Make the Impossible Possible

Dream it. Then live it. Two steps. Very important to keep them distinct. By this I mean that when you want
to get somewhere, you should think of where you ideally want to get to. Do not be encumbered by thoughts
of where you are right now. Irrelevant. Where do you need/want to go? Then -- as a second and totally distinct step -- figure out how you're going to get from here to there. Why is it so important to keep these steps separate? Because pushing them together leads to incrementalism. It limits you. Terribly. Instead of thinking about where you would ideally like to go, you think about which directions you can take a step into from where you are right now. It keeps you from dreaming big, and keeps you mired in Business as Usual.

When I tell people this, I frequently get back from the incrementalists the incredulous query, "But how do you know it's even possible?!".  Well, I don't. That's what the second step is for. Once you know where you need go, then figure out how you're going to get there. If it seems impossible to get there from here, you can either scale back your ambitions, or you can try to make the impossible possible. How do you do that? By changing the rules of the game. Things are "impossible" usually only within a particular context or set of expectations.

If you can change those, do the unexpected, change the context, change the rules of the game, you can frequently do things that are "impossible". And the world is full of real-life examples. The Kennedy Moonshot is one of my favorites. At the time Kennedy made his famous speech, getting to the moon was "impossible". New materials needed to be invented. Things that had never been done before, even vaguely, would have to be done. And they were. Because a whole lot of people dreamed it first, and then lived it.