We've all heard it or said it ourselves. An idea that has been presented seems dubious at best, impossible at worst. We throw out the "fact" of impossible pig flight with a dismissive wave of the hand and move on to more likely, more logical options.
You know that change in your marriage, in your career, in your emotions, in your education, in your business, in your behavior that you would love to see happen? You know the one I'm talking about. The "impossible" one! The thing you have given up on? The thing you have tried to change a million different ways with no success? Your "grounded pig" of a problem?
What if I told you that it is possible for that idea, that change, that dream, that "pig" to fly after all? Would you respond with "I'll believe that when pigs fly?" That's fine, because the reality is:
all pigs can fly just fine.
STEP #1:
BELIEVE IT BEFORE YOU SEE IT
No, you didn't read that wrong. People tend to say it the other way around. "I'll believe it when I see it." That's why their pigs don't fly. If you want your "impossible dream" to get off the ground, you've got to believe it BEFORE you can see it. You've got to engage what I like to call your sanctified imagination. This is an ability given to you by God to picture what could be, to create and set apart something in your mind before it manifests in your physical world.
The history books are full of positive thinking visionaries who believed it before they saw it. It's why we have electricity, indoor plumbing, computers, automobiles, airplanes, etc. Think about that jumbo jet sitting out on the tarmac at the airport. If you traveled through time from the year 1700 and saw that giant metal behemoth would there be any logical reason for you to believe that thing could fly, yet alone at 600 miles per hour?
"It doesn't matter what you've heard.
Impossible is not a word.
It's just a reason
for someone not to try."
- Scott Davis
Believe it before you see it and then act accordingly!
STEP #2:
ACT LIKE YOUR ACTIONS MATTER
Often, we SAY something is important to us. We CLAIM that what we want more than anything else in the world is to be self-employed, to have a great marriage, to have a better relationship with our kids, to go back to school, to have more financial freedom, etc. If asked, with complete sincerity, people will say "I want THAT (flying pig) more than anything."
The reality is, we let A LOT of other noise and junk cram in and crowd our priority bubble. There is a reason guys like Warren Buffet have no idea who got voted off the island last week. They are focused on what they really want in life. They act like their actions matter.
Dr. K Anders Ericsson, a Psych Professor at Florida State University is recognized as one of the world's leading theoretical and experimental researchers on expertise. In one landmark study he found that accumulated time of deliberate practice is the critical difference in a professional musician's performance ability. He found that the best experts had logged 10,000 hours by age 20 while the least accomplished experts logged only 5,000 hours of practice. Serious amateur pianists logged 2,000 hours.
Dr. Ericsson also found that this applies to many other arenas of life in addition to expertise in music. How much time have you invested in getting your pig off the ground?
"We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit." - Aristotle
Act like your actions matter and then overcome the obstacles.
STEP #3:
EXPECT AND OUTSMART
YOUR CRITICS
Hey, success isn't easy! If it was, everyone would have it and nothing riles up the disgruntled "have nots" like watching a former "have not" begin to experience success. It's always been much easier to drag someone down than it is to lift someone up. The old adage "misery loves company" became a truism ... well ... because it's true!
Have you ever gone on a diet or stopped smoking or started exercising and found that suddenly your friends and family who don't diet, don't exercise or don't want to stop smoking seem to suddenly be trying to talk you out of that decision? "Come on! Go have a cigarette with me! Quit tomorrow! Come on! Go have ice cream with me! You can get back on your diet tomorrow!"
It's not that they want you to fail. It's that you succeeding makes them face their own failures and that isn't a pleasant sensation when you aren't willing to change yourself. So rather than change themselves, if they can instead "help" you not "waste your time" by showing you that change is an impossible pig flight, then they can again feel better about their own choices.
No matter what great idea you come up with in life you can be sure there will be someone close by to tell you what a horrible idea it is. Post a personal video on YouTube sometime if you don't believe me. The pre-teen troll universe is poised, ready and waiting to pounce with bullying speech like you've never imagined.
In 587 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the walls, city and temple of Jerusalem. One hundred forty-two years later, Nehemiah, returned to rebuild the walls. Despite constant intimidation, criticism and threats of violence, Nehemiah and his team accomplished this challenge in the "impossibly" short timespan of just 52 days! Over and over his critics tried to stop him, distract him, discourage him and even kill him. How did he keep the plan on course? He gave this answer to his critics :
"I am doing a great work
and I cannot come down.
Why should the work stop
while I leave it and
come down to you?"
- Nehemiah
STEP #4:
BUILD A PIG FLIGHT TEAM
You are only human. You have to sleep, eat and bathe (please) sometimes. You can't be about the pursuit of the dream 24-7. What if you had a team of people around you helping you pursue your dream and you helped them pursue theirs as well?
Let's take it a step further. What if you surrounded yourself with a team of people whose dreams were similar to yours so that many of the steps, lessons, tasks and challenges overlapped? What if that synchronicity kicked in and allowed all of you to be more successful, quicker?
The truth is, that happens every day all over the world! It's true of every great endeavor! It takes teamwork to make the dream work! No one makes it to the top of Mount Everest alone. No one makes it to the moon alone. No one makes it to the bottom of the ocean alone. Steve Jobs didn't run Apple alone. Disney didn't create the Magic Kingdom alone. Felix Baumgartner didn't skydive to earth from outer space alone! Michael Jordan, as amazing as he was, didn't win six NBA championships alone! All of these people had coaches, mentors and fellow team members with a shared vision, an idea about a preferred future reality they were steadfastly pursuing together.
Who is your team? What positive people have you intentionally gathered around you? Do you have a coach? A mentor? Teammates? Partners?
Make sure you choose these people wisely. Don't put a critic on your team. Don't put dead wood on your roster. Life is short. Don't waste time or energy dragging a weak team into the future. Help those who don't share your vision join a different vision they CAN support and instead find kindred spirits to join your on your shared pig flight journey.
"It takes teamwork to make the dream work
but a vision becomes a nightmare when
the leader has a big dream
and a bad team."
- John Maxwell
I look forward to your official pig launch announcement in the future!
I'll give everything I've got
to help you become everything
you want to be!
Remember,
YOU ARE the Great Adventure!
Greg
