Magic

I've always loved make-believe..stories...Disney...pretend worlds. It's wired into me. Playing with my 2-year old daughter is a piece of cake. We speak the same language and play for hours in other worlds. It's a fabulous place for her and her freinds to learn about life; it's a fabulous way for me to learn how she thinks.

So it's natural for me to use imagination and creativity as a tool when coaching. If a client doesn't know how to solve a problem, I'll often say, "Make it up."
Silence. "What do you mean?"
"Make it up...throw out an answer...just say the first thing that comes to mind."
More silence. "Ummm...I dunno."
"OK..how would Harry Potter do it?"
"Oh, that's easy. He'd call Hermione and Ron to help him and they'd do A,B and C."
"How do you know that?"
"Umm, I guess I don'treally *know* that."
"So you made it up. You based your answer on what you knew already and imagined the rest, right? And you even said that was easy."
"Yeah..I guess so."
"So let's try that again. How would you imagine solving the problem we were talking about earlier, based on what you already know about it?"
"I'd do X, Y and Z and then ask Joe to help me with E, F and G."
"Do you know it'll work? Have you done that before? Or are you imagining it?"
"I've never done it before, but I imagine it'll work out OK."

Imagination...creativity...pretend worlds...make-believe. It works for a 2-year old and works for a 40-year old. It takes you to a new place...gives you a new way to look at the things...a new perspective. Try it...play in another world today and see what's different tomorrow. Let me know how it goes...I'd love to hear from you!