“It can’t be done” is never the truth.

What people really are saying when they utter these words is: “I don’t how how to do it.” Or, “it can’t be done the way we’ve always tried in the past.”

Or, “it can’t be done according to the only way I can think of doing it.”

Here’s why “it can’t be done” is never an accurate statement, no matter what you are referring to.

It is impossible to know anything, for certain, about the future.

Given what we know we might be able to make reasonable predictions about the future, but we never know everything that might be relevant.

Moreover, even if we did, things change all the time, making things that might have been very difficult yesterday relatively easy today.

Many things that were considered impossible years ago have since happened.

In fact, most “things” that exist today would have been considered impossible to someone living a couple of hundred years ago: airplanes, automobiles, television, space travel, heart transplants, and even indoor plumbing.

Actually we don’t have to go back that far.

The personal computer, the Internet, video Skype calls to and from anyplace in the world (free), and cell phones would have been considered impossible even 50 years ago.

Any yet we are certain we are telling the truth when we say to others (and to ourselves): “It can’t be done.”

Steve Jobs Regularly Did The Impossible

Doing more of what we did yesterday isn’t very difficult.

Even doing things a little differently or a little better isn’t very difficult.

A lot of people do more, different or better every day.

But doing something that has never been done before, that most people think is impossible isn’t that easy.

It takes guts. It requires us to ignore the naysayers and not fear failure.

Unfortunately most of us are all too willing to accept “it can’t be done” both from others and from ourselves.

> Continued: It Can’t Be Done.

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From a tribute to Steve Jobs:

‘Those who knew Jobs often spoke of his passion for his creations.

“It sounds ridiculous to talk about love when you are making a gadget,” said Larry Brilliant, the former director of Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, and a longtime friend of Jobs.

“But Steve loved his work, he loved the products he produced, and it was palpable,” Brilliant said.

“He communicated that love through bits of steel and plastic.”‘

From article: “To his millions of fans, he was simply Steve” By David Sarno and Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times October 6, 2011.

Biography: Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. – The publisher describes the book as revealing that Jobs was “Driven by demons and could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. [The book] is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.”

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“Think Different” is an advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 by advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. It was used in television commercials, print ads and a number of TV promos for Apple products. The slogan was discontinued in 2002.

Original Version: The original “Long version” appeared on posters made by Apple.

The Crazy Ones

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

[Source: Wikipedia/Think Different page.]

> See hundreds of posts about developing multiple talents on the main site (where you are now) and the related sites: click on TalentDevelop Sites in the menu bar above.

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In his famed Commencement Address, Steve Jobs also emphasized the value of thinking differently:

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“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.

“And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

— Steve Jobs, Stanford University Commencement, 2005 transcript:  ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says.
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How many times have you attended a personal growth workshop, or listened to a self-help audio course, or viewed a set of DVDs designed to change your life?  Given the type of people who usually read my blog, probably most of you.

And how many times did you get a high when you completed the program … that dissipated shortly, leaving you almost where you were before you started?

Based on what many of you have told me, an awful lot of you.

Why don’t these courses that usually offer such valuable information produce lasting change?

Based on everything we know about change, they should.

But what if our assumption about what produces change is wrong?

> Continued: Why Self-Help Often Doesn’t Work … And What Does

“In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, ‘I’m great.’ ”

She also sees herself as unique: “I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else. I don’t see myself as an heir.”

More quotes:

“When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.”

“I am focused on the work. I am constantly creating.”

See more in my Women and Talent post Lady Gaga: “I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.”

“My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc.”

[Photo apparently of Herzog working on his documentary Grizzly Man (2005), which he wrote and directed.]

Can you relate? I certainly can, at least to some degree. And those kinds of complaints can fit many other forms of creative expression besides filmmaking, and can contribute to (or be based on) limiting thinking and beliefs that hold us back.

Gilbert notes that Herzog replied to her friend, saying something along the lines of, “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it.

“Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.”

She says there is deep value for her own creative work in his brusque advice.

Continued in post Stop Whining And Get Back To Work.

• Self-limiting beliefs

• Fears and insecurities. She admits, “I know what it’s like to be severely limited by fear.”

• Freiling notes when she was in college, she could not commit to a single major or career path.

She continues to have a wide-ranging impact on helping others, and comments, “I specialize in helping entrepreneurs create true wealth from the inside out.

“In the last few years, I’ve gone from being $30k in debt to building an online brand that brings in over $575k a year; all from following my heart, leveraging my talents, and becoming a force for inspiration and empowerment in the world.”

See a video in my post: Katie Freiling on her personal growth as an entrepreneur

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“This simple but powerful word got me thinking of all the different places someone who wanted to change course could start. Here are 6 tips to get you started on getting started.”

Item 4: “Start listening more to yourself and less to others. Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

“Unfortunately, even in childhood, our dreams too often get dismissed by others.”

Continued in her article The Key to Changing Course is to Start: 6 Tips on How to Get Started
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Here is an excerpt from Renita Kalhorn’s interview with Pamela Slim:

[Also see Inner Entrepreneur post Pamela Slim on Excuses People Use To Stay at a Job.]

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The Mental Toughness Summit

[From the site:] “The telesummit features exclusive LIVE interviews by Renita Kalhorn with world-class motivation and mental toughness experts – New York Times best-selling authors, TED speakers, sports and performance psychologists, a Navy SEAL, fitness expert and professional athlete — who are going to hit mental toughness and grit from every angle.

“The best part is it’s virtual, so you can listen to the interviews either online or over the phone every day of the telesummit, starting on April 25th.”

