The Bank Robber Who Thought Lemon Juice Made Him Invisible
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McArthur Wheeler thought he’d pulled off the perfect bank robberies.
No mask. No disguise. He looked straight into the camera. Completely confident, he was invisible.
Why? He’d rubbed lemon juice on his face. If it makes ink disappear on paper, he figured, it would work on skin too. He even tested it with a Polaroid. The picture came out blurry.
Good enough for McArthur.
When the police showed him the surveillance footage, he was genuinely stunned. “But I wore the juice,” he said.
You can’t make this up.
Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger later studied this case and named what we now call the Dunning-Kruger Effect: the less we know about something, the less equipped we are to see what we’re missing.
The most confident person in the room isn’t always the most competent.
And this doesn’t just apply to bank robbers.
You shouldn’t have to work around someone’s outdated thinking just to move an idea forward. You shouldn’t have to decode a colleague’s resistance to change or wait for them to let go of what stopped working three years ago.
But it happens constantly. And sometimes... that someone is us.
I see it in business all the time. Leaders and founders who keep doing what worked five years ago. Confident it still works. Never questioning the blank stares. Never noticing that people have stopped pushing back.
In my new book, Unignorable, I call this the difference between learning and unlearning. Learning adds new capacity. Unlearning strips away the outdated stuff that’s quietly holding you back. And here’s the unignorable truth: we're actually pretty terrible at the second one.
Think about the last time your company rolled out new software. Training happened. Excitement was there. Usage looked decent for a few weeks. Then what? People quietly reverted to spreadsheets and email threads. Not because they were stubborn. But because nobody helped them unlearn the old way.
We’re not just bad at change. We’re bad at stopping.
And the real danger? When you show up with outdated thinking, people notice. It’s like walking around with a haircut from 2007. Nobody says anything. They just smile, nod, and secretly wonder if you peaked in a previous decade.
Same with your ideas. And they won't tell you why.
So what do you do when no one’s giving you the feedback you need?
You create your own mirrors. You put yourself in situations where you can see what you can’t see.
Here’s the framework I use with my coaching clients. I call it the Unlearning Playbook: Catch it. Challenge it. Change it.
Catch it. Pay attention to the moments when you default to “this has worked for me before." When you hear yourself defending a position because it’s familiar, not because it’s right. That’s your signal.
Challenge it. Ask yourself: Where did this belief come from? Is it still true? Is it helping or hurting? Demand evidence with recency. Just because something worked in 2019 doesn’t mean it works in 2026.
Change it. Replace it with something more relevant. And know this: writing a mantra in lipstick on the mirror won’t cut it. You need tools. Systems. Think of it like bowling with bumpers. They don’t guarantee a strike, but they keep your ball in the lane.
McArthur Wheeler’s problem wasn’t stupidity. It was certainty. He was so sure his theory worked that he never sought a better mirror. He tested it once, got a blurry photo, and called it proof.
The gap between what you know and what you think you know is where trust quietly erodes.
For Corporate Insiders
If you’re inside an organization, unlearning looks like auditing your defaults. The phrases you repeat, the instincts you defend, the processes you protect because they’re comfortable. Start with one belief you’ve inherited from a former boss or a past company and ask yourself honestly: Is this mine? Does it still work? The best corporate leaders I’ve coached don’t just learn new playbooks. They retire old ones. That’s what separates the person who gets invited back into the room from the one who keeps wondering why they weren’t.
For Entrepreneurs
If you’ve gone out on your own, unlearning hits differently. You probably left corporate with a toolkit that made you successful there. But building your own thing requires a different set of instincts. The strategies that earned you a seat at the executive table can actually slow you down when you need speed, clarity, and a willingness to be wrong in public. Catch the moments where you’re playing corporate ball in an entrepreneurial game. The faster you unlearn the old rules, the faster you build something that’s truly yours.
For this week, consider: What’s one belief you’ve been holding onto that might need a better mirror? If you’re willing to share, hit reply. I read every response!
Your coach,
Chris
P.S. Speaking of unlearning... if you’ve recently left corporate (or you’re seriously thinking about it), one of the hardest things to unlearn is the belief that what made you successful inside a company will make you successful outside of one. It won’t. Not without a different blueprint. That’s exactly why I built the Unignorable Business Blueprint. It’s a proven process that helps accomplished professionals get radical clarity on what’s next and build a business that reflects their expertise, not just their résumé. If you’re stuck between “I know I want more” and “I have no idea where to start,” click here for your free guide.
