Pause for a moment to consider the most important invention of all time. Some may dispute it, but I believe the invention of the printing press is the GOAT, the greatest of all time.
Prior to the printing press, there was no point to educating the masses to, for example, read. Books were handmade, rare and expensive. The printing press changed all that.
For the first time, recording, sharing and disseminating information was made cheap and easy. Technology had the opportunity to build on itself.
For instance, the invention of the printing press led directly to the eradication of cholera.
As printed material became more commonplace, people began to notice that older folks like me had difficulty reading small type. Necessity gave rise to optics. But those lenses could do more than just help the aged to see better. At a higher power, you could see what was previously invisible, like the bacteria that causes cholera.
The technological explosion in the wake of the invention of the printing press is called the Scientific Revolution.
Now we have the printing press made all over again in the form of the internet. Now the dissemination of knowledge isn’t cheap, it’s free. And instant.
What does this mean to the Apollo Solution? Simply this – more solutions immediately at hand, the very life blood of the Apollo Solution.
Hate your job? Maybe it’s time for you to go into business for yourself. Today, even the tiniest market segment can be reached worldwide through the internet. This makes it possible for the most obscure propositions to find a market.
Years ago, I read an article about the lack of commitment of today’s entrepreneurs. In the past, starting a business required a commitment to a brick and mortar location and probably quitting your day job. Entrepreneurs had to be, “all in.”
How idiotic.
Today, thanks to the internet, anyone with a website can find customers and transact business. More ideas than ever before can make it to market without placing the entrepreneur at enormous risk. You can dip your toe in the pond of business startup without risking your entire financial life. This is a boon to fresh ideas, not a bust.
If you hate your job and starting your own business is not your thing, at least you can search for new jobs on the internet.
Maybe it’s your commute that makes you hate your job. Maybe that commute can be eliminated by cutting a deal with your existing employer to allow you to work from home over the internet.
Working from anywhere also puts you sooner on the way to moving to paradise. Not when you retire, now.
Does working remotely also allow you a flexible schedule? Can you compress your 40-hour week into four days instead of five? Then every weekend is a three-day road trip weekend for the travel lover. Or just a little more time off harvested from what might have otherwise been commute time.
The internet is a powerful tool in the Apollo Solution toolbox.
But even before the internet, there were plenty of examples of the Apollo Solution in action. Being a good Wisconsin boy, I can’t resist sharing an iteration of Apollo Solution that we’ll call the Lombardi Solution.
The Lombardi Solution
Steal industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie died on August 11, 1919. The same day, out of the ashes of the First World War, the Weimar Republic of Germany was born. And in Green Bay Wisconsin, shipping clerk Curly Lambeau approached Indian Packing Company Owner Frank Peck for $500 for uniforms and equipment to field a new football team, what would become known as the Green Bay Packers.
In those early days, the Packers played in Hagemeister Park in Green Bay on an open field with no fence or bleachers. Boosters would pass a hat to collect donations to keep the team solvent.
The Packers joined the precursor to the NFL in 1921. It would be 1933 before the Packers would have a losing season and by then, the Packers had won three consecutive NFL Championships in 1929-1931. Green Bay returned to dominance in 1934, and won three more NFL Championships in 1936, 1939 and 1944.
1948 brought a season of change. For the next 11 seasons, Green Bay would stumble to a losing season every year until they became an embarrassment. The 1958 season ended with a record of one win, ten losses and a tie.
Then as now, register a such a miserable record and you’re apt to lose your coaching assignment. Such was the case for the Packers. Filling the vacancy wasn’t easy. Several candidates were considered and some were offered the job but declined. Finally, the Packers went with a virtual unknown – Vince Lombardi. What proceeded from there is a matter of history.
For the next nine seasons, Lombardi would post a winning record every year. He was named Coach of the Year his first season. The Packers were winners in 75% of their games and won five NFL championships including the first two Super Bowls.
The record of accomplishment is so great that the trophy awarded to the winning Super Bowl team is called the Lombardi Trophy.
Yet all this accomplishment overlooks one important detail. Lombardi managed to win with largely the same roster he inherited in 1958, the worst season in Packer history. Of the 22 players that started in 1959, 16 of them were veteran starters of the pre-Lombardi 1958 season, the season that was the worst on record. Lombardi not only won, he won with the resources he already had. This is the essence of the Apollo Solution.
The Apollo Solution demands that you define joy and success and then immediately remove the barriers to achieving them.
When I was trying to get to the Super Bowl and I found out the night before the game that my ticket wasn’t going to be delivered as planned, that was like an explosion on my spacecraft. There were 70 others in the same predicament and their reaction was typical and ineffective. First there was anger, then sorrow from the acceptance of failure and defeat.
The overriding theme of the Apollo 13 mission post explosion is calm. Those astronauts knew their mission was dangerous. Just three years earlier on January 27, 1967, three astronauts died in a flash fire during a launch rehearsal.
Yet in the wake of the explosion, Jack Swigert alerts his colleagues with, “okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” It sounds like the kind of thing you would say if you spilled some Tang[1] in your lap.
These astronauts were trained professionals. They knew so long as they were alive, there was still opportunity to solve the problem. Anger and despair have no place in the Apollo Solution. In fact, the Apollo Solution is the remedy to anger and despair.
There are no problems, only opportunities. Solutions are always within our grasp. Sometimes they may seem hidden or unconventional.
The Apollo Solution demands that success start now, the way you are now. Don’t ask permission. Don’t wait to be credentialed, invited or recommended. Just go.
[1] Tang is a powdered drink mix from General Foods that became popular from its association with the NASA Space program.