Dave Kashen explains how language shapes reality for founders and leaders. He contrasts fear-based thinking with creative tension, the gap between where you are now and your desired future state. JFK's moon-shot declaration shows how the right words can pull a future into being.
Most people intuitively sense that tension is a powerful motivator, right? This is back to what we were talking about earlier. So they motivate themselves by creating tension based on lack and fear. This is our earlier discussion. Lack, not good enough. Things aren't the way they should be. Fear, uh-oh, things might go terribly. I'm going to end up scared, hungry, and alone if my startup fails. And so I better get myself back to work. And the alternate to that kind of tension is creative tension, which is generated when you're present to current reality and your desired future state, DFS, at the same time. So that's where this comes from. It's like, oh, can you accept reality as it is now? And then imagine your DFS. The way I sometimes say it is we sometimes collapse the desired future state into the present and wish we were already there. Like, oh, I have this beautiful vision. You know, I'll talk about myself. For expanding beyond one-on-one coaching and impacting, you know, thousands and millions of people's lives. But I've only done 2 courses that have impacted like 50 people's lives, you know, outside of my one-on-one. And I could then use my DFS as a weapon to say, oh God, what's wrong with me? Why am I still only at, you know, 50, 100 people when I imagine impacting thousands or millions? The specific thing that JFK said, if I understand, if I remember correctly, is we will, we will put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. Right. So who will do what by when? Right. It was like very clear. And, and he used declarative language. We may drop into this more later. Most people think of language as and you alluded to this, Jesse, as a tool to describe reality. And what they miss is that language is also a tool to create reality. And he's literally created a different reality in his speaking, in that declaration. So that's the power of DFS.
