Total Rethink

14Finding a Mentor

“An educated, enlightened, and informed population is one of the surest ways of promoting the health of a democracy.”

—Nelson Mandela

“A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.”

—Unknown

Anyone who tries to blow up an existing business model that has been successful in the past will meet with resistance from those who have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. No one wants to be told their Magic Goose is about to stop laying those golden eggs. Any big petroleum company, for instance, is going to want to discourage scientists from perfecting electric cars for as long as possible, just as many book publishers wanted to discredit electronic publishing when they saw it as a potential threat to printed books, and the folks who made their living from selling and developing photographic film did not welcome the birth of digital cameras.

It was not altogether surprising, therefore, when New England Phone threatened a lawsuit and filed an official complaint with the city council to say that I couldn't run a phone company and that I should be shut down. But their argument failed to convince the relevant authorities because the time was right for things to change. A trend was getting under way and no one could stop it, no matter how much money and how many lawyers they threw at it.

There are some trends which cannot be stopped, like the motor car, the television, and the smartphone; from lawn ...