To Rise, We Just Need a Few People Who Know a Little Bit More Then We Do.
Once you step into the great wide open, it is yours forever.
“What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning”.
Werner Heisenberg
Underwater world
There are many creatures in the underwater world, big and small, that we have not discovered, yet. These creatures live so deep into the ocean that we did not even know they even existed until recently.
In our world, there are many ideas, out there, that we have not discovered yet. Still, that does not mean they are not there. We just have not found them yet.
“The more you know, the more you don’t know.”
Aristoteles
In 2016, Scientists at the University of Southampton discovered six new species at 2.8 km. deep. This means that deeper diving means more discoveries, but we cannot go deeper than the equipment can take us. The deeper we seem to go, the more we discover. You might argue that it is not very new: it is a known fact. The further you go, the more you discover. We only know about new species and creatures living in the ocean, for as deep as we can dive.
Doesn’t the same apply to our knowledge?
We only know, for as far our knowledge reaches.
You know all the elements that interfere with your creativity, from the inner voice to fear of failure. We have all been there, it’s really tricky to get out of once you are stuck in the ZONE.
But there is no need to be stuck, you can free yourself, from limiting thoughts and thinking you need to know it all.
Just take some simple bite-size steps, and it will get you there.
Therefore I want to show you what you can do and why this is so important.
Find the structure
“When we can only find reason in the things we understand. When we only understand what we know, we would have a tough time understanding new things”.
I firmly believe the answers are already here; we just have not found them yet.
But there are a few simple steps you can take to get you in the zone. The right zone, so you will see more, understand more and become the prolific creator you want to become. Because we all want to create.
Progress
When you look at the world, there are always ideas that inspire other ideas and move things forward. Ideas are meant to connect and create new. This is how it works and how your mind works.
Let me introduce, Bertrand Le Bovier de Fontenelle, born in 1657, author and influencer of several academies of the Institute de France. He already pointed out the importance of progress at that time.
“It is here that every period in time does not have to invent everything from the start, it can move forward on the work that has been done before them.” Bertrand Le Bovier de Fontenelle
According to De Fontenelle. He describes progress as climbing a massive mountain, with the ideal at the top of the mountain.
The thing is not every generation has to start at the bottom of this mountain. You can continue where others stopped.
The big take away here is that you continue where others stopped.
We have this inner drive to perform better, make better. When you need to ideate better, the following steps will guide you through this.
Step by step. You don’t want to get stuck, but more forward and innovate.
You continue and create your own path. Here I have listed the first steps you can take to start implementing this structure. You can use this to give your ideation shape or use it as an everyday tool to get better ideas and see more possibilities.
Reach for the stars
1.We reach the limit of our knowledge the second we reach the limit of our reach.
Read that again… you reach the limit of your knowledge, the second you reach the limit of your reach.
American Astronomer Jill Tarter, has been searching the skies for extraterrestrial life, with the SETI program. Tarter firmly believes that when something is not to be seen or heard, it does not mean it is not there. For the last decades, Tarter has been searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, because she beliefs there is more. The fact that she has not found it yet does not prove anything according to Tarter.
When we know more, we can build technology that can reach further and deeper. With this, we can discover more. And so on. This is the way science works. But this is also the way our brain works.
We discover more every day due to the fact we have more knowledge. And this gives us new ideas to build ships that can go faster, planes that can go higher, rockets that can reach further and underwater vessels that can go deeper. When we go further, we can discover more.
2.Circle of plenty
Could we conclude that we can only discover more when our knowledge grows? When we know more, we can explore further, thus giving us more knowledge to learn more. It’s a circular movement. Each step brings us more knowledge that we can then use growing the next step, and so on.
When we want to discover and explore further, we need to grow our own wave of knowledge.
Everywhere in our history, there are just a few people who gain more knowledge than others and create this wave of knowledge we can all benefit from. Like the world wide web creator, Tim Berners-Lee did in 1990. Many other inventions followed riding the wave of this knowledge. Suddenly a whole new world opens up. Social media, internet stores. Libraries and watching movies. And going to other places using VR.
Innovation is powered by knowledge and insight.
Find your circle of plenty and continue to grow with it. Make sure you give as much as you take to keep the circle growing. You will experience that when you do this, it will continue to grow and help many others simultaneously.
3.Create a ripple effect
More knowledge means we can understand more and so we can create a ripple effect. Each progression we make in knowledge provides the possibility of discovery and exploration beyond our previous wave of knowledge. Since every wave of knowledge only reaches as far as our knowledge can lift it, every wave of knowledge also does have its limits.
When these limits are reached, we simply stop innovating at that high level. We have achieved all that we could have achieved with this amount of knowledge. Only when we gain more knowledge, we can go forward again.
The steam engine was one of these waves, that made other innovations possible. It gave us the engine, car, train, factories and so on.
The wheel’s discovery made carts, bicycles, trains, rolling suitcase, and even watches possible.
The discovery of DNA made catching criminals a little easier.