Register for free to listen. Recordings available.

Her father cites one example showing how uncommon she is: “When she was just three years old we were sitting in a cafe and she turned around and said ‘you can’t feed the swans here’ and we asked her how she knew that. She had read it on the door of the cafe, but the letters were backwards. We knew then that she had something special.” //

But an article reports that “In one of the most extensive studies carried out, research found that out of 210 gifted children followed into later life, only three per cent were found to fulfill their early promise.

“Professor Joan Freeman, said that of 210 children in her study, ‘maybe only half a dozen might have been what we might consider conventionally successful. At the age of six or seven, the gifted child has potential for amazing things, but many of them are caught in situations where their potentials is handicapped.’”

Continued in post: Higher IQ than Hawking – But what challenges may Victoria Cowie face?

Who wouldn’t want that? It’s easy to be lured by the promises of a smart pill or cognitive enhancer that could help us not only think more clearly and access more memory, but feel good about ourselves and be tireless and endlessly confident.

Steven Zeitchik says in his article about the movie “Limitless” that “down-on-his-luck New York writer Eddie (Bradley Cooper)” takes a magic potion – a “miracle street narcotic in the form of a translucent pill, NZT that enhances mental performance beyond any reasonable expectation. (Yes, it’s fictional.)”

As film reviewer Roger Ebert notes, “it is a pill that suddenly puts his entire brain online. He finishes his novel at typing speed. He wins at poker, invests in the market, and runs it up to millions. He fascinates a woman who had rejected him as a loser.”

Zeitchik notes that as much as “Limitless” concerns “the emotional and ethical implications of a mental-enhancement drug…its real preoccupation is the value and cost of success.

The director of “Limitless” Neil Burger made the acclaimed movie “The Illusionist,” but was involved with many projects that never got produced.

“I definitely would get to the point where I felt like this is never going to happen, and I didn’t quite get what’s wrong,” Burger said. “Or how to make it right.”

Zeitchik commented, “A suburban Connecticut childhood spent drawing fictional worlds — space colonies and the like — led the director to a fine-arts education at Yale University.

“It might seem like a charmed life, but soon after graduation he had moved to Los Angeles and found himself, like many struggling young filmmakers, in a dismal existence, living next to people like a “washed-up makeup artist who’s in the business, but not really.”

Burger comments on one of the underlying ideas of the movie: “There was something I responded to about an artist with this dream of success, and it’s just not happening and it’s never going to happen. And you never know: Is it that you don’t have it, whatever it is, or lightning just hasn’t struck?”

[From article 'Limitless' director Neil Burger's career reality has plenty of ups and downs, By Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times March 17, 2011.] [Click image to view larger.]

That sort of existential angst is one of the things I liked about the movie, along with the seductive idea of chemically defusing that anxiety with a drug (even one that is definitely not FDA-approved) like speed or Adderall, that also boosts cognition and performance and enhances creativity. Pretty hot stuff.

See my related post Boosted Cognition and Enhanced Creativity, in which I quote Jonathan Wai, Ph.D.: ““Although the idea of such a pill becoming a reality anytime soon is unlikely, what struck me was his sudden ability to focus his mind once on the drug. And not only was Cooper’s character more focused, but his ability to creatively problem solve was increased.”

More on psychostimulant medication Adderall

It may help people with ADD/ADHD, but according to psychiatrist Ronald Ricker and psychologist Venus Nicolino, “Estimates are that somewhere between 20-30 percent of college students regularly abuse Adderall. Calling it an ‘upper’ is like calling a hydrogen bomb a grenade.”

They also warn, “Overdose with Adderall is nasty. Results include Cardiac and/or pulmonary arrest, death, severe and lasting mental effects/defects. Which one happens to you is a matter of chance. If you’re in an Emergency Room and still alive your chances are relatively good. If you overdose at your apartment and are alone, the chance of your living is slim.”

From their Huffington Post article: Adderall: The Most Abused Prescription Drug in America.

Joshua Foer explained in an article about Adderall: “Usually prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (read Sydney Spiesel in Slate on the risks and benefits), the drug is a cocktail of amphetamines that increases alertness, concentration, and mental-processing speed and decreases fatigue. It’s often called a cognitive steroid.” [From "The Adderall Me - My romance with ADHD meds" Slate, May 10, 2005.]

But the appeal of a cognitive steroid is strong, especially for people in high-demand jobs. A couple of decades age, I used speed occasionally to stay “energized” for work on 12-18 hour a day film production jobs.

And many talented people of different ages have a “rage to achieve” as therapist Belinda Seiger, PhD notes in her articles The Special Challenges of Highly Intelligent and Talented Women Who Are Moms, and Weed Girl – numbing her “rage to achieve”.

Aside from potentially dangerous drugs, there are other choices for cognitive enhancement.

Programs such as Lumosity Brain Training have been shown in some research studies to improve cognitive functions like working memory, processing speed and fluid intelligence. A testimonial on the site reads: “Lumosity helped me get my brain back in shape to focus on finishing my last year, hopefully with honors.” – Achim Enthaler

Cognitex (a supplement from Life Extension Products) – contains Phosphatidylserine (PS), “a crucial building block in the brain” (the site explains).

“Aging causes a decline in the PS content of cells throughout the body including brain cells, which can lead to cognitive decline…Cognitex contains a compound that mimics the naturally occurring PS in the brain.”

Obviously, this topic of cognitive enhancement is very complex and extensive. I read every once in a while about research progressing on nutraceuticals and nootropics; maybe some day there will be a safe smart drug.