I have two children; Joe aged 9 and Sam 12, both with very different personalities and beliefs.  My youngest, Joe, is a very capable child, competitive and bright.  However, on some occasions he experiences frustration when he is unable to do something and then becomes adamant that nothing can be done. If you try to reason with him he becomes even more self assured that whatever the issue is, it can’t be fixed and it’s impossible.

 

Having tried reasoning with him on a number of occasions I was at a loss as to what to try next until I read an article on square watermelons and that gave me an idea.

 

Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don't have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, waste a lot of space.

 

Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. That is how I would assume the vast majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, "How can we provide one?" It wasn't long before they invented the square watermelon.

 

The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn't nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn't assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.

 

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them.

 

 

So, my square watermelon challenge was how to help change Joe’s self belief when faced with the impossible?

 

Firstly, I introduced him to the story and pinned a photo of the square melons on his wall as a reminder, but I needed to give him a practical example..... something that would increase the emotion of the message.

 

This was my idea; I told the boys that we were going to take them on holiday to Scotland for Easter on a walking holiday when really I had booked a surprise trip to Andorra to take them skiing for the first time.  I knew they would both be excited, but particularly Joe as he had always wanted to go skiing. They were excited, as expected about Scotland and then Joe played in to my hands by saying ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could go to France’. I agreed knowing that we were actually going to fly to Toulouse but told him that it was impossible as we were going to Scotland.  He replied ‘square watermelons!’. Lesson 1 never give someone advise you’re not prepared to follow yourself.

 

Ok, I said I’ll have to sneak you on a plane, that’s not easy, but I can do that.  The boys were slightly nervous that I’d end up in prison; however the square melon challenge had been set. 

 

About a week later I put part 2 of the plan into action. I showed Joe Toulouse on the sat nav and pointed out Andorra.  “That’s the place to go” I suggested explaining that there was lots of snow. ‘Let‘s go there’ said Joe to which I responded ‘that’s impossible’ knowing I already had the tickets.  You can imagine his reply – ‘square melons dad’…... and when we saw Arinsal labelled on the map it made the challenge even more impossible.  He played in to my hands really, but this was a great opportunity to break his self belief but I still wanted to create even more emotion and recall around the event.

 

On the day we travelled to the airport I told him we had to find Mike the security guard to get us on the plane.  I described him as a big man with shiny shoes so he could create the image and asked him to write the name down so we could remember his name.  To cut a long story short we had to find a number of people on the trip to get to our accommodation: Mike, Edwina, Laura, Oli and Norman and of course as he wrote down the names the first letter from each name spelt MELON.

 

It was a challenge.  A trip to Scotland which lead to sneaking on a plane, finding a coach to Andorra and then to Arinsal, never mind finding accommodation and ski packages. It was all worth it to see their excitement at going skiing. Joe wants to be a skiing instructor, he has the names of the people we had to find pinned on his wall next to his picture of the square melons.  If any of us now say ‘we can’t’ we all reply ….’square melons’.

 

Remember

 

Impossibilities often aren't: If you begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you decide to see if something is possible or not, you will find out through trial and error.

 

 

Story by: Andy Muddimer