When Impossible Becomes Possible
If you’ve ever been to a Cirque du Soleil show, then you’ve most likely experienced a jaw dropping moment that leaves you in a state of disbelief. This was true for me last week as April and I took our daughter, Adelynn, to the traveling “Kooza” show here in Denver. We were in awe most of the night and there were many times when we looked at each other and said; “How did they do that?” From acrobats to jugglers and contortionists to tight rope walkers, the magic of a Cirque du Soleil show comes from people doing things that we think people shouldn’t be able to do. In other words, making the impossible possible.
I watched a performer walk her feet 360 degrees around her head multiple times while laying on her stomach as if her spine had been removed or her legs weren’t connected to her body. Then she proceed to stop her feet in front of her while another performer climbed on top of her and folded her legs over her head, too. As I sat there I thought about all of the things in life that we don’t believe we can accomplish because we’ve never seen it done before. Our past experiences leave us all with limiting beliefs on what is possible. We develop this set of beliefs throughout our upbringing and often spend much of our time and energy after that looking for reasons to affirm them and confirm that we are right. It isn’t until we experience or see something that contradicts those beliefs that we open our minds to the possibility that we are capable of more.
The best leaders I know surround themselves with people that have accomplished more than they have. They seek out those that have a variety of experiences, knowing they can learn from them and expand their awareness of the possibilities that exist. When I was in Vistage, a CEO think tank organization, I remember a fellow member celebrating a record revenue month. The amount was roughly half of what we were doing in an entire year! I thought that dollar figure would never be possible for our company to do in one month. We’ve never been
hyper-focused on growth for growth’s sake at Footers, but knowing that certain things are possible inspires a higher level of thinking beyond just chasing a goal. In this case it inspired me to think about how to build an organization that could sustain a healthy level of growth to support our team and that one day might be able to support that amount of revenue in one month. I credit that possibility to helping us to think bigger and many years later I’m proud to say that we’ve eclipsed that monthly revenue number three times and are on pace to do it two more times this year.
At work, our greatest limitations are the ones we put on ourselves. They often show up because we haven’t exposed ourselves to the world of endless possibilities. We are stuck and rooted in our current understanding of our circumstances and the idea that what is on the other side is impossible. Yet like the Cirque du Soleil performers, when we see others make the impossible possible, we start to believe that we too might be able to make it happen. Just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to happen. Like a door that has been opened - we must apply discipline and commitment to walk through that door and forge ahead to wherever that next door might be.