As the thundering strains of Thus Sprach Zarathustra rose to a crescendo, the apes cowered beneath a towering black monolith. The sun rose behind it and they saw in its rays the bone that would soon become a living creature’s first weapon.
This is one in a series of Word Carnival Posts Close Business Encounters of the Sci-fi Kind!
Not long after this prodigious opening in Stanley Kubrick’s film, A Space Odyssey 2001, an air hostess wearing grip shoes gently puts a floating pen back into a traveller’s pocket and, a while later, the same man is seen talking to his young daughter while watching her on a colour television screen. It becomes evident that he is on another planet, possibly the moon.
I was 16 and completely awestruck by a cinematic unfolding of ideas at that time way, way beyond my imagination. The year was 1968. For anyone living then, this was utterly and completely unrealisable fiction.
We lived in an era where the only news was delivered with undisputed pomp via the morning newspapers, the radio and the once-a-night 6pm bulletin on the black and white television.
It was nine months before Neil Armstrong was to take his giant leap for man on the moon. My grandparents still had a party line. They would listen for the long, short, long, long ring before answering their phone. And answering the phone was a stately occasion. The whole family would gather in the hallway to find out what portentous news had heralded the call.
Completely spellbound by the convoluted and messianic message delivered by the film, I persuaded my English teacher to take the class on a school excursion. The class debated its meaning endlessly, wrote essays and were generally in thrall with the entire concept. And Keir Dullea. I threatened to call any son I had by the same name.
The film left an indelible mark. Not least of all its portrayal of a technology that few could have imagined, let alone rendered so faithfully.
Many years later, I met the lighting camera man from A Space Odyssey 2001, as I worked in London connecting freelance film specialists to various current productions, using a card file and a telephone. He explained how they’d created a small model to depict the sperm-like space craft. Ahh, so that was how it was done.
All of this before the internet. Before personal connection devices, the concept of which had been shown to our unbelieving eyes, four decades previously in the opening sequence of this remarkable film. We knew it all to be simply impossible, just the doodling of an over creative imagination. Really?
Now just part of a life later, as I scan the internet in a few short minutes for references and images, keying in to my Mac, answering calls on my personal phone, talking to my friends and family by video call on Skype, I ask myself, what’s not possible?
How about a 3D pen. One that creates 3D models of what you write? Not possible? Look at this.
How about we fund this idea from random folk all around the world? Not possible? Try crowd sourcing.
How about we use the electromagnetic field below a cityscape to float a wheel-less vehicle created from an idea by a young girl in China, Wang Jia. The hover car reacts with minerals to float above the street and is activated by voice recognition. Really? Watch this.
Ah but actually, this is just a piece of creative film making. A feat in itself. But no different perhaps to what we witnessed all those decades ago. Even if much of the then amazing technology seems outdated by what we take for granted today.
So what seriously, is not possible? The next time you confront yourself with the thought that what you’re trying to do is not possible, think again.
The human knowledge bank
The point is that even the most spell-binding concepts did not come into being from point zero. They are as an accrual of all of the human knowledge bank and purpose-fuelled passion.
The 3D Doodler pen needed a combination of metal and plastic technology and the ability to ask the world for help to fund the project to come into fruition. But without its inventors’ purpose-fuelled passion, the proposal wouldn’t have got beyond an excited ‘what if’ discussion over a few beers.
As for the hover car, what made Wang Jia submit her ideas to Volkswagon for a car of the future? What makes Volkswagen capable of a culture that can foster such enthusiastic and powerful creativity from around the globe and allow for the dream by going as far as creating a film about it?
Entrepreneurial attributes
These are the attributes we need to foster in our entrepreneurial lives.
Yes. All the ingredients that nourish the fertile ground of our imagination, our creativity, dreams and conjecture.
Yes. Being driven by passion and laser focused purpose.
Yes. Being determined and dogged about success.
Yes. Doing. Just getting down and doing what needs to be done, step by step, byte by byte, day by day, week by week and year on year.
Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being. To convert dreams into reality. Steven Pressfield. Do The Work.
Yes, most importantly, then collaborate.
Nothing great was ever achieved alone. Read the acknowledgements at the front of any novel. Watch the credits roll at the end of any film. Listen to the speeches of those accepting awards.
Everyone who has done anything good or great acknowledges that they may have had the idea and done the doing, but without those others, it could never have been fully realised. Visit this remarkable community from all over the world, who have diligently made and sent over half a million items to warm and comfort children half a globe away, whom they’ll never meet.
It is the power of clan. Those who share your intent and purpose. What’s not possible then?
To learn more about how to build your clan, you can attend a Build-a-clan Discovery Session in person, or an Online Health Check by skype and upcoming workshops.
Business owners can enrol in and benefit from the ClanMaker program through these three options:
– 24 week individual One on One coaching
– 24 week small group online coaching (maximum four people)
– 20 week intensive face to face Clans Masterclass with leaders in each of the seven steps (maximum 30 participants)
For more information contact Sandy McDonald.
What’s not possible? is a post from: Why You Must Blog