What if money was no object? What if I lived in another country? What if I lost my job tomorrow? What if this was my last year on earth? What if I lived until I was 120?
This simple game can be surprisingly insightful. As children, we often pose and play with many questions. Yet as adults, it’s easy to stop ourselves or others, saying things like “Don’t be silly”, “You have a mortgage to pay”, “That’s impossible”.
But “what if” 😉 we took a step back and allowed ourselves to answer, uninhibited, free and daring. Would we be scared by our answers? Maybe. Would we be inspired by our answers? Maybe. Maybe it’s time to try.
Yesterday, I travelled on the Stoosbahn, the steepest funicular railway in the world (2). Did this feat of engineering start as a “What if we could get up there” question?
One of my favourite Steve Jobs quotes is ““Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” As I look around my desk, I see a pen holder given to me by my grandfather, a light that dims, a printer, a wifi hub, all things that probably started as a “What if we could build” question.
Now it’s your turn to play with this question. What if you were doing what you love? Maybe you already are. What if you would stop procrastinating? What if you would think big?
Footnotes
1) Some What if questions to get you thinking –
2) Widely claimed to be the steepest funicular railway in the world with a maximum gradient of 110%