January 5th, 2009
Evelyn Rodriguez has a great post this morning on her blog, based on a quote that I love:
“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.“
I love this quote, because it is a good reminder that it is not always easy to make your unique contribution…as important as it is to do so. The organization, community, neighborhood and family that you are a part of, will only have the healthy and unique culture that it has the potential for, if you and the other members are each making your unique contribution to it. We all know of organizations and communities that have really vibrant and engaging cultures…and those cultures exist because people have, over time, contributed their unique ideas and passions…each of which contributes to the shared culture there.
While this may make perfect sense to most of us, the thing to keep in mind is that most organizations and communities do not quickly reward the unique contributions that they in fact need to evolve and move forward. Consider the automobile, air travel, the personal computer, cell phones, weblogs…all very “normal” and taken for granted parts of our society today…each of these things were at some time considered “crazy”, “absurd”, “unrealistic” to all but a small handful of individuals. In fact, many of the relevant so-called experts were among those quickest to write off these new ideas.
Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.
– Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.
They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.
– Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
This `telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
– Western Union internal memo, 1878
Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
– Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.
Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.
– Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.
There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
– Albert Einstein, 1932.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
– Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
– Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
How crazy these perspectives now seem to us in 2009…and remember, these are the perspectives of “experts” and “thought-leaders”. It can be frustrating and disheartening to be told by peers that our idea is absurd, but nearly crushing when told that by someone who is a leader in the field. One of the important learnings from this is that when our idea or question is rejected, it is not necessarily about the merit of the idea…regardless of the experience or expertise of the person rejecting it. Communities and organizations have a tendency to reject change and new ideas…not just the bad ones. Someone recently told me that “people tend to prefer old problems to new solutions.”
So…as we begin a new day, a new week, a new month and a new year…hold fast to that idea, passion, dream, or question of yours. It would appear that the ideas we have that seem the most outlandish may over time prove to be the most significant. And if you are not hearing that you are “out of your mind”, on a fairly consistent basis (or from Neptune)…you may not be adding much value to the culture around you and you may not be being true to yourself.
Neptune is the place to be!
The principle of "pacing and leading" from public speaking is applicable here… If you’ve got a really good new idea that you want someone to understand, you first have to understand where they’re coming from, i.e. what habits and biases keep them from seeing what you see. And then you have to build a bridge for them, step by step, leading them from what they already know to an understanding of your new idea.
This is also what happens in the culture at large when a new idea enters: at first there are many "obvious problems" with it, but these objections provide the direction for research & development, which gradually provides solutions. only in retrospect then do the objections seem funny, because we can look back upon them through the lens of our hard-earned experience.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." –Schopenhauer
That’s a great list of quotes, very well selected. Thanks for that, this post makes the point well.
Each expert quoted – with the exception of Einstein – had a point of view that was tied to an investment in the status quo. Each expert had proven his or her status and value in a related and respected domain, but spoke from a world-model that was going out of date.
As updating our internal world-models requires not insignificant energy, attention and time, it is natural for the brain to "settle" into a mostly static version of the world. There is inertia to overcome in updating your world-model.
One question that might help reveal good motivation to push through the inertia would be, "how am I presently invested in the status-quo? And why?"
Find the ties that keep you in the status-quo, and you find the lines to unleash to sail into the future.
Thanks again for the post and your blog and this conversation. 🙂