Apollo 13 and MacGyver

Lately, whenever I hear someone tell me that they "cannot" do something important, or that it is "not possible," I try to imagine what Jim Lovell and the guys would have thought if after they radioed "Houston, we have a problem" the response they heard was "we are very busy and we don't have any money and anyway you knew the risks when you went up there."

Since "failure was not an option" - and they couldn't run out to Walmart for a new air filter - NASA engineers had to rig one up out of the materials on board the damaged spacecraft. They had to decide what to do and how to do it by committee, without procedures, and under the most intense kind of pressure. But they did it. All three men survived to return to their families.

Mission accomplished.

MacGyver himself would have been proud. Remember him? He was the TV character who could stop a charging elephant with just a key chain and a sockful of tissues. Week after week, that guy got himself out of the most serious jams with nothing but ingenuity and determination. He never seemed to have a shotgun with him. Or cash.

OK, MacGyver was a fictional TV character. But he makes an excellent image to hold in our heads whenever we forget that necessity is the mother of invention. Resources are scant these days, but failure is not an option. The time has come to fire up those dormant imaginations. Can't figure out how to fund something that needs to be done? Get creative. Don't know where the staff will find the time to finish the critical tasks already on their lists? Invent your own way.

Here are some tips for doing the "impossible":
1) Focus on what you do have rather than on what you don't have. Think about how you can leverage existing resources to bring in more resources.
2) Remember that there is magic in synergy... three people or six or ten can create more than one person working alone. If you are stuck for anwers, enlist others to engage in brainstorming with you.
3) Pay careful attention to the spontaneous offers of help from people around you. Stop defending your lack and listen. Another person may not do something exactly the way you have in mind... but who cares? Don't let your idea of perfection stand as an obstacle to someone else's good enough.
4) Get a clear picture of the result you want to achieve - and fix your determination to make it happen. The "how" part will take care of itself. It always, always does. (Read #3 again.)
5) Clear your mind of all preconceived ideas about how things should be. Start with where you are, focus on what you want to achieve, and give your imagination free rein to go wherever it wants.
6) Remember that one reaps only what one has sown. The resources we have are not a function of who we are, but are a function of who we were. If you have lack now, you must have been thinking lack six months ago. The question is what abundance will you have six months from now?
7) Let someone else's "I can't" be your inspiration. There's nothing more fun than pulling off the impossible and pissing off the misery addicts in your life.