The Seeing Possibilities Approach

There are many ways to live life. Some people focus on seeing possibilities approach rather than just seeing problems. They may do this in many different situations, such as:

How to build on their strengths … How to shape their future career … How to manage a crisis … How to use their feeling in a positive way … How to lead a team that faces a challenge … Or another situation.

Different people follow this approach in different ways. Whatever route they take, however, they may ask the following kinds of questions.

What is the situation? What are the possible ways forward? What are the potential positive possibilities? What are the pluses and minuses of each route? What is the route I want follow?

What are the real results I want to achieve? What is the picture of success? What are the strategies I can follow to increase chance of success? How can I do my best to achieve the goals?

Different people apply this approach in different situations. Let’s explore how some people may translate this into action.

Seeing Possibilities In Life

Some people grow up in families where they are encouraged to see possibilities. Some may meet educators or other significant people who encourage them to be grateful and give them the following messages.

You can continue to have a positive attitude. You can build on your strengths, do satisfying work and find solutions to challenges. You can also aim to give positive things to people during your time on the planet.

Some young people who experienced this approach may have found it easy to fit in socially or at school. Some may have found this more difficult.

They may have been introvert, dyslexic or considered to be slower learners. Some may have been given labels – such as ADHD – or seen themselves as different.

Some may have been given support by their parents or other people. They may have send things like:

Let’s build on your strengths and look at your possibilities.

A person who is introvert may be reflective, a deep thinker and able to do creative work by themselves. A person who is dyslexic may be imaginative, resilient and able to find solutions to certain problems.

A person who has ADHD may be passionate and able to channel their energy towards achieving compelling goals. A person who is a slower learner may explore topics in depth so they can understand them fully and then pass on this knowledge to other people.

Today it is more common for people to be encouraged to focus on their strengths. Some are given the following messages.

Let’s focus on your strengths. How can you build on these in your own way? Looking ahead, what are the possible roads you can follow? How can you use your strengths to do satisfying work and help other people?

Kate Griggs, for example, has done marvellous work that has helped many people with dyslexia. She has been shifting the narrative on dyslexia and educating people on its strengths since 2004.

She has written two books called This Is Dyslexia and Extraordinary People. She created the Made By Dyslexia website and also helped to found DyslexicU – The University of Dyslexic thinking. Here is an introduction to the Made By Dyslexia website.

There are many ways for people to focus on their possibilities in life. Some also take this approach in their work. Let’s explore this theme.

Seeing Possibilities In Work

Some people turn problems on their head and focus on possible opportunities. Looking at a challenge in their working environment, they ask the following kinds of questions.

What is the specific situation? What are the potential opportunities that could arise? What are the possible routes I can follow? Which route do I want to follow in my own way?

The follow section describe some people I have worked with who took this approach. There are, of course, many others who see possibilities in situations and do superb work that delivers success.

During the early 1980s The Foresight Group saw that many people in companies wanted to do innovative work but found it difficult to get their ideas implemented. How would it be possible to tap into this potential?

They therefore set up the world’s first School For Intrapreneurs. This helped to provide wins for the companies and wins for the employees. Here an introduction from the present company’s website.

Steve Clayton was somebody I met when mentoring at Microsoft. Whilst loving being a techie, he saw that it was possible to position the company’s products in a more human and effective way.

Believing that technology could enrich people’s lives, he began publishing a weekly blog explaining how Microsoft’s technology could help people. He called it a Geek In Disguise.

The blog became well-known and built a big audience. One day he received a call from the head office. They asked him to become Microsoft’s Chief Storyteller. He continued in that role for over ten years.

Steve built a team that focused on bringing to life the value that the company’s services could provide for people. This involved making the stories more human rather than just using technical terms. Here is a summary of the framework they used.

Richmond Stace has a medical background but recognised there were some gaps regarding helping people to manage pain. Bearing this in mind, he began to work as a pain coach.

Working in Harley Street and Chelsea, he built a practice that flourished before Covid. Whilst the continued to work with some clients, Richmond began exploring the possibilities of providing this service online.

