Impossible is a strange word. For some it prevents action. For others it fuels it. And yet, still others don’t even know what it means for something to be impossible.
It is like a timeframe, and impossibility lies somewhere in between yesterday’s answers and tomorrow’s uncertainty.
For some reason, certainty is a system we like to operate in. What is known can be relied upon, where what is unknown is risky, uncertain, and therefore not possible.
But if we only work in the known, then we are going to keep getting the same answers and results. It is when you entertain uncertainty, that the results begin to transform into something new.
Kyle Weiss was 13 years old when he attended 2006 World Cup in Germany. He witnessed how the game of soccer is a cultural cornerstone, and learned that most of the youth in Africa lack access to basic supplies. Most of the time, balls were constructed with materials you or I would treat as trash.
Wanting to help, he and his brother Garett gathered soccer balls, cleats, and other equipment to send over to third-world countries in Africa.
Somewhere in the midst of sending over supplies they stumbled over the inkling that equipment was good, but they needed a field to use it on.
So they brainstormed. It went something like this, “What if we were to build a soccer field?” something they knew nothing about, “in a third world country,” a place they had never been, “and fundraise to support its cause,” a funding that did not exist.
It truly would have to be the dream of a kid to come up with this idea. Kids don’t think in terms of limitations. They haven’t been taught to do so. They are not hampered as much when it comes to thinking about reasons why not to do things. Filled with aspirations and hopeful thinking Kyle and his team believed in the possibilities.
What would seem like a fool hearted task to most, was just an idea to Kyle. He hadn’t yet been taught the reasons why he couldn’t build a soccer field, in Africa, at the age of 13, so he went ahead and did it.
He and his brother started the organization FUNDaFIELD. Run exclusively by the youth, they have raised over $140,000 and built eight soccer fields in different African countries.
Kyle is now 17-years-old. He has learned how to build a field in a foreign country, avoid corruption, circumvent crisis, interact with new cultures, create a management system, and fundraise. All in the name of a 13-year-old boy’s dream to build a soccer field.
As we grow older our knowledge creates a lens filtering out what is not possible. We ignore these things, labeling them with titles such as impractical, unrealistic, and childish. We earn bachelors and MBA’s reinforcing the rewards of certainty. We think practically, realistically. We analyze data, manage risk, and gather evidence.
We lose sight of imagination, of dreaming about perfection, and we justify this loss with the terms of reality. If that was so, then FUNDaFIELD would never have come into existence. It took the unrealistic mindset of a group of kids to pursue such an idea - an idea that carried with it the innate impact of change.
“One game of soccer is the same as five years of therapy,” a former child soldier explained to Kyle on one of his trips to Africa. This game is a way of life. It is an escape onto a field of dreams.
When asked about FUNDaFIELD’s success, Kyle’s response was, “We’re not doing enough.” He doesn’t hold himself to the limits of being just a 17-year-old. He is proof that how old a person is or how impossible a task may seem means nothing. He is proof that we all have the ability to Be Legendary.
