neuroplastic entrepreneurs
- John Bessant
- May 12
- 2 min read
The surprising power of reframing as an innovation tool
Neuroplasticity. Not some weird creation of a mad 3D sculptor intent on creating a strange new species with which to threaten the world in another zombie apocalypse story but instead a wonderful feature of our brains. Research increasingly confirms our ability, in the face of unexpected shock or challenge, to rewire ourselves, make new neural connections. Defined as ‘the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization’ it’s visible in the ways in which people can recover speech or movement after traumatic brain injury and it’s now understood to be critical in the process of early cognitive development in babies. It’s even offered as one explanation for the impossible and unpredictable lifestyls of teenagers; their penchant for lying in bed all day and mooching aorund may be down to their working hard at the synaptic level to reconstruct their brains!
It’s also a good description of a key capability which entrepreneurs have. Being able to reframe, seeing the world in a new way opens up significant new possibilities. Provided, of course, that you are then able to follow through, solving problems and enabling the new connections necessary to bring about that state.
Think about Malcolm Maclean, sitting on the dock of the bay one afternoon and imagining an alternative approach to shipping. Instead of the laborious loading and unloading with all its costs, its wasted time, the security challenges and so on - why not use containers? The vision involved a stretch of the imagination; the actual realisation of it considerably more but in the end you have a game changer. Reframing and then realising the possibilities.
It's an old story; the challenge of transportation and logistics was one which engaged James Brindley 200 years earlier as the Industrial Revolution began to reshape the British economy and the landscape in which it took place. You can’t get a manufacturing-led transformation off the ground unless you can move tings around - raw materials in and finsihed products out of your factories. Which, given the worn-out and primitive state of many of the roads and tracks criss-crossing the country at the time was a big problem. Brindley was one of the pioneers of the idea of creating waterways – canals – as an alternative, providing fast and straight connections between factories, cities and ports.
I found an interesting mention on a livestream chat and decided to test plinko while waiting for a delivery. In Greece, the crisp sound of pegs and coins was oddly satisfying, making me feel like I was in a vintage arcade. I tried positioning my chip at different starting angles, observing how even slight shifts changed its path. My partner peeked over and started placing her own drops, leading to friendly banter about whose chip would land closest to the jackpot. When my prediction paid off with a solid return, I leaned back content, impressed by how simple physics translates into a surprisingly strategic game.
I was cooling off by the Terengganu River in Kuala Terengganu when a fellow traveller mentioned a clever ball-drop casino game. Pulling out my phone, I went to https://plinko.com.my/ and dived into its quick rounds. The balance between risk and timing kept me engaged between sightseeing. After overcoming an early slump, I scored a solid win that covered my longboat ride fee. It felt like finding an unexpected pocket of excitement on a laid-back coastal afternoon.