Define your "What if?" future

- Think about the big social justice movements, like a woman's right to vote, or ending segregation. Both took many years to achieve, and many different leaders and thought leaders engaged in the fight. What made them both successful, beyond significant struggles, fortitude, and resilience, was a clear future that everyone could understand and align to. Now, your change might not be anywhere near as big as a social justice movement, but the same principle still applies. By crafting a single, simple, engaging description of the future that you want to see, you'll attract followers and inspire them to take action. I call this the What If? Future, or WIF. Your What If? question can open the door to conversations. Those conversations will help you identify who might align with you, and who won't. You might wonder why I don't just call this a Vision statement. What I've found is that when my clients are starting out on their thought leadership journey, they get a little intimidated by the word vision. They're not quite ready to outline a Vision statement. But when I ask them to complete the sentence, What If?, they can almost always describe a future that they'd like to bring about. Over time, you'll begin to crystallize your thinking into what can more clearly be called Vision with a capital V, which will include an action plan. But we need to start with the WIF. Let me give you an example. When I was starting out on my thought leadership journey, I was motivated by one frustrating statistic, 99% of venture capital funding in the United States went to men, and 1% went to women. My WIF was, what if 51% of the venture funding went to women entrepreneurs? When I shared that WIF with others, they were eager to help me turn that future into a possibility. So don't overlook this step, it's easy to get focused on the next problem that's right ahead of you, but thought leaders need to look beyond tomorrow, and think about what would motivate others to take action independently. If you have a clear What If? Future that everyone is focused on, then you can all work together to bring it about. So how do you craft a WIF? The good news is that a WIF can be defined in words or visuals, you can download the Exercise file to get started. Remember, your goal is to craft a WIF that is just one sentence. Here are some prompts to get you thinking. What future do you envision that others don't yet see? What future are you committed to make happen? If you could make one change in the world, it would be? And what will you work to fix or eradicate? Here are some examples from people I admire. Let's start with Maria Montessori, the creator of Montessori Education. Her What If? Future might have been, how would the world change if we created classrooms where children are rewarded for their independence of thinking and acting? Or how 'about my friend Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, now the world's largest car sharing service? She might say, what would the world look like if we replaced the industrial economy with a sharing economy? Now it's your turn, have some fun with this exercise, push yourself to think big, and then bigger. Don't limit yourself to just the next few months, think about the next few years, or even decades.