I flew to Austin to interview a candidate for a third interview in a blinding snowstorm. While things went very smoothly in Denver, they did NOT go smoothly in Austin. Once we arrived at the airport, we circled for about an hour, until our pilot announced that we were being diverted to San Antonio, as the airport in Austin closed to deal with the snow. To be fair, Austin got a few inches of snow that they hadn’t seen in 25 years.
We arrived in San Antonio to re-fuel, and the pilot said that we were going to get gas, then fly back to Austin. “It will be a quick 15-minute flight” he said. We circled the airport for 45 minutes, when he announced that we would be diverted to Houston. NO ONE wanted to go to Houston! Then, the pilot said this:
“We need 1 ¼ mile of visibility. We have 1 mile. So, we are going to try and land the plane.”
EXCUSE ME?
This college-aged girl named Emily was sitting next to me, and with wide eyes she looked at me and said “TRY? Did he say TRY?”
He did. Emily and I held hands as the pilot TRIED to land the plane.
Obviously, he did. And actually, it was one of the smoother landings I have experienced.
According to this article in Inc magazine, https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/3-words-that-guarantee-failure.html people who use the word “try” have given themselves permission to fail, and this causes the rest of us to find them uncredible. What if I said to you “I will TRY to hire a great employee for you.” Those words don’t inspire confidence, do they?
So, work on eliminating “try” from your vocabulary. And for those smart alecks in my network, don’t respond to me with “I’ll try”. ????
Power thought: Do or do not….There is no try. -Yoda