I was at a meeting the other day where the ice-breaker posed the question: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?“.  I was kind of taken aback because someone asked me this a few months ago and I never came up with an answer.  I mean, if I couldn’t fail?  Without regard to my personal skill or past or abilities?  I have my goals and things I am working toward but is that what I would do if I knew I couldn’t fail?  No, those are things I’m going to try for anyways.  If I could not fail…

The answers from the group really got me thinking big.  I mean, talk about standing in a place of nothing’ness and creating whatever you want.  Because if you could not fail, you could do anything. Some of my favorites: “travel and not come back”, “be a Madonna’esque rockstar”, and “be in the Winter Olympics…as a bobsledder”.  Someone even said that they would be the President of the United States.  Right away, my reaction was “Ugh, what a terrible idea!” but it’s what you would do if you could not fail. If I couldn’t fail, being the President would be amazing!  I would be able to fix our international relationships, end the war, get Iran and North Korea to voluntarily give up their nuclear weapons, rebuild American companies so there are actual jobs based in actual America, find a cure for AIDS and cancer, bring the fine arts back to public schools AND end bi-partisanship by requiring that the Senate get weekly mani-pedis together.  So, I finally got it, this if you could not fail thing.

I would move to Italy and devote my time to all things pleasurable.

I would spend my days practicing yoga in fields of sunflowers and olive trees and in vineyards. I would go to the market to buy copious amounts of fresh basil, vegetables and cheese, and have those perfect kind of meals that last for hours and are conversation and wine-filled.  Every night.  I’d make friends from around the globe to do all these things with in between the times when my friends and family were flying out (on my private jet-I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, after all) to join me in my pleasure-filled life.  And I’d read book after book after book–The Divine Comedies, Atlas Shrugged, finally finish Pride and Prejudice, every single chick-lit on the planet, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible…everything.  For fun, I would consult world leaders on the above listed presidential stuff and when Madonna needed some support, I’d put my years of hairbrush singing to use and join her on tour.

What would you do if you could not fail?