Genius? Or Just Crazy?
Some people retreat into their own minds and create their own realities. For some, the world within is more real than the world without.
What do we do with these people?
Therapy. Medication. Asylums.
Delusions are a symptom of an unhealthy mind.
Right?
Except there’s one thing all great brands have in common: a delusional founder.
Someone who rejects reality. Someone who seeks to replace reality.
Steve Jobs had a “reality distortion bubble.” People thought he was nuts. That he lived in his own world. He did.
Then he brought others with him.
That’s the difference between genius and crazy. Validation.
Van Gogh was crazy. A starving artist. A failure. He cut off his own ear. He committed suicide. If history remembered him at all, his entry would simply read “insane painter.”
Until his paintings began to sell.
Now, he’s one of the masters. An artistic genius.
People see the first guy out on the dance floor as a little crazy. Funny. But crazy. That’s the only way he can stand out there, all alone.
A few people join in. The lone dancer is no longer alone. Now, people don’t see him as crazy but as confident. Cool.
Validated.
Entrepreneurs have to be crazy. They believe in a delusion only they can see.
They just need to be crazy long enough to be validated.
Then they’re a genius.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw