Pedal to the Metal: The Possibility Mindset

This is a story of three
guitarists in the nineteen sixties

and how one embraced technology
to change music forever.

And if you listen closely, you hear a
lesson reverberating into the present.

When faced with something new and
revolutionary, do you embrace it or dismiss it?

Our story begins in the nineteen fifties
as rock and roll explodes onto the scene.

Rock guitars of that era sound like this.

Or this.

But by nineteen sixty seven, the sound
of rock and roll is about to change.

That's when Vox Amps
releases the wah wah pedal,

a device that could make a guitar
sing like a trumpet Instead of

Your guitar can sound
like Pretty cool, right?

As a promotional tool, Vox Amps gives
a Wawa pedal to our first guitarist,

Johnny Echols.

He plays lead guitar in Love,

a popular rock and roll band.

Echols gives the pedal a try.

But instead of hearing a
trumpet or even a guitar,

all he hears is the wails of dying sheep.

So, he dismisses the pedal.

Our second guitarist is Jimmy James, a
friend of Echols and a backup guitar player.

Echols describes Jimmy
James as a journeyman.

He carries equipment and plays bit
parts in Little Richard's stage shows.

Jimmy James never finished high
school, but he's a lifelong

learner and an avid sci fi reader.

So when he gets his hands on a Wawa pedal,

he's much more eager than Echols to try it
out. And what about our third guitarist?

You might know him better as Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix gains fame in
the late nineteen sixties

for his incredible play and never
been done before Far Out Sound.

Audiences can't stop raving.

He is the greatest guitar
player in the world.

Echols goes to a Jimi Hendrix concert
to see what all the fuss is about.

When Hendrix steps to the
stage, Echols can't believe it.

Yes. Jimi Hendrix is indeed, as advertised,
the greatest guitar player in the world.

But what he truly can't believe is
that Jimi Hendrix is Jimi James.

The journeyman he once knew had transformed
himself into a musical powerhouse

by relentlessly embracing and
practicing with new technology.

Hendrix was among the first to use the
Vox Wawa pedal, the fuzz tone pedal,

and the Marshall amp.

He went so far as to hire an
engineer to modify pedals,

achieving even wilder sounds.

Echol's initial reaction to
the wah wah pedal is natural.

New technology can be overwhelming,
and in the short term,

it feels easier to dismiss it.

Think about new inventions from the past
and the visionaries who embraced them.

Take the steam engine.

While many saw it as just a tool
for pumping water out of mines,

engineer Richard Trevivic
saw something more.

What if these machines could
carry us further than any horse?

Through relentless experimentation, he
created the first steam powered locomotive

in eighteen o four, carving the
path for the railroad revolution.

This same spirit of
embracing new technology

emerged again with the birth of computing.

As a Navy Lieutenant in World War II,

Grace Hopper worked with one
of the world's first computers,

a room sized machine computing endless
equations for naval weapons and equipment.

While others just saw
a massive calculator,

Hopper envisioned
computers doing much more.

Her pioneering work on compilers

and programming languages helped transform
computers from specialized machines into

platforms for creating the
software that powers today's world.

As the Internet emerged,

another opportunity arose for those
willing to embrace something new.

Working on Wall Street, Jeff Bezos noticed
web usage doubling every few months.

While others saw a way to send emails,

he envisioned a global marketplace where
anyone could buy anything, anywhere.

Starting with just selling
books from his garage,

he built Amazon into a company that
transformed how the world shops.

Those who embraced
change shaped the future.

We don't know for sure what a future
with AI looks like, but what we do know

is that you can either embrace
technology and work with it,

or you can dismiss technology
and work against it.

The right mindset, one of
curiosity, adaptability,

and a willingness to embrace the unknown,
turns new technology into an opportunity

for innovation.

It's this mindset that transforms Jimmy
James, the journeyman, into Jimmy Hendrix,

the legend.

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