My Name Is Josh, I’m A Neophile

I don’t know when it first started. I’ve always considered myself a fairly traditional guy, but in the last year I’ve noticed a shift.

Wikipedia has this to say:

A neophile or neophiliac can be defined as a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty.

Not bad. A little further in you’ll find this list of characteristics:

1. The ability to adapt rapidly to extreme change
2. A distaste or downright loathing of tradition, repetition, and routine
3. A tendency to become bored quickly with old things
4. A desire, bordering on obsession in some cases, to experience novelty
5. A corresponding and related desire to create novelty by creating or achieving something and/or by stirring social or other forms of unrest

Now we’re in the ballpark. Where once I would have held a strong grip on the traditional, I’m now finding myself with a craving — a need, even — for the novel. While there is nothing wrong with tradition, it’s never been more apparent that tradition isn’t what makes a mark on the world. Novelty is.

A great example comes from the technology archives. In 1996, after a string of losses and failures in his struggling technology company, CEO John Sculley made the choice to bring back the company’s original founder, Steve Jobs. Ten years earlier, Sculley was responsible for Jobs being removed from his role at Apple, claiming that he had become “non-linear”. See, what Sculley was trying to say was that Jobs wasn’t sticking to tradition. He wasn’t doing things they way they’d always been done.

Fast forward to 2012 and you find Apple Computers comfortably atop the list of the highest valued companies in the world, with their closest competition nearly $200 billion behind them. What Sculley didn’t understand — and what Jobs quickly began to remedy — was that advancement isn’t crafted from tradition, it’s born from innovation; a desire to create better or more effective solutions to a problem, no matter the cost.

I’ve been asked a few questions about my recent switch from Chase Bank to Simple. There was a lot that went into it, but here’s the short answer: I have more trust in a company that is willing to innovate than a company that holds firm to tradition. I know Chase is a safe bet for my money, and it’s easy to believe they will be a safe bet 20 years down the road. The exact same safe bet.

A year into starting our company, Jon & I decided to dive into learning a new programing language. At the advice of people like Richard Felix we took the plunge with Ruby On Rails. It was tough. I was a huge fan of PHP, I had learned everything I knew from tinkering with WordPress, how could another framework be so much better? In addition to being able to build apps that we never even could fathom two years ago, what would once have taken us a month to build can now be coded in mere days.

When Jon & I were ready to update our work computers, we took a chance and switched from 15-inch MacBook Pro’s, to 11-inch MacBook Air’s. I was nervous. What if it’s not enough screen? What if the portability isn’t worth the sacrifice? What if it is? We love our Air’s, and I can’t imagine my job if I was still lugging around 15 inches of screen that I just didn’t really need.

I’m not saying there isn’t value in tradition, but that perhaps it is outweighed by the value of novelty. I dare you to give it a chance. The next time you go to reach for the toothpaste you always buy, change it up. The next time you plan a vacation, shake it up, choose a new destination. The next time you see a piece of clothing and think “I could never wear that”, give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen? You could find your new favorite toothpaste, vacation spot, or shirt. You could love it.