The Impossible Made Possible

I received an email from Simple Programmer that reminded me of my earlier days of Software Development. I have copied an excerpt from it below.

“This is great, because…”
Hey there,

Ever since I first started working with John 7 years ago, he’s always done this thing that made me want to slap him.

 

It plays out like this:

 

We’d be neck-deep in Android code.

 

Or muscling our way through adding an endpoint to a REST API.

 

Or mid-way through launching a new Simple Programmer course.

 

And something unexpected would happen that threw a complete monkey wrench into our plans.

 

Now I don’t know about you, but I put a lot of thought into my plans. I LIKE my plans.

And when my plans get trashed by something outside my control, I don’t take that all too well.

 

My inner toddler comes out, and I want to stomp around and flip tables.

So I’d start into my little pity party, and John would cut me off:

 

“This is GREAT, because…”

 

And then he’d go on to show me how this new reality we were facing was even better than what we had planned.
…
Half the time when John says “This is great, because…” I don’t think he even knows what’s coming next.

 

He’s trained himself to reflexively know that behind every setback there’s an opportunity.

So he starts talking, and by the time he gets the words out, the ideas are flowing.

When you do this, know that people WILL want to slap you.
…

My phrase was “That can’t be done… unless…” It seemed I would get the epiphany right after I had said the sentence.

I stopped vocalizing the words due to the cynical nature of the words, and it drove my boss crazy. Now when I get a problem, I have an internal trigger that immediately seeks out ways to solve it.

I am thankful for my boss telling me how my phase affected him and worked on internalizing it. Not only did the phrase get internalized I flipped it to be a trigger to see possibilities instead of the impossible.

When you try to adopt a trigger phrase to help you see the positive side of a change, make sure you ask how the phrase affects those around you. You can have a great phrase that helps you, but if it is negative, it may not be helpful for others around you to hear. If you find out your trigger is negative sounding work on turning it to be a positive phrase.