The fact that this is the way knowledge works is not new. We teach our children new things every day. In school, children learn all they have to know for the grade they are in, and when they have learned all, they go to the next grade. Humans evolve through knowledge, and our ideation capabilities follow our specific knowledge. Our discoveries, therefore, follow knowledge. You cannot discover something that is far beyond your knowledge, but you can discover something outside your level of knowledge. You will be able to understand. Just by the connections, your brain can make with the raw material you have collected, your knowledge.
If we work hard, it is a never-ending loop, if we drop our interest and motivation, to gain more knowledge, it ends.
This makes one interesting point and a big thing to remember.To keep innovation moving forward, you’ll have to be willing to stay curious and be prepared to believe in something new.
When you believe there are new ideas, you will do your absolute best to find them. And you will make an effort to get there.
Let’s go over to Geneva, Switzerland to CERN, the scientific research center, where scientists try to find answers to question like: what is the universe made of? CERN now wants to dig a new tunnel, bigger and better than the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is what you could call an “atom smasher “or particle collider. This particle was predicted to exist in 1964 by François Englert and Robert Brout but was not confirmed until July 4th 2012, when they found a particle that matched the Higgs Boson description. The LHC made it possible to discovered the Higgs Boson, also known as the God particle. But since this was just a lightweight particle, CERN scientists are now convinced there must be more out there: A heavy Higgs. So now the search is on to discover more. And a new bigger atom smasher is to be built.
Like the oceans’ explorers, when you know there is more to discover, you will not give up. You dig new tunnels, try to find extraterrestrial life, you search beyond what you know. When you can imagine, it could indeed exist.
5.Accept the unknown as the new possible
In today’s world, what we have accepted as normal, was not there before. If people had accepted this as “good enough “, we would not have what we have today. There would be no cars, bicycles, computers, airplanes and the internet. Nothing.
Accepting the status quo, will lead nowhere and certainly not to any new ideas.
Let jump back a few years, and let me explain by using this simple example we all know and recognize.
When Airbnb, set up their business, they had a new story to tell. The changed the story of how to travel and with that the accepted status quo. What has changed is that people worldwide can now easily rent out their rooms to travellers who require a place to sleep.
But before Airbnb, there was no Airbnb.
I know I state the obvious, but it needs to be said. Just read it again.
But before Airbnb, there was no Airbnb.
The story they created was non-existent.
There was no easy way to rent your spare rooms to travellers. One day it is not there, and the other day it is. This makes the idea seem very simple in hindsight.
A remarkable idea needs not to be highly complicated, it can be simple, easy, and straightforward. Most of the time, they are.
You start not with ideas but think about the story you want to change.
Focus on what does not work anymore, is out of date and needs to be re-designed.
This way, you make room for new possibilities.
Those possibilities will then make for new ideas.
This is not easy to create! Once you understand how to think, observe the world, use your brain, and find the possibilities.
6.Who not how
You only need a few people, who have a little more knowledge than the rest, who understand just a little bit more than everybody else, and who have the guts to do things that seem impossible. Once tried, it will lead to more knowledge, and you can ride on the wave.
Like putting the first man on the moon, building something new is about ideating what nobody ever thought about.
It’s the abillity to ideate far beyond the commonly accepted narratives.
7.Create a WAVE OF INNOVATION
Kelly Slater, a surf legend and now even an innovator has been crowned World Surf League Champion a whopping 11 times, this includes five consecutive titles in 1994–98. Slater is the most successful surf champion in the history of the sport. Slater is also quite the dreamer. Slater has been dreaming of the perfect wave ever since he was a kid. Although he never thought he would be the one building a machine to create the perfect wave, he did. In 2008 his wave machine was finally ready. His company, the Kelly Slater Wave Company, has succeeded in building a machine that provides a wave that has the right barrel and power. Surfers from all over the world love to surf at his Surf Ranch: “It is the perfect wave, one that you could surf all day. “The wave-machine that creates the actual wave is huge and looks like a steam train. It is the power behind that magical wave, the power behind the movement.
The secret to building a remarkable wave is continuity and power to drive it forward and to make it just high enough to perform on.
Nothing is gained when nothing is created, so, therefore, is it of the utmost importance that there is momentum.
Otherwise, the wave will collapse. I will explain more about the wave in the next paragraph.
Still, when one wave stops existing, other waves will emerge, like in the ocean. This new power will create new waves, and even they will seize to exist one day. Quite natural. But the one thing to remember is that we have to build on that given knowledge, once we stop gaining knowledge, there will be no more waves.
Challenges
The wave of knowledge thrives on gained knowledge and accepts the challenges that come with the acquired knowledge. You can ride your wave for as long as you can, but there will be times when you will fall, and it is up to you to pick yourself up and go ride it again.
Stay on your wave
You need the power to keep pushing the wave forward, you need grit and perseverance to keep driving yourself to push boundaries and create a wave high enough to perform on. To ideate further and with this, you create another wave. Maybe this wave will be yours, but it could also be possible that you are making waves for other people. They can ride the wave you initiated; they may explore further on your ideas. Like we have done on the ideas of the ones who went before us.
Slater’s wave needs to start from the same point every time but the waves of innovation, follow each other. When our knowledge reaches high enough levels, we will be able to keep the waves going. One following the other, to create an ocean of innovation.
Get to ride your wave.
If you are interested in riding your own wave, this might be something you’d want to get.
