Think Like a Rocket Scientist

Text in black are quotes; text in green are my notes. I sometimes write in Spanish.

• Science, as Carl Sagan put it, is “a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” #

• We’re hesitant to think big, reluctant to dance with uncertainty, and afraid of failure. These were necessary during the Paleolithic Period, keeping us safe from poisonous foods and predators. But here in the information age, they’re bugs. #

• By the end of the third stage, instead of letting the world shape your thoughts, you’ll let your thoughts shape the world. And instead of simply thinking outside the box, you’ll be able to bend the box to your will. #

• You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket. #

• In the modern world, we look for certainty in uncertain places. We search for order in chaos, the right answer in ambiguity, and conviction in complexity. “We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world,” Yuval Noah Harari writes, “than on trying to understand it.”11 We look for the step-by-step formula, the shortcut, the hack—the right bag of peanuts. Over time, we lose our ability to interact with the unknown. #

• If you stick to the familiar, you won’t find the unexpected. Those who get ahead in this century will dance with the great unknown and find danger, rather than comfort, in the status quo. #

• Our ability to make the most out of uncertainty is what creates the most potential value. We should be fueled not by a desire for a quick catharsis but by intrigue. Where certainty ends, progress begins. #

• But Rumsfeld instead pulled out a rocket-science metaphor from his linguistic grab bag: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” #

• “The great obstacle to discovering,” historian Daniel J. Boorstin writes, “was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” #

• “We can’t live in a state of perpetual doubt,” Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains, “so we make up the best story possible and we live as if this story were true.” #

• Fake news is not a modern phenomenon. Between a good story and a bunch of data, the story has always prevailed. These mentally vivid images strike a deep, lasting chord known as the narrative fallacy. We remember what so-and-so told us about how his male-pattern baldness was caused by too much time in the sun. We fall for the story, throwing logic and skepticism to the wind. #

• The problem with the modern world, as Bertrand Russell put it, is that “the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” #

• When we utter those three dreaded words—I don’t know—our ego deflates, our mind opens, and our ears perk up. #

• We believe that, as Asimov describes, “everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.”48 This oversimplification helps us make sense of the world as children. But as we mature, we fail to outgrow this misleading theory. #

• Ask yourself, What’s the worst-case scenario? And how likely is that scenario, given what I know? Writing down your concerns and uncertainties—what you know and what you don’t know—undresses them. Once you lift up the curtain and turn the unknown unknowns into known unknowns, you defang them. After you see your fears with their masks off, you’ll find that the feeling of uncertainty is often far worse than what you fear. You’ll also realize that in all likelihood, the things that matter most to you will still be there, no matter what happens. #

• The brain, to paraphrase psychologist Rick Hanson, is like Velcro for the negative but Teflon for the positive. Unless you consider the best-case scenario along with the worst, your brain will steer you toward the seemingly safest path—inaction. #

• Think about it: Where are the redundancies in your own life? Where’s the emergency brake or the spare tire in your company? How will you deal with the loss of a valuable team member, a critical distributor, or an important client? What will you do if your household loses a source of income? The system must be designed to continue operating even if a component fails. #

• When we face uncertainty, we often manufacture excuses for not getting started. I’m not qualified. I don’t feel ready. I don’t have the right contacts. I don’t have enough time. We don’t start walking until we find an approach that’s guaranteed to work (and preferably one that comes with job satisfaction and a six-figure salary). But absolute certainty is a mirage. In life, we’re required to base our opinions on imperfect information and make a call with sketchy data. #

• Start walking because, as Newton’s first law goes, objects in motion tend to stay in motion—once you get going, you will keep going. #

• Start walking, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. Start walking because it’s the only way forward. #

• The status quo is a super magnet. People are biased against the way things could be and find comfort in the way things are. #

• The default carries immense power, even in advanced industries like rocket science. This idea is called path dependence: What we’ve done before shapes what we do next. #

• for marketing purposes, the letters that make up the word typewriter were placed on the top line to allow a salesperson to demonstrate how the machine operates by quickly typing the brand name (try it out!). #

• Here’s the problem. Process, by definition, is backward looking. It was developed in response to yesterday’s troubles. If we treat it like a sacred pact—if we don’t question it—process can impede forward movement. Over time, our organizational arteries get clogged with outdated procedures. #

• you need to make a habit of asking, as Bezos does, “Do we own the process or does the process own us?”7 #

• Resisting this hardwiring for conformity causes us emotional distress—literally. A neurological study showed that nonconformity activates the amygdala and produces what the authors describe as “a pain of independence.” #

• As the saying goes, argue for your limitations, and you get to keep them. #

• Demand current—not historical—supporting evidence. Many of our invisible rules were developed in response to problems that no longer exist (like the cat in the meditation fable). But the immune response remains long after the pathogen leaves. #

