Almost 2,000 years ago Plutarch put out an essay, On Talkativeness, which appeared in Volume VI of the Loeb Classical Library’s edition of the Moralia, first published in 1939.
In his essay, Plutarch highlighted the power of silence, the power of the written word, the power of mindset, the power of anticipation.
When King Philip of Macedon threatened to invade Sparta, the warriors sent their reply– If.
“If once I enter into your territories, I will destroy ye all, never to rise again; they answered him with the single word, If.”
Around the turn of the 20th Century, Rudyard Kipling helped reinforce the power of the word If.
His poem, If, is too good not to share it here:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Sometimes I think we use the word if in the wrong context.
If I had more money, I could make more money.
The Real Con is that you are told it takes money to make money.
If I had more people on my team, I could get more work done.
The Real Con is that you are told we need to hire because only big teams can accomplish big goals.
If I had more formal training or degrees, I could overcome my perceived lack of skill.
The Real Con is that you are told you need a LEED certification to care about the environment or a PMP certification to manage your time effectively or an MBA to understand finance.
Instead, I think the word should help us anticipate more. It should help us to be more. It should help us to achieve more.
In reflecting on the year, many of you might be wondering,
“What if?”
What if I could do more with less?
What if I could organize my small team to outmaneuver the competition?
What if I could study my craft, my industry, my tendencies to maximize my output no matter the economy?
Our potential can be summarized in the simplicity of the word….If.
I hope that in 2023, you can anticipate how to attack your goals.
Remember, even though If is a small word, it is a big idea.
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