Beyond the Classroom: The Lasting Impact on Minds and Hearts

This article is free to read and comment on—open to all, not just premium members—because today’s a special day: a day to share, learn, and inspire. Pass it on to students and teens as well—they’re the ones shaping tomorrow.

"A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in students." – Ever Garrison

You know how sometimes you think an object or an idea can only be used in one way, but then suddenly, someone sees it completely differently, and boom, a whole new world opens up? That’s basically what this idea of the “proximate options” is about.

It’s like the universe is full of hidden doors, and right now you only see the room you’re standing in. But if you push around a little, you notice new doors opening—each one leading to other rooms, and those rooms have more doors. The future isn’t fixed; it’s sort of hovering around us, waiting to be unlocked. Awesome leaders just enjoy finding new ways to grow and improve, again and again. As investors, we ought to identify and partner with them for a period of time so they can maximise the upside of randomness.

In their book, ‘The Upside of Uncertainty’, the authors explain this concept, saying that it actually comes from biology. Feathers, for example, originally weren’t for flight. They were just extra insulation to keep little dinosaurs warm. But later, those same feathers turned into wings. That’s the “proximate options”: something around you today taking on a completely new role tomorrow. Fish jawbones morphing into bones that let animals hear on land is another example of stuff repurposing itself in surprising ways.

And it’s not just nature … it’s life, creativity, business, everything. Let me give you a few human examples:Pay attention to odd details: A doctor called Joseph Lister noticed that carbolic acid kept parasites away, and that little observation turned into the invention of antiseptic surgery, which basically saved millions of lives.

• Look at problems sideways: Barbara Alink saw that wheelchairs felt depressing to her ageing mother, so she made the Alinker, a mobility bike that’s uplifting instead of confining.

• Question assumptions: One person in Prague, after the Berlin Wall fell, realised she could completely reinvent her identity. Later, she carried that attitude into business, creating SheEO to support women entrepreneurs by rejecting old rules.

• Recombine stuff: Van Phillips lost a leg and hated the clunky prosthetics, so he borrowed ideas from pole vaults and diving boards to design those cool, springy prosthetic running legs.

• Notice what’s missing: A designer realised museum models didn’t capture how light and shadow played in ancient rooms, so he engineered a projection system to bring the missing atmosphere back.

• Think worst-case: Silicon Valley pioneer Steve Blank thought, “Well, even if this doesn’t work, the worst is I’ll be unemployed for a while,” which gave him the guts to take the leap.

• Challenge the script of life: Some people sold their house in Edinburgh, felt trapped by the old way of living, and moved to Tuscany, rewriting what “a good life” meant to them.

• One step leads to more: Each time you open one new door, you discover two or three more you didn’t even know existed. That’s the power of optionality emerging out of randomness. It’s endless.

And here’s the magic… these new possibilities usually get discovered not by people chasing money or recognition, but by people who deeply care about something or who are personally stuck with a problem they’re dying to solve. It’s surreal but something very personal.

Sometimes it even transforms your whole life. Take Buckminster Fuller, the example used by the Furr couple in their book (The Upside of Uncertainty): he was suicidal at one point and felt totally worthless. But standing there, he made a decision: "I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to help humanity with whatever talents I’ve got." And out of that came decades of invention and inspiration.

So if you boil it down, the proximate options are all about noticing what’s next door to the obvious. It’s about paying attention, combining things in weird ways, asking “what if?”, and sometimes just being brave enough to try. And once you step through one door, you’ll find ten others waiting.

On a lighter note, I could stare at my wife all day. She’s been my best teacher. I also love soaking in nature, diving into random reads, and crafting thoughtful writing. I’ve got the energy and drive to grind through long hours, even on Sundays.

A good teacher opens doors to knowledge; a great teacher opens hearts. Science-driven manufacturing is still just scratching the surface in Bharat. The next bull run will also be fuelled by intellectual property-led manufacturing and science-and-technology-powered synthesis. It’s essential to understand how to value the economics of extreme uncertainty, lumpiness, and randomness that characterise these emerging sectors.