Heather Hansen

An Early Christmas Present-the Power of Could Be

In the courtroom, a good advocate knows the power of Could Be. Every witness could be the key to a win. Every piece of evidence could be the thing that helps the jury understand. Could Be’s win cases.  After 20 years as a trial attorney, I knew that.

But if you want to stand up for yourself, your ideas, your business and your family you can use the power of Could Be as well. A few years ago, I read a psychological study about the power of  “could be” I talked about it here. In that study, when researchers told subjects that a rubber band “is” a rubber band, only 3% of them thought to use it as the eraser they needed to complete a task. But when they said this “could be” a rubber band, 40% of them used it as an eraser. That is the power of could be–all of a sudden you can see things you didn’t see, and do things you couldn’t do. I decided to explore the power of “could be”

I came up with a 30 day Could Be challenge. Every day for 30 days I offered people something else they could be, and we all tried it together. But I ran out of ideas. I was having trouble seeing all of the possibilities. That’s where my friends came in, and they offered so many things we could be as well. Together we came up with 30 things.

Every day I wrote up the challenge and offered it to my community. And that community grew. Then we came together, and shared what worked for us and what didn’t. People shared their victories and defeats.  Day by day, we became closer–it could be that the internet does allow for closer relationships.

Heather Hansen

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