Outside of my networking business, I also partake in Rotaract Club activites. This keeps me socially active, even during lull business periods.

At one time, I was part of a committee responsible for organising the installation ceremony, where we would officiate the new incoming committee members for the coming year. A few of us wanted to do something a little different from the usual sit-down dinner-cum-performances, and suggested that we have activities that would get the audience and guests involved and have fun.

Naturally, there were some in the committee who were skeptical. One particularly prominent member objected, saying that it was not a good idea, and it may not adhere to the Rotaractor's protocol. Yet when asked what can we do to get around the problem, he could not give a firm reply. I think he hasn't given much thought to what can be done, as opposed to what cannot.

I identify this as what people would normally call "deductive thinking": you deduce what cannot be done, until you're left with what is safe to do. Sometimes there's nothing much left to make good of anything. Yet, I realise that this seems to be the preferred mode of thinking for most of us.

I had a conversation with a business associate in my charge, and we were discussing about what we could do to help make her business grow multi-folds. I thought if we could come up with a few good ideas that she could execute, there's no reason why we can't see some growth in her business organisation.

But everytime we were examining and idea, she would come up with objections like:

"But not everyone will say 'yes'!"
"I'm not confident enough to say this"
"I am not good enough to do this yet"
"People may not always agree"

I noticed the pattern in her speech, and I asked to pause the discussion for a while. I wanted to help her overcome this cycle of negativity in the way she approached the matter.
"Instead of stating the things that you cannot do," I suggested, "why don't you rephrase them into questions that you can ask yourself?"

What do I mean?

If not everyone will say "yes", I'd ask myself "How can I get everyone to say 'yes'?"
If I'm not confident enought to say something, I could ask myself "How can I make myself more confident so that I can say this?"
If I'm not good enough to do this, I'd ask "How can I make myself better?"

And when we ask, we think seriously about the answer. And sometimes we'll be suprised at the things that we can come up with!

Robert Kiyosaki, the famous business writer behind the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of personal development books, is a big proponent of this. I remember reading in his book that while his real dad, his Poor Dad, always said things like "I can't afford that!", his mentor, his Rich Dad, a successful businessman in Hawaii, would askhimself "How can I afford that?"

Its only a minor tweak in our language patterns, but it brings about a major tweak in our attitude to just about anything! I feel this is the make-or-break secret to most achievements in life :)

In the end, instead of having a regular dinner-cum-performance type of installation ceremony, we executed it the way we wanted: with lots of games, and lots of activites, while keeping the Rotaract protocols intact! It happened the way we wanted, because there were enough of us in that committee that didn't buy the "we can't do it" deal.

Instead, we asked ourselves "How can we do it?"