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# Daily Inspiration: Innovation - "The speed with which people will disavow themselves tomorrow from what they do today will astonish you."
**URL:** https://jimcarroll.com/2026/03/daily-inspiration-innovation-the-speed-with-which-people-will-disavow-themselves-tomorrow-from-what-they-do-today-will-astonish-you/
Date: 2026-03-12
Author: JimCarroll
Post Type: post
Summary: “The speed with which people will disavow themselves tomorrow from what they do today will astonish you.” – Futurist Jim Carroll Just watch. There will be countless people tomorrow who will say, “Well, I wasn’t really a supporter.” “I wasn’t behind it.” “I never really believed in all those ideas.” “Ya, I always thought it […]
Categories: Blog, Daily Inspiration
Featured Image: https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/AstonishDisavow.jpg
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*"The speed with which people will disavow themselves tomorrow from what they do today will astonish you."* - Futurist Jim Carroll
Just watch.
There will be countless people tomorrow who will say, "*Well, I wasn't really a supporter." "I wasn't behind it." "I never really believed in all those ideas*." "*Ya, I always thought it was wrong."*
They will suggest they are innocent. They were doubters all along. They had nothing to do with it.
That they would have spoken up except that....
The list goes on.
Tomorrow, they will try to bend the truth to whatever new reality they want to slide into.
Remember this post.
You'll watch it happen.
The speed with which people back away from their previously strongly held beliefs indicates that those beliefs were really nothing but temporary expediency.
This happens with innovation and leadership too. Think about it! Think about all the excuses, attitudes, and shifts in perspective when they disavow their previous stance as the future suddenly appears.
- **The "It Was Just a Pilot" Excuse:** When bold innovation projects fail to scale or meet resistance, they often distance themselves by claiming it was only a "*safe experiment"* or a "*proof-of-concept"* they never fully intended to deploy as a core strategy.
- **The "Nostalgia as a Strategy" Fallacy:** People who strongly championed *"the old way"* for decades will, within days of a market rupture, claim they always knew a shift was coming and that their previous stance was just for "*short-term stability."*
- **The "*I Was Always a Skeptic"* Revisionism**: Once a disruptive technology becomes the standard, former vocal opponents will claim they were never actually "*against"* it, but were simply "*properly cautious"* while others were "*recklessly optimistic."*
- **The "*Hidden Dissident*" Narrative:** When a failing strategy is finally abandoned, team members who stayed silent for years suddenly claim they "always thought it was wrong" and were secretly working against it from the inside.
- **The *"Accountants Ruled the Future"* Scapegoat:** Leaders who failed to innovate often disavow their own responsibility for inaction by blaming "*the accountants" o*r *"legal"* for blocking their *"intended"* bold moves, pretending they were visionary all along.
- **The *"Following Best Practices"* Retreat**: When industry standards collapse, proponents of those methods excuse their lack of foresight by stating they were simply adhering to "*proven models,*" disclaiming any personal belief in the strategy itself.
- **The "*Waiting for Clarity"* Justification:** Executives who missed a massive shift will claim they weren't "*stalling"* or *"ignoring"* the trend, but were "*strategically waiting for perfect market timing"*—disavowing their previous denial of the change.
- **The "*It Was a Different Era*" Dismissal:** People quickly distance themselves from outdated corporate cultures or technologies by acting as if those views belonged to a distant, unrecognizable past, rather than the reality they defended just months prior.
- **The "*Intellectual Exercise*" Defense:** When a controversial or failed idea is called out, its former backers often claim they were merely "playing devil's advocate" or exploring it as an "i*ntellectual exercise"* rather than actually supporting it.
- **The "*Hype Cycle"* Victimhood:** Individuals who aggressively pursued a trend that eventually fizzled will tomorrow disclaim any genuine belief, calling their previous support a strategic necessity to "*manage the hyp*e" rather than a true conviction.
Who are they?
People who aren't very good at innovation, but who are great at excuses.
Take a look around you.
You are surrounded by people who are really good at excuses.
People who are shallow in their belief system, narrow in their ethics, and quick to disavow their past.
And in your mind, you know that their minds are often just simply empty vessels of expediency, where they will do and say and act with whatever repulsive idea, hateful belief or conspiracy-laden agenda that fits their shallowness. Or whatever agenda-of-the-moment they can adopt, espouse, and support that fits into their belief system.
Just watch.
You know I'm right.
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