Moon Shot: You'll Never Get Off the Ground Until You Apply This
“The surest way to kill creativity is to focus on what’s wrong rather than on what could be. ”
I can still see with tremendous clarity, my family gathered around our black and white television as Neil Armstrong took mankind’s first step onto the moon. It was July 20, 1969 and I was only 12 years old. How do memories stick for 50 years? I think a more interesting question is how did we get there in the first place? I still remember that as well. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that we would put “a man on the moon by the end of the decade — not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” He painted a clear picture, in the minds of people around the world, of a man standing on the moon. It was an audacious dream, clearly stated, that motivated a nation to accomplish the impossible. We didn’t have all of the technology to accomplish the dream at the time of his speech; we had to invent it.
Stop and think about the power of words. Would you rather talk about:
“Burnout” or “flourishing”?
“Errors” or “exceptional quality”?
“Root cause analysis” or “how could we accomplish ___?"
“Disengagement/Engagement” or “Investment/Ownership”?
“Disruptive employees” or “Unstoppable love”?
The words that we ponder directly impact the emotions that we experience.
The emotions that we experience directly impact the options that we see.
The surest way to kill creativity is to focus on what’s wrong rather than on what could be.