Making the Impossible, Possible

• Impossibility is often just a person’s opinion and has no effect on whether something can be done.

• Believing something to be impossible makes it so for those with that belief.

• Setting aside the concept of ‘impossibility’, one can work on the project anew, and at times accomplish what was thought impossible*.

• Impossible is merely a concept—and most often only an opinion, a guess.  —It is not a fact, an “intersubjectively testifiable observation”.  

It is possible to accomplish the impossible once one believes something is possible.  Does that make sense? Believing something to be impossible makes it so. We choose to categorize certain things as impossible, and thus we make it true for ourselves. Not for others, just for ourselves.

Conversely, setting aside a belief that something is impossible, and acting as if it were possible, can make it possible. We once had a doll that could do cartwheels, and Fisher-Price asked if we could make a plush animal version: a Tigger character.

We thought, “probably not,” as the weight and thickness of the plush would interfere with the movement and it would not translate. But we gave it a try, and our team made it work, much to my surprise. The end result was Tumble Time Tigger—a successful and award-winning product.

We encountered electronics problems that the designer on the project thought were impossible to solve. Because he was convinced it couldn’t be solved, he could not solve it. It took another electronics expert to solve that problem. Once we had perfected the cartwheeling plush mechanism, we breathed a great collective sigh of relief and enjoyed a moment of triumph…

We were then told it had to be “shelf-demonstrable”.   Tigger would have to do a cartwheel in the package! Surely this was impossible. It couldn’t be done unless the package was six feet long! No way. So if the product was to go to market, it would have to do a cartwheel in the box.

We set about solving the problem. With Tigger suspended in the box from a pivot on his back, we successfully made him do a cartwheel in the package. The end result was a breakthrough in on-shelf package design.   What we thought was impossible, was possible once we put that belief aside. 

We have learned that we can indeed do the impossible if we set aside any preconceived notion that some desirable end result can’t be achieved. Setting aside that belief makes the impossible become possible. It sounds like circular, tautological logic, but it is a simple concept, and true.

Year later we created an extreme laughing plush that Fisher Price wanted for TMX Elmo.  But no matter the amazing things ours did, they wanted it to do more.   My stubborn thinking was “No”!    It was amazing as it was.   No need to do more.  But it was that ‘or the highway’ so to speak. 

We decided to do just that and the product in the end was even more amazing.  

 They were right and I was wrong.   And it sold millions.  

We love doing the impossible, because we know that if we succeed, no one will have done it before us.