The "Why Not" Step
May 19, 2023
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Asking “WHY NOT?”
It is STEP ONE in Your Innovation Journey
A question was raised about innovation and innovators at one 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?
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
W = What the
H = Heck
Y = Yall!
When you say, “What the heck, yall,” it throws caution to the wind and envelopes a universe of possibilities. You no longer fret about what others will think about your big idea.
You are afraid, but you refuse to turn the steering wheel over the that fear.
You launch the ship into deep waters.
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.