Make your own unique sense of the world

Soon after Isaac Newton went up to Cambridge the university was forced to close by an outbreak of the plague. Newton wanted to learn how to predict the orbit of the Moon, so instead of learning what the professors already knew he spent two years thinking about it by himself. As a result, he invented calculus, his three laws of motion, the law of gravity, optics, and the reflecting telescope. If he had had teachers to teach him what they already knew, he might never have invented these new ideas.

Two hundred and fifty years later, something similar happened with Einstein. In 1905 he published four papers that turned the world of physics upside down. He achieved this, not by working as a physicist but working in a patent office that gave him the space to think things through for himself.

Another hundred years later and something similar applies to this teenager. At the age of two Jacob Barnett was labelled as having autism. He definitely sees the world differently from the way most people do. But luckily for us his parents took him out of ‘special education’ and encouraged him to be himself. As a result he started studying university physics by the age of ten and now seems to have come up with new ways of doing calculus. There is even talk of his being nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Whether or not he wins that prize is irrelevant.

The point is that if you want to get different results you have to think differently.

And to think differently you have to:

  1. Stop learning what other people have come up with
  2. Start making your own sense of the situation, and
  3. Get creative about applying the sense you make

Inner Leadership is a framework and set of tools for doing this. In business, or leadership, or whatever area is important for you.

2 Replies to “Make your own unique sense of the world”

  1. This is a great post. One of things about Newton’s early years was that as a child he seemed to be absolutely fixated on the sun, light and shadows. He made his own sundials, and therefore had a connection with time, motion and the order of the cosmos that was perhaps unsurpassed by any other child and then teenager of his time.

    Your comments on sense of the situation really resonated for me, since Newton was immersed in the sensory world way before he developed his knowledge of mathematics, so it is really interesting to contemplate as far as we are able his sense of situation, and how his science and also religious views then followed.

    • Thanks Simon. I’m glad that you enjoyed this and your story about Newton adds to it nicely.

      As a human being I think our education systems seem to have forgotten that their purpose is to ‘draw out’ the unique person that every student is.

      And as a business person I see this as a huge opportunity, because the only way to get different results is to think differently (as google, whatsapp, pinterest, uber, airbnb, … have shown).

      Bringing these two views together is what The Churning is all about. And it has huge implications for sustainability as well.

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