Did you miss an opportunity?

“The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught.  He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.”

                                                                   -- John Gardner

There’s an interesting article in Strategy+Business on clues to opportunities. 

The article speaks to what causes us not to see opportunities even when they are right in front of us.  Psychologists call this tendency – Confirmation bias.  People tend to notice things that confirm their pre-existing beliefs and attitudes.  As humans, we tend to accept or reject information quickly and don’t take the time to challenge any of our pre-existing assumptions on a topic.  Yet, it is only through critical thinking that we are able to see outside the box.  Howard Shultz, the founder of Starbucks tried to convince the original leadership to convert their retail stores to something more of a European Coffee Bar.  When they didn’t accept his idea, he started his own coffee shops and later bought out Starbucks Retail.  The rest is history. 

What opportunities are we missing because of our past conditioning and assumptions?