So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the law of diffusion of innovation.
First, the famous failure.
It's a commercial example.
As we said before, a second ago, the recipe for successes, the money and the right people and the right market conditions. You should have success then.
Look at TiVo.
From the time TiVo came out about eight or nine years ago, to this current day,
they're the single highest-quality product on the market, hands down, there's no dispute.
They were extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic.
I mean, we use TiVo as a verb.
I TiVo stuff on my piece-of-junk Time Warner DVR all the time.
But TiVo's a commercial failure.
They've never made money.
And when they went IPO, their stock was about 30 or 40 dollars and then plummeted, and it's never traded above 10.
In fact, I don't think it's even traded above six, except for a couple of littel spikes.
Because, you see, when TiVo launched their product, they told us all, what they had.
They said, "We had a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds live TV, and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking."
And the cynical majority said,
"We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it. You're scaring us."
What if they had said,
"If you're the kind of person who likes to have total control over every aspect of your life, boy, do we have a product for you.
It pauses live TVs, skips commercials memorizes your viewing habits, etc...etc."
People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.
Now I can give you a successful example the law of diffusion of innovation.
In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washinton to hear Dr. King speak.
They sent out no invitations. And there was no website to check the date.
How do you do that?
Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator.
He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America.
In fact, some of his ideas were bad.
But he had a gift.
He didn't go around telling people what needed to change America.
He went around to told people what he believe.
"I believe, I believe, I believe." he told people.
And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people.
And some those people created structures to get the word out to even more people.
And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed on the right day on the right time to hear him speak.
How many of them showed up for him?
Zero. They showed up for themselves.
It's what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to stand in the sun in Washinton in the middle of August.
It's what they believed, and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the audience was white.
Dr. King believed that there were two types of laws in this world:
Those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by men.
And not until all the laws that are mad by men are consistent with that are made by the higher authority will we live in a just world.
It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life.
We followed, not for him, but for ourselves.
And by the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech.
Listen to politicians now, with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They're not inspiring anybody.
Because they're leaders and they aren't those who lead.
Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us.
Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but believe we want to.
We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves.
And it's those who start with "why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others to inspire them.
Thank you very much.
