How we define any given task serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy that determines what we are willing to try and how much effort we are willing to put into it. Is it possible or impossible?
How we define any given task serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy that determines what we are willing to try and how much effort we are willing to put into it. Is it possible or impossible? Just for fun, let’s look back in history at the top 87 bad predictions made by people who decided something was impossible.
Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future Published on 3/28/2006
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University, 1929
“In all likelihood world inflation is over." International Monetary Fund CEO,1959
“It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister.” Margaret Thatcher, future Prime Minister, October 26th, 1969. (she became prime minister in 1979)
“Reagan doesn't have that presidential look.”
United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man
"No Civil War picture has ever made a nickel." Irving Thalberg, MGM Studios (who turned down 'Gone With The Wind'), 1938
"I never met any guitar player who was worth a damn." Vernon Presley, providing career advice to his son, Elvis, 1953
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company, Lewyt Corp., 1955
"The biggest no-talent I ever worked with." Paul Cohen, Decca Records (after firing Buddy Holly), 1956
“Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880
“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Rackham ignored the advice and bought $5,000 worth of stock. He sold it several years later for $12,500,000!
"The automobile has practically reached the limit of its development." Scientific American, 1909
"Gasoline engines will soon be rendered obsolete." Thomas A. Edison, 1910
“With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.” Business Week, August 2, 1968
“Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”
Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. (Newcomb was not impressed.)
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895
“Man will not fly for 50 years.” Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903)
“There will never be a bigger plane built.” A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people
"The Glider Train, consisting of one tow plane and three or more gliders is now a tested reality. Tomorrow, it will carry mail and fast freight to every point on the globe, revolutionizing transportation."
Forbes Magazine, 1942
“Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.” Popular Mechanics, March 1949
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.” The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
“But what... is it good for?” IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 about the microprocessor, the heart of today's computers
“The radio isn't even worthy of discussion.” Pittsburgh newspaper, 1920
“Radio has no future.” Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897
“There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965)
“We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”
U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959
“... too far-fetched to be considered.” Editor of Scientific American, in a letter to Robert Goddard about Goddard's idea of a rocket-accelerated airplane bomb, 1940 (German V2 missiles came down on London 3 years later)
“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere.” New York Times, 1936
“Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years.”
Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955
“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” Albert Einstein, 1932
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927
“It's a great invention but who would want to use it anyway?” Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1876
“Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan.” Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948
“Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946
“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.” Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926
“Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.” Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962
“[By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do.” Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965
“The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959
“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
“Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever” Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power)
“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, 1878
So what about you? Are there goals you’ve considered that you’ve already decided are impossible? Is there something that you’ve always wanted to do, but before you even tried, you’ve mentally decided that failure is inevitable? Are there dreams in your heart that won’t see the light of day because you’ve already discounted them? Break the Unwritten Rule of Possibility by recognizing that oftentimes, whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right! Challenge the assumptions that suffocate your ideas, blocking you from that fuller, richer, more satisfying life. Dare to dream, plan, and begin the process of making the impossible a reality.