Just Three Little Letters: Y.E.S.

Today, I'm still going to rave to you about how great Creative Thinkering is by talking about an important concept mentioned in the book:

The power of thinking "YES!"

I don't know how many of you remember much of your time as a wee child, but if you can get your mind to go back that far, you may remember that, in those days, nothing seemed impossible!
Needed to fit those blocks into the appropriate holes? We wouldn't stop working on that till they were finally all in!
Needed to get on top of our parents' bed? We kept climbing up those covers until we finally found ourselves nestled between them!
Wanted to get those cookies? We kept finding ways to climb the furniture to get to them (or figure the easiest way to get someone else to bring them to you...like crying your lungs out)!

And that optimism lasted until adults started beating it into our heads that we couldn't do it, that we'd never would make it (whatever it might have been). As Michalko put it: Children, before they become educated, speak a different language, a language of inclusion, a language of "what is" and "what can be." That's very different from what many of us adults automatically say, such as  "I never would have thought of that," or "Not a bad insight."

However, should we choose to relinquish our defeatist or unenthusiastic attitude and revert to that happy outlook you had when a child, all you have to do is change your vocabulary into a positive one! Because "all language, feelings, and thoughts interact with each other, and the entire accumulation of those influences creates your output and behavior," so by changing the way you speak, "your thoughts and feelings will be changed as well" and you'll generally feel better and more upbeat :)