Around the turn of the 20th century, a shoe manufacturer sent a couple of business development types to investigate an undeveloped area of Africa for future business expansion.

One sent back a telegram that said “SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES.” The other wired exuberantly “INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES.”

So which telegram would you have sent? Which one does your monkey mind* send to you all day long?

Closing quotes:

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible!” – Walt Disney

“The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.” – Charles F. Kettering, inventor with 140 patents including the electric starter motor, head of research for General Motors and founder of Delco; 1876–1958

“Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.” – Doug Larson, newspaper columnist

* Monkey mind is a Buddhist term meaning a mind that is “unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconstant, confused, indecisive, uncontrollable” (Wikipedia), that jumps from thought to thought like a monkey jumps from tree to tree.