That’s Not Possible

I love international travel. Some people like to bring home magnets or shot glasses from a trip, but I prefer to buy a small piece of local art. Those pieces are now displayed throughout my home. They serve as great talking points with guests and as a reminder to myself that I want to be a global citizen.

On my last trip, I found a piece I really loved. It was painted on a small 7-by-9 canvas and wrapped around and stapled to a simple pine stretcher frame. If you’ve traveled much, you know this setup well. Smaller pieces of art stay on the frame and fit neatly into a carry-on bag. With larger ones, you remove the staples, remove the frame, and roll up the canvas for easy transport home.

This one was small, so I tucked it into my backpack and brought it home.

After sitting in my office closet for a few months, I finally decided it was time to purchase a mat and frame so I could display it. 

I arrived at a local craft store and walked toward the framing department. Another man was already waiting at the counter. I joined him and looked at the wall of custom frames behind the counter. A young employee was organizing the frames, carefully lining them up one by one. He noticed us but continued working.

At first, I felt frustration creeping in. It would have been easy to lean into that feeling. Instead, I made a conscious decision to stay curious.

I found myself thinking, “This is interesting. He’s ignoring two paying customers so he can finish organizing. I wonder why he hasn’t called for backup. I wonder why he hasn’t acknowledged our presence.”

After several minutes, he finished his task, turned around, and asked if I minded him helping the other customer first. Since the man he was referencing had been waiting longer, I said, “No, not at all.”

Twenty minutes later, it was my turn.

I explained that I wanted a mat and a custom frame for the art piece I had with me.

He looked at the artwork and said, “Ummm… that’s not possible.”

I paused. “What’s not possible?” I asked.

“You can’t put a mat on that,” he said.

Staying rooted in my curiosity, I asked, “And what makes you say that it’s not possible?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s stapled to a frame.”

This was interesting. Over the years, I’d brought several pieces of art on stretcher frames to this store, and what I was now asking for had always been, in fact, possible.

In that moment, I was grateful I had chosen curiosity over frustration.

I explained that, in the past, an employee would simply remove the staples, mount the canvas on a backing board, and place the mat over it.

He paused. “Ohhh,” he said slowly. “Yeah. That makes sense. I’ve just never had someone bring in a canvas like this before.”

And there it was.

My head nearly exploded as I realized his “no” was simply because it was not something he had done before. This wasn’t about feasibility, company policy, or even about his skill set. It was about his life experience.

“That’s not possible” was the answer because the problem wasn’t familiar. And that, my friends, pushes my buttons!

I’ve seen this same pattern play out far beyond a framing counter.

Looking back on my career, I’m certain that many of the “no’s” I heard from leaders weren’t rooted in wisdom or discernment. The “no’s” came from a limiting belief. If a leader hadn’t done something before, seen it before, or lived it before, the answer was no.

Sometimes leaders confuse “I haven’t done this before” with “this can’t be done.”

But if leaders only say yes to what they’ve personally experienced, leadership becomes very small, very quickly.

Healthy leadership requires us to be curious enough to learn more. Instead of defaulting to “That’s not possible,” what if leaders asked, “Can you tell me more?” Instead of shutting things down, what if leaders asked, “How could we make that happen?” Instead of relying solely on past experience, what if leaders made room for learning from others?

When a leader says no, it doesn’t just stop an idea. It teaches people whether or not it’s safe to even bring an idea forward.

Leadership that lives within the confines of personal experience will always be limited. It creates a ceiling defined by the leader’s life experience and their comfort zone. But leadership rooted in curiosity—leadership willing to admit when you haven’t seen something before—creates space for collaboration, innovation, and possibility.

That young man at the framing counter didn’t lack intelligence or capability. He lacked life experience—and more importantly, he lacked permission to imagine beyond what he had already lived.

The next time something unfamiliar crosses your desk, and your instinct is to say, “That’s not possible,” it might be worth pausing. Ask yourself, “Is this impossible, or is it something I haven’t experienced yet?”

At the art counter that day, I walked in with a solution, and the young man only saw a problem. Too often, in leadership, when people bring us ideas, our limited lived experience can’t process the possibility. We need more leaders who are curious about what could be.

Leadership—at its best—is often nothing more than the courage to imagine beyond what we already know.