• We’re too close to our own problems and weaknesses to evaluate them objectively. #

• The kill-the-company exercise isn’t just for megacorporations or law-school classrooms. You can employ variations of it in your own life by asking questions like the following: • Why might my boss pass me up for a promotion? • Why is this prospective employer justified in not hiring me? • Why are customers making the right decision by buying from our competitors? #

• “when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not unicorns.”38 #

• If the brain had a tail, thought experiments would make it wag. #

• George Bernard Shaw once said, “Few people think more than two or three times a year. I’ve made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.” #

• He argues that individuals and organizations “need ways of doing things for which they have no good reason. Not always. Not usually. But sometimes.” #

• “We are drowning in information,” biologist E. O. Wilson said, “while starving for wisdom.”28 If we don’t take the time to think—if we don’t pause, understand, and deliberate—we can’t find wisdom or form new ideas. #

• “My first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom.” #

• Life, it turns out, doesn’t happen in compartmentalized silos. There’s little to be learned from comparing similar things. #

• Carville and Paul Begala tell a story about the choice a lion faces in deciding to hunt for a mouse or an antelope. “A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse,” they explain. “But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself.” Antelopes, in contrast, are much bigger animals, so “they take more speed and strength to capture.” But once captured, an antelope can provide days of food for the lion.12 The story, as you may have guessed, is a microcosm for life. Most of us go after the mice instead of the antelopes. We think the mouse is a sure thing, but the antelope is a moonshot. Mice are everywhere; antelopes are few and far between. What’s more, everyone around us is busy hunting mice. We assume that if we decide to go for antelopes, we might fail and go hungry. So we don’t launch a new business, because we think we don’t have what it takes. We hesitate to apply for a promotion, assuming that someone far more competent will get it. We don’t ask people on a date if they seem out of our league. We play not to lose instead of playing to win. #

• Bezos would agree. “Given a ten percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time,” he wrote in Amazon’s annual letter to shareholders in 2015. #

• “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success,” says James Cameron, the filmmaker behind such blockbusters as The Terminator and Titanic. #

• Beginning with divergent thinking is also important because, at the initial stages of idea formation, it’s hard to judge what’s useful and what’s not. #

• We often fall in love with a destination, but not the path. We don’t want to climb a mountain. We want to have climbed a mountain. We don’t want to write a book. We want to have written one. #

• What’s easy often isn’t important, and what’s important often isn’t easy. #

• When we’re familiar with a problem, and when we think we have the right answer, we stop seeing alternatives. This tendency is known as the Einstellung effect. #

• A strategy is a plan for achieving an objective. Tactics, in contrast, are the actions you take to implement the strategy. #

• Drury knows a secret missed by many business leaders: The low-hanging fruit has already been picked. You can’t beat a stronger competitor by copying them. But you can beat them by doing the opposite of what they’re doing. #

• We undervalue evidence that contradicts our beliefs and overvalue evidence that confirms them. “It [is] a puzzling thing,” Robert Pirsig writes. “The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away.”4 #

• Aggressively mediocre corporate managers remain employed because we interpret the evidence to confirm the accuracy of our initial hiring decision. #

• Over time, our beliefs begin to blend into our identity. Your belief in CrossFit makes you a CrossFitter, your belief in climate change makes you an environmentalist, and your belief in primal eating makes you paleo. #

• “The test of a first-rate intelligence,” F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”25 #

• Even early in his career, Spielberg knew what many of us neglect to acknowledge: What we don’t see can be scarier than what we do see. #

• In focusing on the facts in front of us, we don’t focus enough—or at all—on the missing facts. #

• So, the next time you’re tempted, my dear Watson, to announce a confident conclusion, do what you do every time you drive. Don’t simply rely on the visible hazards from the rearview and side mirrors. Ask yourself, “What’s missing?” When you think you’ve exhausted all possibilities, keep asking, “What else?” Make a deliberate effort to repeatedly turn your head and check your blind spot. #

• “I don’t like that man,” Abraham Lincoln is said to have observed. “I must get to know him better.” The same approach should apply to opposing arguments. #

• This internet-fueled tribalism exacerbates our confirmation bias. As our echo chambers get louder and louder, we’re repeatedly bombarded with ideas that reiterate our own. When we see our own ideas mirrored in others, our confidence levels skyrocket. Opposing ideas are nowhere to be seen, so we assume they don’t exist or that those who adopt them must be irrational. #

• We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training. #

• The reason for this approach is well summarized by a Sufi teaching: “You think that because you understand ‘one’ that you must therefore understand ‘two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.’” #

• When you make a last-minute change to a product and ship it out the door without retesting the whole thing, you’re risking disaster. #

