“It’s kinda fun to do the impossible” – Walt Disney. I wanted to share a concept that I’ve been talking with business owners during the pro bono coaching sessions I offer. It’s particularly relevant to this environment, although applies to any time and economic cycle.
It’s about the importance of mindset and was practiced by the Disney Legends Walt and his team (Walt Disney).
Referred to as simply ‘Yes If…’ this is the mantra that should replace ‘No Because’.
That’s because ‘Yes if….’ creates a strong mindset for action. A mindset that demands forward, positive action. ( You can read more about mindset here)
The story goes that when brainstorming the theme park concept, there were many objections thrown up about why it couldn’t be done. This was the ‘no because’ mindset. And that’s what we as humans do – we draw on experiences and knowledge in an attempt to make decisions about the future. So it’s very difficult to make a decision on something that you don’t know about.
So Walt turned it around. He asked the question, ‘Can we build the best theme park in the world?’ And that engaged the ‘Yes if’ mindset which started providing the blueprint for how to do it. For example
- Yes if we employ the best engineers and designers
- Yes if we build it somewhere that is warm all year round
- Yes if we build it near great transport links including airports
- Yes if we provide the best training
- And so on…
‘Yes if…’ fosters discovery and facilitates disruption. It is the catalyst for creativity, the foundation for action plans and the compass for navigation.
And right now we all need to be adopting a ‘Yes If…’ mindset because we’ve never been here before, so we don’t have the checklist to navigate through it, but we do have the power of our mindset….
