When on long haul flights, I normally seek out the most easy-to-watch garbage I can find. Something to do with concentrating at altitude I suppose. This time, I picked Alice  - the modern take of  Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Not necessarily garbage, but not exactly difficult to follow. Like any Burton piece, it was a visual feast and sensory extravaganza – and I actually quite liked it. In particular, I liked one line “try to think 6 impossible thoughts before breakfast”. It really struck me. And then struck me again and again as it was repeated about ten times throughout the film.

But what if we did challenge ourselves to think 6 impossible thoughts before breakfast? Challengers have an innate ability to ask upstream questions and interrogate the impossible. Like Reed Hastings who wondered why movie rental couldn’t follow a subscription service, like gymnasiums, and started Netflix. Or Muhammad Yunus who wondered why you couldn’t loan to the poor and set-up Grameen Bank. Or even Eric Ryan & Adam Lowry who pondered why cleaning products must be so painfully dull and in turn created method homecare. Thinking in this way does not often come easily or naturally – so perhaps there is something to be said for making a challenge explicit – like ‘think 6 impossible thoughts before breakfast’.  Surely the more we train ourselves to see opportunity, the easier it will become to happen upon naturally. So… I challenge everyone to think 6 impossible thoughts before breakfast this week. Let’s all flex our impossibly creative muscles each dawn and see what happens.

Impossible thoughts are very welcome below!