The Power of Partners

So how do you make your world bigger and really live ‘large’? Probably the biggest key to living large is through other people. Unfortunately, there is a big misconception when it comes to other people that seem to be living large and have achieved super success. We think they did it alone.

When we see someone who has come up with a great invention, a super creative piece of artwork or, for that matter, a new and very successful business, most people think it came from a single person’s mind, someone who has had a mental breakthrough all on their own. I certainly used to think that, but if you and I take a closer look at some of the most successful people in the world and even around ourselves, we’ll see that it just isn’t so.

A few years back I heard Joshua Shenk on NPR radio talking about world changing technological breakthroughs along with great works of art, each of which came, not from one brilliant person working alone, but from teams of two or more people joining their brains and forces to come up with heretofore unheard of successes.

Shenk wrote a book called Powers of Two and what a great book it is! In it he talks about great people like Paul McCartney, Steve Jobs, George Lucas and Vincent Van Gogh. It turns out that the key to their super success was hooking up with another person so that the power of those two brains could come up with unequaled genius and huge breakthroughs.

Those breakthroughs Joshua talks about may never have happened if those people had not met the right partner at the right time. For Paul McCartney the breakthrough came when he met and worked with John Lennon, a collaboration that later spawned the Beatles. For Steve Jobs it was hooking up with Steve Wozniak when one was a teenager and the other was only 20 years old. And for filmmaker George Lucas, it was his wife Marcia Lucas who is his secret weapon. Lastly, there’s a very good chance that you and I would probably never have known the name Vincent Van Gogh if it were not for a guy named Theo, Vincent’s brother.

The author goes on to make an undeniable case that most great and important breakthroughs that we think came from one genius working alone came from the ‘Powers of Two’. Joshua Shenk also talks about how critical it is for you and I to go out and find our tribe and to hook up with others there that we truly connect with. Sometimes it’s people like us and sometimes it’s people that are very different from us but regardless, they hit certain hot buttons with us that lifts us to a much higher level and pushes us to fulfill our great potential.

So, if you want to live large and do great things, don’t try to go it alone. Find that other person or persons who you can partner with and create big and amazing new things.  

With a Little Ingenuity

After the last few weeks, going back and forth to the hospital and working with my doctors and medical technicians, I feel so very grateful and appreciative of all the great minds and effort involved in recovering my health. I found I have become particularly grateful for those human beings who invented the many incredible medical devices, procedures, and tests that have saved so many lives and relieved so much pain.

With everything I went through, I couldn’t help thinking about all the many life-changing inventions that we humans have come up with. From the fairly simple stethoscope to more complex inventions like x-rays, MRIs, and those great angiogram devices. Think about how obvious some of these inventions are but how life changing and life enhancing they can be.

There are so many very simple inventions that we use in our day-to-day lives, like the paper clip or even just paper. Of course, one of the biggest, most basic inventions was the wheel. It changed the world in all kinds of ways. What a different world we would be in if the wheel didn’t exist. We’d have no cars, bikes, airplanes, or trains, to mention just a very few things.

Even the simplest of inventions can lead to changes worldwide. One single spin off (no joke intended) of the wheel was the fairly recent invention of adding them to a suitcase. This made travel so much easier and less painful (especially for us old folks).

It was in 1970 that Benard Sadow took casters off a wardrobe trunk, mounted them on the bottom of a big suitcase, added a strap to the front end, and off he went to make history. Then in 1987 Robert Plath, an airline pilot, turned the suitcase on its side, attaching two wheels and a retractable handle, making a more stable rolling suitcase that you didn’t have to bend over to grab.

These inventors simply took everyday items and put them together. Looking back at these inventions, they seem so basic and simple that I wonder why it wasn’t thought of sooner. In fact, why didn’t I think of that?

Thinking about the many, many inventions human beings have invented through the ages, I found a list of some very popular inventions that are hard to imagine us doing without. These include things like duct tape, nails, Post-it notes, DNA testing, the internet, vaccines, and medical imaging. I could list dozens and dozens, but I think I’ve made my point.

Some inventions were fluke discoveries but many were matter of simply trying to solve a problem. If you and I pay attention and really put our minds to it, there is no reason we couldn’t come up with some new developments or inventions ourselves. Maybe make a list of common items, systems, and habits we all have and then go up and down the list and see if you can put two or three items together in a way to come up with a new product or better way to handle life and its challenges. Maybe work with your family or friends to brainstorm ideas. Give it a shot and see what you come up with. You could surprise yourself, and the rest of us as well!