-known as a great leader in to your meetings. For example, have a chair for someone like Bill Gates or Donald Trump. Whenever someone has an idea that they would like to share, but think it sounds too crazy they have the option to pose it as Donald Trump’s idea, rather than their own, thus deflecting looking stupid and getting a wild idea out on the table.

• Stick it to the Man – a personal favorite brainstorming game that helps you look at a problem from a different angle. In this game the object is to come up with as many creative ways to solve a problem that would make as many people mad as possible. For example, if the problem was how to get out of debt a possible solution would be to rob either Donald Trump or Bill Gates.

Try these out and have fun with them. Never stop exploring possibilities and don’t be afraid of being unrealistic. Being unrealistic stretches your mind’s capacity in the realm of possibilities and you never know where it could lead you. What would it take for your life to go from where you are now to the next level of exciting? Most people are too quick to say that something can’t be done. So the next time you come up with idea and feel yourself heading in that direction ask yourself, “Why couldn’t I do this?” and then maybe you should follow up with, “No really, why couldn’t I do this?”

Think about this: You are just one decision away from an adventure.

You can do anything.

Go.