• In our lives, we don’t do what Roberts and Boone do. We train in conditions that don’t mimic reality. We practice a major speech in the comfort of our home, when we’re fully rested and awake. We do mock job interviews in our sweatpants with a friend using a predetermined set of questions. If we applied the test-as-you-fly rule, we would practice our speech in an unfamiliar setting, after downing a few espressos to give us the jitters. We would do mock interviews while wearing an uncomfortable suit, with a stranger ready to throw curveballs at us. #

• If you want to design a better newspaper, watch people read the paper. If you want to design a better kid’s toothbrush, watch kids brush their teeth. If you want to see if people will love the iPhone, put an iPhone in their hands. “If you want to improve a piece of software,” as IDEO’s founder David Kelley explains, “all you have to do is watch people using it and see when they grimace.” #

• These examples hold important lessons for us all. Treat your testing instruments like your investments and diversify them. If you’re building a website, test it using different browsers and different computers. If you’re designing a children’s toothbrush, watch many children brush their teeth—lest you get the one miracle child who uses a toothbrush like an adult. #

• In this chapter, I’ll use a rocket-science framework to explain why it’s as dangerous to celebrate failure as it is to demonize it. Rocket scientists apply a more balanced approach to failure. They don’t celebrate it; nor do they let it get in their way. #

• There’s no denying it; failure sucks. In most aspects of life, there are no participation trophies. When we fail a class, go bankrupt, or lose our job, we’re in no mood to celebrate. We feel worthless and weak. Unlike the high of success, which quickly dissipates, the sting of failure lingers—sometimes for a lifetime. #

• If we aren’t guaranteed to win, we assume the game isn’t worth playing. This natural tendency to avoid failure is a recipe for failing. Behind every rocket unlaunched, every canvas unpainted, every goal unattempted, every book unwritten, and every song unsung is the looming fear of failure. #

• But when we judge the greatness of these individuals, we don’t focus on their troughs. We focus on the peaks. We remember the Kindle, not the Fire. We remember Gmail, not the Glass. We remember Apollo 13, not The Man with One Red Shoe. #

• When we fail, we often conceal it, distort it, or deny it. We make the facts fit our self-serving theory rather than adjust the theory to fit the facts. We attribute our failure to factors beyond our control. In our own failures, we overestimate the role of bad luck (“Better luck next time”). We blame the failure on someone else (“She got the job because the boss likes her more”). We come up with a few superficial reasons for why things went south (“If only we had more cash reserves”). #

• The opening doesn’t have to be grand, as long as the finale is. #

• Breakthroughs are often evolutionary, not revolutionary. #

• If you solve enough problems, you get to land your rovers on Mars. If you solve enough problems, you get to build the Roman Empire. If you solve enough problems, you get to land on the Moon. That’s how you change the world. One problem at a time. #

• “A real advantage is conferred on people who can do things that are first-order negative, second-order positive,” Parrish writes. #

• The same decision that produced a failure in one scenario can lead to triumph in others. #

• “What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail? What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?” #

• Our approach to failure is hypocritical. We explain away our own failures by blaming them on external factors. But when others stumble, we point to internal factors—they were careless, incompetent, or not paying enough attention. #

• This mindset translates to a six-word mantra: “Reward excellent failures, punish mediocre successes,” as a seminar attendee once told author Tom Peters. #

• Exposing your vulnerability can make you more desirable in the eyes of others. But there’s one caveat. You must establish your competence before revealing your failures. Otherwise, you risk damaging your credibility and coming across as a mess—and not a beautiful one. #

• To learn and grow, we must acknowledge our failures without celebrating them. #

• The modern world doesn’t call for finished products. It calls for works in progress, where perpetual improvement wins the game. #

• Consider also a study of over 4,600 orbital rocket launch attempts. According to the study, only total failures—where the rocket blew up—led to institutional learning and improved the likelihood of future success.53 Partial or small failures—where the launch vehicle didn’t blow up but failed to properly perform its function—had no similar effect. #

• Backcasting works backward from a desired outcome. A premortem works backward from an undesired outcome. It forces you to think about what could go wrong before you act. #

• We do the same thing in our personal and professional lives. We take painkillers to cure our back pain. We believe we lost market share because of our competitors. We assume that foreign drug cartels are responsible for America’s drug problem and that eradicating the Islamic State group will solve terrorism. In each case, we confuse a symptom with a cause and leave the deeper causes intact. Painkillers won’t cure our back pain; the source remains. You’re losing market share not because of your competitors but because of your own business policies. #

• The psychologist Gerald Wilde calls this phenomenon risk homeostasis.75 The phrase is fancy, but the idea is simple. Measures intended to decrease risk sometimes backfire. Humans compensate for the reduced risk in one area by increasing risk in another. #

• The safety net may be there to catch you if you fall, but you’re better off pretending it doesn’t exist. #