Talking Big Ideas.
“Build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
~ Buckminster Fuller
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The world changed on December 17.
Two high school dropouts were standing together on a beach. One was missing his front teeth. The young men were business partners. Eager to make money, they started a little bike shop to profit off the cycling craze sweeping the country.
The knowledge they gained from bikes made them wonder if they could build something that had never been built. A device that would realize the dreams of humans since the dawn of time.
A flying machine that people could ride through the air.
They knew most experts believed human flight was a fantasy. Lord Kelvin, among the most revered scientists of their time, had recently written that “heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
I like to imagine Lord Kelvin picturing the iconic bicycle scene from E.T. as he wrote his prediction:
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
~ Lord Kelvin
If I were there, I assuredly would have sided with Lord Kelvin. Of course heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. You can’t ride your bike into the sky in real life – that’s why we immerse ourselves in fantasy worlds where the laws of physics don’t apply.
The dropouts were aware most people thought this way. They also knew several celebrated and well-funded engineers were working hard trying to build their own flying machines, and having no success.
The young men were convinced they stumbled upon a secret the world’s top scientists and engineers all missed, a secret they uncovered by knowing how people ride bicycles. They built their flying machine differently from any other. It moved and steered like a bike.
And it worked!
Their first flight, on a beach in North Carolina, was captured in a photograph that would go viral worldwide.
Against seemingly impossible odds – who’d think you could ride a machine magically into the air! – two amateur bicycle makers with no formal education or financial support ushered in the era of human flight:
They were the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright. For years, they heard that “it can’t be done.” And, for years, the naysayers were right. From the beginning of time until 121 years ago today, heavier-than-air flying machines were an impossible fantasy.
And then, on December 17th, 1903, the world changed.
You’ve almost assuredly ridden in heavier-than-air flying machines many times. Today they’re everywhere:
And that’s just airplanes at one particular moment. We also have helicopters, rockets, drones, jetpacks, and countless toys.
Two months before the Wright brothers’ first flight, the New York Times editorialized that humans “won’t fly for a million years” as it would require “the combined and continuous efforts of mathematics and mechanics for one million to ten million years.”
Human flight was simply the latest in a rich history of supposed experts saying, “It can’t be done.”
The Boston Post once editorialized that “it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires.” And when it happened, an internal memo at Western Union clarified that “this ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication.”
The head of 20th Century-Fox was convinced TV “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.”
Less than two decades after their botched prediction on flying machines, the New York Times wrote that “a rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
My favorite is Dr. Dionysus Lardner from University College London, who believed “Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as an attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.”
Steamships would shortly cross the Atlantic – and in the following century, we succeeded in that voyage to the moon.
The truth is predicting the future is hard.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell had a famous analogy for this. Imagine turkeys on the family farm. They are well-fed and happy, leading idyllic lives – and then they get slaughtered for holiday dinners.
They thought life was perfect! And then suddenly everything changed. Russell’s point is that the past does not always predict the future, and it is often hard to see even the change that is about to happen.
I recently highlighted Paul Ehrlich, who achieved global fame in predicting hundreds of millions of people would starve to death by 1990 and “all important animal life in the sea” would be dead.
Cynical doomers and gloomers may be popular, but they’re almost always wrong in their predictions – both because predictions are hard and because they fail to understand a core aspect of our species: we innovate.
Our ideas are acts of creation. We can never see with total clarity into the future because our ideas constantly create new paths for the future to take.
And since we have an infinite amount of possible new ideas to create – and an infinite amount of ways to smash our ideas together – we have an infinite amount of ways we can continue to innovate, solve problems, and drive civilization forward.
Consider the Enlightenment, which unleashed unprecedented human creativity and new ideas, leading to an explosion in innovation and progress:
How many experts in 1800 were predicting that prosperity was about to go parabolic?
This same truth about innovation applies to individuals. Many of today’s ‘impossible dreams’ will be the realities of tomorrow. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
Basketball star Bob Love stuttered so badly that he couldn’t speak during media interviews. It was a lifelong affliction. Until he committed to change. Love fixed his stutter and went on to become the corporate spokesperson for Nordstrom. And a celebrated motivational speaker.
Many of today’s ‘impossible dreams’ will be the realities of tomorrow.
My client Tracie used to go out of her way to avoid public speaking. And then she decided to embrace it. Now she can walk on stage without notes and capture the audience’s attention with ease.
My good friend Ben is an award-winning public speaker. But as a kid he was so shy he got bullied at school. He remained closed off for years. A teacher encouraged him to speak up. Ben says that his world changed that day.
When will the world change for you?
This is the moment you realize that you are not imprisoned by who you were yesterday, that you can change the stories you tell yourself about yourself and create the future you want. You can experience the magic of transformation and the joy of confidently bringing your dreams to life.
You can build the reality of tomorrow.
Just as the Wright brothers did on this day in 1903.
