大象传媒

When I first set up a church in a pub in 1989, many church leaders rubbished the idea; some said the slogan 鈥楪od & a pint鈥� was blasphemous. But within five years everyone was hailing it as a great idea, and invitations rolled in for me to talk about it. Churches, aren鈥檛 known for their progressive thinking.

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But it鈥檚 not just churches: whenever someone jumps outside the box and comes up with a seemingly radical idea, there are always plenty of people shouting it down or saying why it can鈥檛 work. But many of yesterday鈥檚 bizarre ideas are today鈥檚 status quo.

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Albert Einstein said that creativity is intelligence having fun. Perhaps that鈥檚 why we 鈥榩lay around鈥� with new ideas. Po-faced committees don鈥檛 generally come up with innovative plans, just safe repetitions of what has already been. Imagination requires playfulness: the willingness to think 鈥榳hat if鈥︹��

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Playing around with ideas can鈥檛 always lead to success. But among dozens of nonsense thoughts, just one may turn out to be a stroke of genius.

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Most of us are not great inventors or genius innovators, but life is all about having ideas that solve problems, create opportunities and make our existence more interesting. There are lots of voices (mostly within ourselves) that tell us to climb back into the box; lots of reasons to 鈥榖e sensible鈥�, to distrust our intuition.

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Setting up 鈥楬oly Joes鈥�, the church in a pub, turned out to be one of the best things I ever did 鈥� however stupid or 鈥榖lasphemous鈥� it seemed to some people. And it wasn鈥檛 that innovative 鈥� Jesus hung out with 鈥榩ublicans and sinners鈥� long before me. The brilliant computer entrepreneur Steve Jobs said we shouldn鈥檛 be trapped by dogma, which is all about what other people think. Instead we should keep listening to our inner voice, and have the courage to trust our own intuition.

Muggins 鈥� a person who allows themself to be outwitted. Also a title used humorously to refer to oneself