Be Unreasonable
Recently I listened to the biographies of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. Both men are known for being unreasonable—unreasonable with design, with schedules, and with what they expected people to do or thought they could do.
What struck me was the question: what experiences in life made them so unreasonable? They were brilliant, but I’ve known plenty of brilliant, respectable people who were not unreasonable. As I thought about their early lives, I wondered—was it a fight, a tragedy, or an interaction that shifted them into that mindset?
Then the epiphany hit me. It’s simple: they weren’t unreasonable at all. Reasonableness is just perception. If you can justify something with knowledge or experience, it feels reasonable. If you can’t, it feels unreasonable. Musk and Jobs simply saw things others couldn’t yet see. They envisioned possibilities that went beyond what people could—or wanted to—see. They weren’t replicating what was already known; they were inventing what could be—the future they wanted.
This isn’t just about technology. It’s about people. Early in my career I was frustrated working for “unreasonable” bosses. They pushed me into things I’d never done before, and sometimes into things no one had ever done before. It was uncomfortable and often felt like standing on the edge of failure. Later, I came to see those moments differently. They shifted my gage on possibility. They changed my perspective on what was achievable.
Later I found myself as the unreasonable one. I heard:
“Cook, there’s no way we can double revenue.”
“Cook, my skills top out as precon leader. I don’t have the gifts to lead a division.”
“Cook, we don’t have the people to start another division.”
These were all limiting thoughts—and they were all proven wrong. Just like the limiting thoughts I once carried, until others challenged me with “unreasonable” ideas.
The older, wiser, still-growing me sees a bigger world of possibilities. When you work with teams that do things once thought impossible, it bends your reality. And when you lead people into new realities, you learn new ways to deliver the message and hold the team.
For a long time, I didn’t see my unique gifts fully. If not for people who challenged me and forced me into the impossible, I might never have discovered them.
So here’s the question: What are you being asked today that feels unreasonable? What false limitations have you placed on yourself—or accepted from others—that are keeping you from seeing what’s actually possible?