WHY NOT?
September 01, 2006
A question was raised about innovation and innovators at Toastmaster's morning. It put my brain in gear theologically and entrepreneurially. I moved from the "creatio ex nihlo" to James Weldon Johnson's" Creation." It triggered the concept of co-creativity among those made in the "imagio Dei."
So, naturally, an acronym piped into my warped brain: WHY NOT?
Actually, it started with WHY.
But it is "why not" that is so often on the lips of innovators who quickly move past the "why" questions as George Bernard Shaw observed and Robert Kennedy often quoted him.
WHY NOT?
WHY
W = What the
H = Heck
Y = Yall!
What the heck, yall - throws caution to the wind and envelopes a universe of possibilities.
NOT
N = Negate
O = Old
T = Timidity
Negate old timidity and the accompanying boundaries that are arbitrarily imposed by tired paradigms and limited thinking.
Having taken those steps, one is free to think new thoughts. "Why not" is not the same as innovation, but it is a necessary preliminary step in that direction.
Check out the new book link to "The Shaping of Things to Come" in the book column.