What Do You Do When Everyone Says It Can't Be Done?

Questions I Am Asked

A month ago, my ex-wife referred me to a founder who was being pushed out of his own company.

Two years ago, she hated me.

Today, that founder and I are talking to customers and potential acquirers.

If this works, it could become the largest exit of my career.

Life is weird.

But the reason my ex-wife sent him to me may be the more interesting story, which will address the question.

She knows what happens when someone tells me something can't be done.

I immediately start looking for how it can.

The founder had built a company around an incredibly unique product, brought in outside money and suddenly found himself in the middle of what looked a lot like a palace coup.

New investor.

Board problems.

Founder losing control.

He called me.

I listened.

And something in me turned on.

I have always seen the world as a place of almost infinite possibilities.

Another move.

Another person to call.

Another introduction.

Another door nobody has tried yet.

I don't need twenty of them to work.

I need one.

So I stopped focusing on how he got into the mess and started looking at what we still had.

A remarkable product.

That changed the question.

Not:

How do we survive this?

But:

What can this become?

Who needs it?

Who could distribute it?

Who might want to own it?

That's how my brain works.

When most people see a wall, I start looking for doors. And if there isn't a door, I start wondering whether we really need the wall.

Tell me something has a 10 percent chance of working and I don't hear 90 percent chance of failure.

I hear:

So there's a chance.

Apparently, I learned business strategy from Dumb and Dumber.

The Other Part Is Energy

When the people I care about get dragged down by everything that could go wrong, I pull them the other way.

Sometimes gently.

Sometimes by the ankles.

I don't pretend the problems aren't real.

I just refuse to let them become the only thing we can see.

If I believe there is a way through something, I'll carry enough belief for everyone until they can see it too.

Then we move.

Make the call.

Get the meeting.

Try something.

Then try something else.

And in this case, it happened fast.

A few weeks ago, the conversation was about a founder trying to protect the company he built.

Now we're talking to customers and possible acquirers.

Will any of it happen?

I don't know.

That's business.

Infinite possibilities doesn't mean infinite certainty.

It means I'll keep looking until we find the possibility that works.

• • •

Which brings me back to my ex-wife.

Whatever had happened between us personally, she knew this about me.

She knew my energy.

When she met someone facing something that looked nearly impossible, she thought of me.

That hits me.

Because two years ago, she probably wouldn't have recommended me for a dinner reservation.

But when someone needed a person who would walk into a mess and refuse to believe it was hopeless, she made the introduction.

A month later, we're having conversations that didn't exist before she did.

Maybe nothing comes from them.

Maybe one changes everything.

So What Do You Do?

Don't spend your energy convincing them they're wrong.

Use it trying to prove they are.

Find the next move.

Then another.

If the people around you lose their energy, lend them some of yours.

Because impossible is usually just a description of what nobody has figured out yet.

And if this becomes the biggest exit of my career, the whole thing will trace back to one of the more unlikely sentences in my life.

My ex-wife saying:

You should call Paul.

Apparently, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Paul Harkins