Nixing the Naysayers

Are you allowing others to regularly rain on your parade? Have all the negative reasons and responses to why your great ideas, plans, or dreams won’t work or aren’t practical too easily convinced you that “everyone” else must be right? Consider where these inventors, visionaries, scientists and artists (and the world without them), would have been if they didn’t believe in themselves and listened to popular “wisdom”?

• This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as
a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us,"
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

• "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

• "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

• "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

• "Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television."

• "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

• "But what is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,
commenting on the microchip.

• "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

• "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would
pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible,"
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's
paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

• "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

• "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the e market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

• "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this,"
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads .

• "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy,"
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

• "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University , 1929.

• "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,"
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France ...

• "I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

• "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon."
-- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

Need I say more?

And remember, taking action is the catalyst for change!