The results have been excellent. Richmond  has been able to provides people with practical tools that they can use:

To manage, understand and, wherever possible, eliminate pain;

To care for their health by building on their inner resources and adding other practical skills;

To, if they wish, develop their ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle and shape a positive future.

Many of his clients benefit from this approach. Here are a selection from some of the many testimonials.

Back to running after a couple of weeks
after struggling with plantar fasciitis for a year

Richmond Stace really helped me and more importantly empowered me to get out of a hole!

His holistic approach, with no stone left unturned, got me to see clearly where I was and provided me with the toolbox not only to get fit again but hopefully to stay healthy.

I’d had a year of plantar fasciitis and other on-going chronic injuries before I turned to Richmond. With a range of mental and physical techniques, he helped me to heal and get back on track with my running.

Paul Cheetham, European Masters Marathon Champion (M45) 2017, World Masters Half Marathon: Team Champion (M45) 2019.

Back to writing after a
post-traumatic dystonia

Olivia was just 17 in January 2016 when she was diagnosed with viral meningitis and a tumour deep in her brain and in March she took a ball to the head in a lacrosse match which resulted in her having a stroke.

She was immediately thrombosed and spent 5 days on an acute stroke ward.

As a result of the stroke, she was diagnosed with post traumatic dystonia and we were referred to Richmond by Dr Marie Helene Marion in September.

Olivia’s right hand would totally freeze, sometimes for hours or days, with the longest being for 2 months. The stress of being 17 and in the middle of university applications and big exams whilst being unable to write was huge.

We came to see Richmond weekly and he helped her enormously with not only coping with the stress levels but the total rehabilitation of her hand and how to retrain her brain in to making her hand move again.

The big breakthrough came after a few weeks when her fingers started to twitch and move again and she worked very hard on all the exercises that Richmond gave her to do to re-associate her brain to her hand and to love it again.

She re-learnt how to hold a pen and how to write and every week her writing would get smaller and neater and it is now totally back to normal.

It has been a very scary year for her but Richmond has always been very calming, explaining everything clearly and teaching her how to cope and how to improve.

We found him to be extremely kind and compassionate and there are not many people who could make a scared teenager feel totally at ease from the first meeting, so positive, encouraging and always at the end of an email if we had a query.

I can’t thank Richmond enough for everything that he did for Olivia and for me!

He has restored her confidence and has taught her good coping strategies for the future.

Her hand is now fully functioning, she aced her exams, passed her driving test and has got amazing offers from top universities.

All things that 6 months ago looked impossible to achieve with the dystonia. We would have no hesitation in recommending Richmond – a nicer man you could not meet.

Liz and Olivia M.

Seeing Possibilities When Looking
At How To Express Our Feelings

People make choices all the time and the choices they make have consequences. This approach also applies to how they express their feelings. One of my early mentors explained this in the following way.

Feelings are the material of life. You may sometimes feel happy, sad, uplifted or down. Whatever feeling you have, ask yourself: ‘How can I use this feeling to help people in a positive way?’

Many people have used their feelings to explore positive possibilities. Different people do this in different ways in different situations. Let’s look one remarkable example.

Jo Berry chose to channel her sorrow into helping people to build on their common humanity. She created the organisation called Building Bridges For Peace. Here is how Jo described her reasons for taking this approach.

On October 12th 1984 my father, Sir Anthony Berry and four others were killed in the bombing of the Grand Hotel, Brighton as they attended the Conservative Party Conference.

Two months later I randomly shared a taxi with a young Irish man whose brother had been in the IRA and had been killed by a British soldier.

We should have been enemies but instead we talked about a world where peace was possible and where there were no enemies. As I left the taxi, I had a flash of inspiration, this was one way I could make a difference, I could build a bridge across the divide.

The hardest bridge to build was with Patrick Magee, who was sentenced for his part in planting the Brighton bomb and released as part of the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1999.

I made enquiries from mutual friends and finally met Pat for the first time in November 2000 at a friend’s house in Dublin.

My intention was to hear his story so that I could experience him as a human being rather than a faceless enemy. I was scared and had doubts, but the strongest part of me needed to see him and speak to him.

