I spent a good chunk of my life learning to be reasonable. In business, the mantra for any proposal was always: “Is it practical?” It seemed to me that reasonableness (and its sister practicality) were virtues. People who were unreasonable or impractical seemed to be exceptions—they came across as flaky, dangerous, occasionally lucky, unpredictable, disconnected, loose canons and, above all, they weren’t team players. When I turned 50, I came upon a quotation by George Bernard Shaw that hit me between the eyes and totally changed my approach to life and, in particular, my future.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him …. The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself …. All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
