I hear that the employees working at Apple stores are not able to use a certain word when dealing with their customers. (And no, it’s not “Microsoft.”) Those black-teed employees tasked to work the “Genius Bar,” which is almost exclusively the arena of Apple customers who have a problem, are particularly warned against using the word.

The word is “unfortunately.”

On the face of it, that doesn’t seem like such a terrible word to be banned across 357 stores worldwide and it definitely takes some thought as to why that word.  I guess “unfortunately” is a banned word because it is not helpful and does not suggest a solution. It prefaces a re-stating of some problem or, worse, the prediction of a negative result for some problem. Any way you look at, stating the word “unfortunately” probably isn’t going to help anyone who is looking to have a problem solved.

If someone is forced to buckle down straightaway with the chore of solving a problem without wasting time recycling all the tiresome reasons as to WHY it’s a problem, and thereby getting into a negative mindset at the outset, I imagine that can only be a good thing. Plus, there is opportunity in the word “unfortunately.” Opportunity to discover something else that is an unhappy offshoot of the original problem, perhaps. Or opportunity to explore the possibility that there is no solution.

The fact is, once you start a sentence with “unfortunately,” no good can come of it. Your mind picks up the thread and fills in the rest of the sentence and it never ends well. Somehow Steve Jobs and his denizens realized this. I’m a big enough fan of most of the wonderful things that Mr. Jobs created in his perfect techno-world to pay attention to this at-first-quirky employers’ edict.

And, of course, like all great maxims, it works across  other arenas as well. A marriage proposal with the word “unfortunately” in it is not a good sign. A job offer that encompasses the word “unfortunately” is not a positive start either. When you are moving forward with your dreams—while it’s important not to be a total fool about what can and can’t happen—I  would say that using the word “unfortunately” during your planning period will aid in booby-trapping your efforts right out of the box. You have enough things working against you without your language working you over, too.

When I used to jump horses, my trainer would tell me that if I heard even the faintest whisper of a voice in my head as I lined up the jump leading to the coop suggesting my horse and I would not be able to make it over, then I should know that we wouldn’t, in all likelihood, successfully jump it.

She was right.

One thing I’ve learned is that little voice in your head has big power. So big, in fact that in addition to forbidding it to say certain words, there seems great equity in training it to say “you are awesome!” or “you can do it!” from time to time too. Especially if you can’t find anybody to cheer your cause,  why not pick up the pom-pom and start things off yourself? Get into the habit of carrying around your own cheering squad in your head and you never know where you may end up!

Not to take anything from the power of “no.” But just imagine the power of “yes.”