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Along came Endeavor, which helped her realize her dream. This business, called Beleza Natural, now employs a thousand people and earns millions in annual revenue.
    This is but one of hundreds of success stories from Endeavor. I was at Endeavor’s biannual summit two years ago and was overwhelmed with the energy and enthusiasm in the room. Each entrepreneur was indebted to Endeavor for providing the tools they needed, as well as the inspiration to succeed. This would never have happened if Linda had listened to those who told her that her ideas were crazy.
     

    One of the biggest obstacles to taking on “impossible tasks” is that others are often quick to tell you they can’t be accomplished. It is arguably tough to address a grand problem. But once you decide to take it on, it is equally hard to break out of traditional approaches to solving it. This is another place where it is helpful to break a few rules. The next exercise forces people to do this in a surprising way. First, come up with a problem that is relevant for the particular group. For example, if it is a group of executives in the utility business, the topic might be getting companies to save energy; if it is a theater group, the problem might be how to attract a larger audience; and if it is a group of business students, the challenge might be to come up with a cool, new business idea. Break the group into small teams and ask each one to come up with the best idea and the worst idea for solving the stated problem. 4 The best idea is something that each team thinks will solve the problem brilliantly. The worst idea will be ineffective, unprofitable, or will make the problem worse. Once they are done, they write each of their ideas on a separate piece of paper, one labeled BEST and one labeled WORST. When I do this exercise, I ask participants to pass both to me, and I proceed to shred the BEST ideas. After the time they spent generating these great ideas, they are both surprised and not too happy.
    I then redistribute the WORST ideas. Each team now has an idea that another team thought was terrible. They are instructed to turn this bad idea into a fabulous idea. They look at the horrible idea that was passed their way and quickly see that it really isn’t so bad after all. In fact, they often think it is terrific. Within a few seconds someone always says, “Hey, this is a great idea!”
    When doing this exercise with a utility company, one of the “worst ideas” for saving energy was to give each employee a quota for how much energy he or she used and to charge extra for exceeding the allotment. They thought this was a pretty silly idea. The team that received this idea turned it into an idea that is really worth considering, in which employees do have a quota for how much energy they use. If they use less they get money back, and if they use more they are charged for it. They could even sell energy credits to their co-workers, giving them an even larger incentive to save electricity.
    I did this exercise with the staff responsible for putting on arts events at Stanford. One of the teams charged with finding ways to bring in a larger audience came up with the “bad” idea of putting on a staff talent show. This is seemingly the opposite of what they do now—bringing in top-notch talent from around the world. The next team turned this idea upside down. They interpreted this much more broadly and proposed a big fund-raiser, where the faculty and staff across the university would showcase their diverse talents. This would very likely bring in lots of people who don’t normally go to performing arts events and would help build awareness for their other programs.
    When the challenge was to come up with the worst business idea, the suggestions were boundless. One group suggested selling bikinis in Antarctica, one recommended starting a restaurant that sells cockroach sushi, and one group proposed starting a heart attack museum. In each of these cases, these