Many widely popular ideas initially were so incredibly unpalatable that they were rejected outright. George Bernard Shaw once said something to this effect: new ideas find resistance in our psyche because they go against intuition. It’s natural. If someone told you to drink blood soup, you’d recoil. It sounds abhorrent. That’s how the human mind treats anything that doesn’t fit its existing experience. Before 1687, a black swan was as alien as a flying cow is today. It couldn’t be true because we hadn’t seen it. But black swans were always out there. Flying cows may not exist, but countless ideas feel just as impossible—until they’re proven real. The reward for those who can keep themselves open to the possibility of a black swan is astronomical.
One of the top five entrepreneurs of our time, Steve Case, once told me how reluctant people were about AOL when he started. “Why would anyone want to go online?” they asked. But Case saw what others did not. Opportunities were there all along—people just couldn’t recognize them.
Beliefs Are Sticky. Don’t Get Glued.
We like to think our beliefs serve us, but most don’t. They’re sticky. They keep us stuck in old patterns, blind to what could be. Of course, we want to hold true to our most deeply held values, but beliefs? Be ruthless about discarding the ones that hold you back. Opportunities rarely look obvious. They often show up wrapped in discomfort, contradiction, or even absurdity. If you’re glued to your current beliefs, you’ll swat them away without a second thought. This is why you need to train your brain to play with possibilities:
- Force yourself to entertain contrarian ideas, even inconsistently, to keep your mental muscles flexible.
- Let wild thoughts in—yes, even the “flying cow” ones. Ask, “What if this were true? What if this worked?”
- Stretch ideas to absurd extremes. Comedians are masters at this—they twist reality until it looks ridiculous. But in the stretch, something new emerges. That’s how creativity and innovation happen.
If you’re innovative, you can solve almost any problem. But you can’t innovate if you never let your brain wander past the walls of what you already know.
The Human Reflex That Kills Opportunities
New ideas collide with intuition. They don’t feel right because they don’t fit our mental models. And in that instant, before logic even kicks in, we reject them. We think we’re being rational when we say “no,” but most of the time, it’s emotion:
- We’re stressed or distracted and can’t give the idea real attention.
- It feels unsafe or risky, so we avoid it.
- It challenges what we already believe, and that’s uncomfortable.
- We don’t have time to imagine possibilities, so we shut it down fast.
And just like that, the door closes. The opportunity walks away and finds someone else willing to pause, imagine, and explore.
Retrain Your Brain Before You Miss the Next One
You don’t need to search harder for great opportunities. They’re everywhere, all the time, like natural laws.
The real work is retraining your brain to recognize them:
- Notice your reflexive “no.” Ask: Am I rejecting the idea, or just the discomfort it brings?
- Keep an eye out for black swans and flying cows. Most big breakthroughs look absurd at first glance.
- Loosen your beliefs. Value truth and possibilities more than being “right.”
- Let yourself play with ideas. Imagine, stretch, exaggerate—anything that stops you from swatting them away too fast.
Because here’s the thing: history doesn’t lack billion-dollar ideas. It’s littered with them. What it lacks is people willing to pause, challenge their intuition, and think long enough to see what could be real. Your next breakthrough won’t feel obvious. It might sound absurd, even laughable. It might challenge everything you think you know. The question is: will you have the mental agility to let it in or will you glue yourself to old beliefs and watch someone else seize it instead?