Impossible: A State of Mind

Ignore Impossible - For Business and Life Success

The cover image shows winter bathing in Sweden. Literally, swimming under the ice, in water that was unbelievably cold, and in fact just marginally below zero, at minus 0.5 degrees. Salt water freezes slightly below zero. In the air, it was also extremely cold, and ladies with long hair would find their hair frozen in place, within minutes of getting out, literally crackling as you bent it, or it seemed almost ‘snapped it’.

Yes there are many extreme sports folk, stunt men, adventurers who can do such incredible things like this. But they are few and far between, and are likely genetically blessed, plus have probably had years of training.

Swimming in icy water, or even under it seems impossible. For normal people. Impossible. Most folk would shy away from the water at 15 or even 10 degrees, but zero? Ice? Surely not. Well, not for you or me anyway. Or is it really so? Here’s the thing, what seems impossible is often just a state of mind. Those who choose to think different can do more, not from talent, genetics or experience, but from their state of mind. There is real power in harnessing your mind and not seeing impossible for what it is. Seeing right through it. Knowing it’s hard, but believing you can.

Visionaries Don’t Believe Impossible

Elon Musk is a good example of this mindset, having personally created multiple billion dollar companies and completely disrupted multiple entire sectors in EV’s, Rockets, AI, Tunneling and more. All of these would be seen as impossible dreams, yet time and again he has bet the farm on his ideas, faced off the naysayers, and brought impossible to reality, and rapidly to ‘normality’. So while he has obvious talent, he also shows a surprising lack of understanding that impossible things are meant to stay impossible.

Who among us would never believe they could ever swim among the icebergs, with your skin searing in the cold, heart racing and body temperature dropping faster than ever before. Who believes this is ‘impossible’ for them? Many. Just like many will never succeed in their projects, in their research, in their business ideas. Because the exact same mindset that has you thinking impossible for these challenges of firewalking, or swimming with icebergs, is the same mindset that is holding you back. Right now.

Belief in self is so powerful. It can be a driving force to success beyond your dreams, beyond what others see as impossible. And for these folk, their belief is their reality. Believe in the impossible, and so it will be. Is this the future you desire? Comfortable mediocracy, where things are ‘nice’? Or do you want to shoot for the stars. Because the route to success is to aim high, way beyond where you think impossible begins and reality has ended. Aiming for the moon isn’t enough. Think big. Aim for the stars, or, even better, deep space. Because we can all achieve far more than we think, with the right mindset.

Big thinking like this helps inspire others, it attracts others to support you, the universe magically delivers more to those brimming with confidence, and a slight inability to see the impossible. This thinking guides your decisions in business. Betting the farm on an impossible business idea like Elon Musk becomes less about risk, and more about reward. The risk hasn’t changed, but your fear has. Your vision has.?

The path forward is now clear. You may still fail, but the chance is now less, as you are forging ahead with confidence, and pulling others into your mission. Others who smell fear indirectly, who would sense your worries, will decide joining you is not for them. But where you value yourself and have confidence, impossible becomes a state of mind you have ‘chosen’ not to adopt. And the chance of success follows.

I never saw myself as a ‘winter bather’, and never imagined I would be swimming under the ice. Yet when I moved to Sweden to escape the alarming lockdowns and other restrictions, I found winter bathing was normal. So normal that many, many old people did it even. So normal that the banks use images of people bathing in a hole in the ice as advertising posters.

So normal that many people bathe daily. Daily. This means every day. Think about that. An impossible challenge of swimming in a hole in the ice isn’t just a one off Tony Robbins style checkbox and you then get to wear the T shirt to prove it. No, for these folk, impossible was a daily ritual. You can imagine in this context, it became hard to SEE this as impossible. And so I began to swim in the ice right though winter, with many others. Because impossible became normal.?

It’s also interesting that Sweden itself as a country had such a different approach to the global drama. While the rest of the world said it’s impossible to be so measured in response, Sweden didn’t see it as impossible, and didn't succumb to the incredible pressure of 'you can't do it like that'. Their outstanding results through the challenging period reflect their ultimate success. Doing what everyone else is doing is not always the way to greatest success, and even in the face of strong criticism, I feel so blessed to have now secured residency here. Where swimming with icebergs is … surprisingly normal, and folk here seem fearless.

See my video of swimming under the ice. Does it really look so impossible to do?!

(Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. I've posted plenty more interesting & inspiring videos there)

Impossible Business

NeoMatrix has been working on a novel alternative to GPS for some time. This idea is impossible. I know this is the commonly held 'view' because everyone has told me. The Australian government said it wasn’t worth grant funding. My very smart, genius brother Dr Tim Cooper said it would never work (even after he spent quite some development work with me on it twenty years ago!), and even if it did, nobody would want it, as GPS was already ‘good enough’. He has since decided it could perhaps work, but not without compass bearings, though still thinks it has no commercial appeal. I look forward to showing our official results to him soon, given we don't need compass bearings at all, even now! (But our tech can work off this alone, or any one of many different types of input)

The UK government has said it would be breathtaking if it worked, but of course it could never work. They said it. They said that the tech would not be able to resolve positions anywhere close to GPS, and listed many other reasons why it would be impossible. Many smart people have said it was impossible.?

While I began this research project in 1999, I had a slight detour for me to form, grow and sell my other global business Edval, which took some time. I pitched to my business colleagues for my NeoMatrix idea. No interest. I pitched to other entrepreneurs. I pitched to the Optus phone company. Nobody believed. Everyone said it was impossible. In many cases it was impossible to even explain what it was, let alone how I proposed to do it using artificial intelligence methods and algorithms which I tried to describe. Nope. Impossible. IMPOSSIBLE!

After I sold my company Edval with my brother, I invested heavily into NeoMatrix. I connected with an absolute genius, Tatyana Khitrova who finally become a NeoMatrix co-founder after working with me for several years now across both businesses. She heads up NeoMatrix development, to really bring it to life. So while research on this technology has been very quietly going for two decades already, the the last two years is really the vast bulk of all development, and has been phenomenal. I could not do it without a strong team, without a very smart team.?

Because we are doing the impossible. What so many people said was impossible.

WE never heard or saw ‘impossible’. We only saw the goal. All the many, many naysayers just ‘didn’t understand’ bless them. It wasn’t impossible, it was obvious. Well, that and also being extremely difficult on every possible level. The idea was simple. But if it was possible, surely someone else would have done it in the two decades now, since I had my first draft patent on this technology, prepared by a patent attorney. He said at the time it was the most novel concept he’s had to review. Maybe he says that to all his clients. But maybe he realised it wasn’t impossible as well?

Tatyana has been working closely with me every day, often including weekends, late nights. With amazing ideas, amazing implementations, and working with me to solve hundreds of highly complex algorithmic related problems. Not just dozens, that was two years ago, we have solved hundreds now. Elon Musk said self-driving cars are one of the hardest problems to solve, and I believe him. But using AI to determine your position without GPS, WIFI, GSM or any external reference points at all? Trust me. Hard. SO HARD. But not impossible.

Our team is still a long way from formal release of our progress in detail, but let’s say the impossible is now possible. Because we believed. Because we never listened to those saying it wasn’t so.

The results Tatyana is generating now show we can now already generate GPS approximate positioning, with some confidence, with high performance. We have ongoing improvements in our ML Models from others in the team. Interestingly, we may well be able to even exceed the quality of standard GPS (on average) in our near roadmap. But without needing GPS hardware or satellites. With a fraction of the power used by GPS. With none of the security issues of GPS (Jamming, Spoofing, Coverage).?

So while this isn’t a formal announcement of specific capability (yet), it is a statement to all those who said it was impossible. News flash. Yes it is possible. Because we have done it now. Lots more work yet to refine it, have it peer reviewed, independently tested, and commercialised.

Now the NeoMatrix team can claim that we have most certainly cracked the nut, of what will be the hardest ever possible technical problem of my life, determining where you are. Accurately. Not just short term 'inertial' tracking that degrades in accuracy quickly, but lifetime accurate tracking… with almost no clues, and zero external infrastructure.

This has been and continues to be an extremely hard road, but full credit to my co-founder Tatyana. Getting her to accept her co-founder role despite her near 7 days a week (for years) work, genius ideas and incredible implementations has nearly been my other impossible problem, but at least that is another solved at last!

Credit to our whole NeoMatrix team. But the message here is not about our technology, but our belief. That impossible is a state of mind. One that we don’t have time to even acknowledge, despite the word impossible being constantly thrown at us. Impossible is, only if you believe it is so.?

I have managed to change the direction of traffic, and the policy and plans of two defence forces.

My Edval tech changed how schools staff and allocate students to classes in ways that schools said could never be done by computers. NeoMatrix has already solved an impossible problem of determining position without external references. I have managed to change my country of residence during a pandemic, and now, I swim with icebergs.?

Impossible you say? Really? Tell that to the thousands of Swede’s, including elderly… that cut holes in the icy lakes and bathe. Often on a daily basis, during bitter winters.?

Impossible? No, Impossible is a STATE OF MIND.?

If you really want success in life, stop believing ‘impossible’. Believe in yourself.?

Success is a state of mind.