Most of us live “reasonable” lives, looking at what we CAN do and using that as a guide to what we WILL do. Shoot for mediocrity and you’re guaranteed a bull’s-eye, every time. But aiming low and being “reasonable” doesn’t bring out the best of who you are. If you want to enliven your teammates, your kids, your friends, here’s a surefire way to do it: Make unreasonable requests of them.
When a person meets an unreasonable request, sometimes they shut down and refuse. But sometimes they react with fire in their belly. They pick up the Kryptonite, the one thing they’ve been told to fear, and eat it for breakfast—and their life is altered forever. Sometimes they take the power and know that life can be all about facing a series of impossibilities that they will work to make possible. They develop a “bring it” attitude to almost everything. And once they leap over tall buildings with a single bound, they know they can do it again. And again.
There is nothing like the confidence of a person who achieves more than they thought possible. And once one person in a department or company does it, it spreads like wildfire. Soon EVERYONE is doing the impossible.
The best part of an unreasonable request is that people can’t give you reasons why they can’t do it. They already know that your request is unreasonable because you told them so!
Decide to make the unreasonable possible, and amazing things WILL happen!
