Last week I took a little detour from the pursuit of the “impossible” to reply to a question from a colleague about her consulting fees. I got deeper into it and came up with 3 strategies to grow a desired consulting practice. (At one time, all three ideas seemed impossible, for me.)
Folks kept showing their interest … so I kept going, writing about many things for the first time, and more personally than usual.
It quickly became clear that I was also writing to those who speak, facilitate, coach, write and advise — influencers all. (If that’s you, or you’d like it to be, I’d be glad to send you what I came up with. Just drop me a note.)
Now let’s turn back to the “impossible” theme — and see how important it is to start with strengths when aspirations are high.
That question I asked you — about a strength you saw — can be the key to your achieving the impossible. Just you wait and see.
Seeing hidden strengths
What I’m talking about is seeing what others may not see. It’s about heightening our awareness of the value, strength, and potential around us.
(This could be a good opportunity right now to take me up on my suggestion to identify a strength and write it down. It’s been working for me.)
One example of great historical significance is how Winston Churchill appealed to the beleaguered British people in the darkest days of the Second World War.
Churchill’s impact was the result of his towering ability to cognitively dissociate all seeming impossibilities, deficiencies, and imperfections from a given situation, and to see in his people and country that which had fundamental value and strength.
His optimism, even in Britain’s darkest moment, came not from a Pollyanna-like sense that ‘everything was just fine,’ but from a conviction that was born from what he, like few others, could actually see in his country. ~ David Cooperrider
Most of us have had glimpses of strengths around us. And yet, the pervasive “background music” of our culture seems to draw us all into a chorus of hopelessness, helplessness, even perpetual skepticism and even dark cynicism.
We can find signs of life and hope, if only we decide to look for them. And what we choose to pay attention to has everything to do with how we see ourselves, how we envision the future, and how the future actually turns out.
We can cultivate the ability to see what’s strong and vital and alive around us. When we do, it dawns on us that this ability is one of our own greatest personal strengths. It can even give us the skill to see within ourselves the power that is often hidden from view.
It can become a habitual skill (when it does that in an organization or community we call that “culture.”)
And when we activate it, we overcome the limits that we impose, often unconsciously, on our own capacities.
This starts with the belief that we have a choice — that we can consciously choose what we “see” and act upon. In both the personal and social realms, we can choose to focus only on problems, needs and deficits — the traditional problem-solving approach. Or we can choose to see strengths, capabilities and possibilities — the bedrock where we can stand securely as we stretch the boundaries of what’s possible.
By focusing on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong with an organization, an individual or even a society, we get access to the kind of energy that can be transformative. Having that energy to work with gives us the confidence to develop and pursue a new image of the future that once was deemed out of reach.
To sum up, I ask you: If you want to inspire, mobilize and sustain human energy which is the most effective way — by focusing on problems or refocusing on strengths so you have the confidence and energy, even courage to pursue possibilities?
So, do you see a strength around you? Just one? Write it down. (Even better also add it to the comments below.) Something happens when we make it more real.
Consulting? Maybe speaking, writing, coaching, facilitating, teaching, advising? Get the special report I’m just now finishing on 3 strategies ... “How to create the consulting practice you really want.” Click here for your complimentary copy.
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Thanks to all who’ve sent an email to me, and told me what strength they saw. I guess that’s more appealing than putting it here.
I learned something. And got fortified by seeing those strengths.
Jim