As I work with different organizations, I often notice a pattern in the conversation where an unwanted outcome that repeats itself regularly is explained as immutable and “that’s just how it is”. For example, in tech focused organizations, often sales is not performing as well as it should, assuming it performs at all. The sales team then has an explanation along the lines of being early in the market and the customers not being ready for our product. Or something regional along the lines of things that work elsewhere do not work here. This is then used as a way to blame an external, immutable factor and to abdicate responsibility. Of course, this is a fallacy as the outcome is simply unacceptable. A sales team needs to close sales. That’s their entire function and failing to do so turns the team into dead weight for the organization. Of course, many of us have a tendency to do the same in our personal lives: we blame an external factor for why something in our lives is as it is without doing something about it. But rather than accepting it and “being reasonable”, we need to unreasonable and insist on changing it. In the words of George Bernard Shaw: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. So, as my challenge to you today: where in your life do you need to be unreasonable?