It was normal to go to a good school. Normal to go on amazing holidays. Normal to go through $70,000 of higher education. Normal to think the only two career paths out of business school were investment banking and management consulting. Normal to move to Thailand on an amazing salary. Normal to be told you could be the company’s zone president. Normal, normal, normal. 

As we continued to talk, I became more detached from the highly engaging conversation. Not detached because I was distracted, but because I was thinking. I’d had an insight. 

 I must have been listening to Taylor Swift that morning because about one hour and thirty minutes into the free-flowing conversation I was ready to interrupt. “Guys, I don’t think anything we have shared is particularly revelatory.”

Conformity is good, but it has never led to the creation of the Apple Macintosh or the lightbulb. The two Steve’s sat in their parents’ garages making computers and Thomas Edison spent 1000s of hours failing to eventually create a working lightbulb. The world doesn’t change when people remain the same. The world changes when a critical mass of humanity slips out of alignment of the norms of society.

Wildest Dream is the new business that Jack and I have started, but it is also more than that. Wildest Dream is a mindset, a way of life. Each individual, leader, and team that we work with is unique, and that uniqueness is something which we celebrate. But, when I sit to think about these great people, and about Jack and myself, I ask: “What are those common threads that enjoin us?” And here’s what comes to mind.

“Could we…” Anna starts before Cathy shouts, “there is nothing you can do here!” Cathy goes on and on. Anna and I nodding in complete agreement at the berating we are receiving on behalf of our masters. It was a face I was very adept at making, smiling and nodding whilst I got shouted at. ‘Yes, you are right, we are assholes.’

As I write this entry, reflecting on my journey through business school, consulting and corporate, I know something must change. I don’t have the language or the plans but at 35,000 feet, some light has crept into my spirit – something Plato wrote about 2,400 years ago.