I asked him many questions and shared a little about my Dad. At first he began to express his political perspective, which though I was familiar with was hard to hear but I could see he was a sensitive and intelligent person.

Then something changed. He stopped talking and said he didn’t know who he was any more, he wanted to hear my anger, my pain and what could he do to help.

It was as if he had taken off his political hat and had now opened up and became vulnerable. The conversation was very different after that and a new journey started, one which we are still on.

He now had a need to meet me and rediscover his lost humanity. When he planted the bomb he was not seeing human beings in the hotel, they were just a means to an end.

During our meetings, he began to develop the awareness that he had killed a human being with a soul, someone he could have sat down and had a cup of tea with.

He would later say that he was disarmed by the empathy I gave him, that he would have found it easier if I had met him shouting, blaming and defending my position. I wasn’t there to argue my point; I was there to listen and experience his humanity.

After three hours I could not talk anymore and ended our meeting by thanking him for his willingness to engage with me so honestly and he said he was sorry he had killed my Dad.

Patrick brings courage and humility to the process of building bridges for peace. Here is an extract from his story.

I was released from prison in 1999, having served 14 years under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Whilst in prison I completed a PhD examining the representation of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles’ fiction.

It was important for me as part of the peace process in North of Ireland to recognise that now we should engage with former enemies and political opponents, addressing the needs and grievances of victims, helping to break down differences by explaining ourselves to the other. 

For 27 years I was a committed member of the IRA, whether on active service, on the run or in prison. I spent a total of 17 years either interned or sentenced because of my involvement.

A crucial part of that legacy is the need to look back over the conflict and to understand it in terms of the many conflicting perspectives. That will entail ensuring that many voices previously excluded or misrepresented must now be heard, including the voices of the victims.

In that light, as an individual, I agreed to meet Jo. Her father, Sir Anthony Berry had been killed, along with four others, in the IRA’s attack on the Grand Hotel. I had planted the bomb.

So, on the day, I was there to explain, in essence to justify, the armed struggle; and specifically ‘Why Brighton’. I was wearing a political hat. We talked for three hours. But something happened during that first encounter.

Jo’s openness, calmness; her apparent lack of hostility – in fact her willingness to listen and to try to understand, disarmed me. Had Jo instead shown anger, however justifiable, it would for me have been easier to cope with.

The political hat would have remained firmly attached. But in the presence of such composure and decency, as I said, I felt disarmed. It was a cathartic moment.

It didn’t matter that as a former member of the IRA I could politically justify my past actions in terms of the legitimacy of the struggle.

As an individual I carried the heavy weight of knowing I had caused profound hurt to this woman. I expressed a need to really hear what she had to say and to help her come to terms with her loss, if that were possible:

‘I want to hear your anger, to hear your pain.’

A political obligation henceforth became a personal obligation. I now realised more fully that I was guilty of something I had attributed to the other: that our enemies demonised, dehumanised, marginalised, reduced us.

In agreeing to meet me that first occasion and in continuing to meet me she has demonstrated a truly admirable, strength and purpose in her endeavour to try to make sense of her loss and her preparedness to listen to my perspective.

No matter what we can achieve as two human beings meeting after a terrible event, the loss remains. Neither forgiveness nor understanding can fully embrace that loss.

The hope lies in the fact we continue to meet in order to further this mutual process towards understanding.

Let’s return again to Jo’s story and her words. Here is how she summarises some key themes in the work of Building Bridges For Peace.

I passionately believe that there is humanity in everyone, and every time we demonise the “other” we are delaying the onset of peace in this world.

Once we find our own humanity, and we see the humanity in the other, then we are going to want them to have their human rights, their good housing, food, medicine, education and freedom to be themselves, to be safe and secure.

We will want for them all what we want for ourselves. Peace happens when we treasure everyone, all creatures, our land, our planet, and work together to find solutions in which everyone wins.

There are many ways to live life. Some people choose to follow the seeing possibilities approach rather than just seeing problems. They then do their best to achieve their picture of success.

Let’s return to your own life and work. Can you think of a specific situation where you may want to follow elements of the seeing possibilities approach? How could you do this in your own way?

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.