"Sticking Your Neck Out"

Part 1 of a Special 4-Part Series

Lessons from A Deliberate Pause

By Larry Robertson

Entrepreneurs are nuts. At least that's what people often conclude. The common opinion of them as they pursue a new vision - before potential value is manifested, before acceptance takes hold - is that they recklessly upend the status quo. They upset the balance of things. And for what? A concept? A vision of ‘better' that few, if any, feel necessary or believe can be achieved?

And so we dismiss entrepreneurs declaring, "Not on my nickel!" "Not if it means interference or disruption of my busy day!" "Not in my backyard!"

It's funny how after entrepreneurs catalyze change, after people see the value and adopt and adapt the vision as their own, all is suddenly forgotten and forgiven. Like so many headline news stories in today's world, what was an outrage yesterday rises like a phoenix to become obvious, accepted, and expected. What was a threat to our well-being and a disruption to our comfort zone suddenly becomes seamlessly blended in. The crazy idea becomes our new status quo.

This makes being an entrepreneur, a true entrepreneur, challenging at best and more often unpopular and downright difficult. And yet, such thought leaders are wholly necessary to any society, market, or organization that hopes to advance. Entrepreneurs are the fountainhead of any progress that takes place in our world. Every form of value we enjoy, every advancement we benefit from, every lasting source of growth, starts with them. That said, as individuals, investors, policy makers, educators and more, we are unlikely to stick our neck out in support of something new when we know full well that someone will want to shoot it off... or worse, cut it off, tie a rope around it, burn it. As gruesome as that sounds, such were the customs of the day in Nicolas Copernicus' time for those who stepped outside the norm or dared to challenge the status quo.

In 1500, the world was in many ways much simpler. In the view of the time, everything revolved around man (and earth). More specifically, the world revolved around certain men (and they were mostly men) who made rules based on one way of looking at the world. And that way of looking at the world quite literally saw a universe that revolved around them and their planet. It was a geocentric, even egocentric, world.

But Nicholas Copernicus didn't see it that way. When he looked out at the world and took stock, the patterns and the picture looked different to him. And to him, the differences were profound. The implications, the opportunities in what he saw were simply too great for him to be content to observe and remain silent.

We can only imagine how Copernicus felt of course, but he must have felt passionately that what he saw had to be told, that what was possible had to be captured and shared. So deeply did Copernicus feel these things that he was willing to risk everything, his very existence on this earth to make people see that the universe did not revolve around our planet and by implication the men in charge on this planet.

Today we know the universe we live in, this little solar system of which we are a small part, is a heliocentric one. The sun is our center. And that sun is a star that will burn out over time. The implications of this reality are profound: things progress, no matter how we may try to hold them steady. Today, our thoughts and actions not only take Copernicus' vision as fact, they drive our vision of the future and visions yet to come. They do so because Copernicus, though he was labeled as a crazy heretic, was in fact saner than the rest. He had a grip on the reality that there's always more to learn and always a need to look for it, to speak up about it when it's seen, and to pursue the change that can come with a new view.

If Copernicus were here today, or if we could channel him, what would he say about this early part of the 21^st century when many things aren't working? Would he say we are in need of a recovery, as so many of our leaders tell us? Would he chase the quick fix to get us to that recovery sooner, that elusive bounce-back to the way things were? I doubt it. I think Copernicus would be focused on a different ‘r' word: reinvent.

What enables us to progress today is that same force that has driven us forward since Copernicus' time - it's that capacity to look at the world around us differently and then to boldly walk in that direction because you know it's better. It's the opposite of ‘make due with what we've got' and much more ‘create anew from what we have.' It's that innovative, entrepreneurial drive toward what could be. The question is, how will we treat the Copernicuses of our day? Will we raise them on our shoulders, or push aside those minds that try to rise above what we know? Hmm. Maybe the question is really, do we want to progress? It's a question worth sticking your neck out for.

Larry Robertson
Author, A Deliberate Pause
Book website: http://www.adeliberatepause.com/

Watch 'What's Next?' the cool 2 minute Book trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ADeliberatePause
(Be sure to TURN UP the volume before viewing!)

Founder, Lighthouse Consulting
(703) 812-0337
larry@lighthouse-consulting.com
http://www.lighthouse-consulting.com/