Dare to dream 'What If'?

The day we'd all been waiting for arrived this week. Way back in June, there seemed little chance that it would happen before March 2021, but we dared to dream 'What If?' and it did.

For someone who does not embrace hope readily, who likes to be in control of their own destiny and drives through obstacles with sheer bull-headedness, to say the last eight months have tested my comfort zone to the core would be an understatement.

And after months and months of trials, dismay and rage, we would all be forgiven for squashing the hope of others, looking at good news through a lens of "it can't possibly work" and staying warm and cosy in that place of "if I don't dream, I won't be disappointed".

To be fair, I've had plenty of practice, as have you this past year, in letting the chips fall where they may and fixing the plane while I fly it - all in record time I wouldn't have dreamed of BC (Before COVID). I've also realised it takes courage to dream.

The path of least resistance is not to try, not to hope, not to imagine 'What If?'. Because by doing that we'll protect ourselves from the inevitable disappointment we'll feel when it unravels, and let's face it, there's been a sheer bit of that in 2020.

'What If?' These two little words still cause me immense discomfort. But the universe has a funny way of gifting you what it thinks you need most and it's a gift I share with you today.

Ever been in the market for a new car, then suddenly you see it everywhere? That's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Instead of a new car, I have 'What If?' following me around like a comet-tail.

And so I had to grin when this little pearl of wisdom popped up on my Facebook feed today:

On its own, it's a fairly harmless reminder of the resistance we all feel about looking at things differently, challenging us to dream 'What If?'. Today it has all the subtlety of a bulldozer. Let me tell you why...

7 days of 'What If?'

I first encountered the power of 'What If?' during a session with Dr. Rama Naidu last week. After almost six months of dogged toil to publicise the plight of Tourism, the 'South Africa is Travel Ready' collective had reached a crossroads. Do we continue to fight on for our reopening, or do we redirect our focus to helping our tourism industry extend its runway? We needed an outside perspective and Dr. Rama delivered it through a series of 'What Ifs?'.

Oh, the discomfort of being told you have to entertain every possibility without injecting pragmatism, realism, a barrage of "it won't work, because..."!

Fast forward to five days later and there we all were sitting glued to our Zoom on Tourism Tuesday talking about Design Thinking and the lessons learnt by real people and organisations in Tourism who had thought out the box, while they were in the box. Again 'What If?' reared its obstinate head.

As the beginning of a journey to seeing things differently, asking 'What If?' forces you to come up with new possibilities without the constraint of being realistic. If you shine the realism spotlight on many possibilities they will never see the light of day and the future will look much like it does right now. That's a safe space, even if you're not comfortable in it.

Forget thinking out the box, it takes courage to think like there is no box, even if there's no consequence to putting those possibilities down on paper, there's nobody to judge. That's perhaps because we are our own harshest critics and what if those possibilities are just plain stupid. What if they are? So what?

So, today the gift I want to regift to you, as we hurtle headlong towards our Festive Season, is to go grab a cup of coffee, tea or whisky, go outside and throw all your 'What Ifs?' into a pot without fear or favour. Forget about the potential for disappointment, the gremlins that say it will never work. 'What If' it does?

And once your 'What If?' bucket is full, start whittling that list down and finding the sweet spot of what will actually work - we've given you the recipe here, so use it.

There's always another way. While we entertained the possibilities of 'What If?', we created a new opportunity with our new #ExperiencesNotThings campaign which launched yesterday, encouraging consumers to buy travel, not trinkets this Festive Season. Will it work? Is it worth the effort? Will it help? We dare to dream it will. That's our purpose.

It's a powerful thing operating with a sense of purpose. Just ask the pilots from Qantas who dream of returning to the skies one day, but for now, have switched their yokes for steering wheels. They have the courage to do today and dream for tomorrow.

Here's to the dreamers...