In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol describes nine principles to help you achieve your seemingly impossible dreams, the same way that rocket scientists did when they successfully landed a man on the moon. Varol is a former rocket scientist who worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers before becoming a lawyer, professor, and public speaker. In this guide, we’ll explore Varol’s ideas on how to achieve the impossible by dreaming bigger, making smarter decisions, taking informed risks, and cultivating personal and professional success. Along the way, we’ll compare Varol’s ideas to those of experts like Daniel Kahneman and Philip Tetlock. We’ll also provide further guidance for putting the ideas into practice in your own life.
Varol believes that one mistake many people make is setting overly timid goals. Instead, he argues that we should set audacious goals that seem impossible from our current perspective. Varol cites a parable popularized by political strategists James Carville and Paul Begala in which a lion has the choice between hunting plentiful (but unsatisfying) field mice or pouring all its energy into hunting a single antelope. The antelope is much harder to catch, but the lion can’t live on field mice alone—to succeed, it must go after the larger, more elusive prey. (Shortform note: Varol attributes this story to Carville and Begala because it comes from their book, Buck up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up; however, in the book, Carville and Begala are actually quoting Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives.)
According to Varol, humans are the same way—we can’t truly succeed unless we focus on big, difficult goals. Chasing metaphorical antelopes is scary because it involves a lot of risk. However, that fear also keeps most of the competition away, leaving a higher chance of success for anyone who dares to try. Therefore, Varol argues we should set audacious goals that seem impossible from our current perspective—like rocket scientists’ once-impossible-seeming goal to land on the moon.
Shoot for the Moon—But Bring a Parachute
Chasing audacious goals is similar to the technique of “black swan” investing that Nassim Taleb describes in his books, The Black Swan and Antifragile. Taleb made a fortune by investing in companies that had the potential to become positive “black swans”—extremely rare and extremely lucrative successes like Apple or Google.
However, Taleb also insulated himself against the risk of those investments not paying off with a strategy he calls “the barbell”: He devoted 85% of his portfolio to safer investments and only bet on longshots with the remaining 15%. You can adopt the same risk-minimization strategy by devoting a small number of resources to risky endeavors while keeping the majority of them protected—for example, by growing your new business on the weekends while keeping your day job until your business takes off.
According to Varol, here’s how you can shoot for the moon in your own life:.
1) Focus on backcasting, not forecasting. When you forecast, you use the constraints of today to predict what will happen tomorrow. On the other hand, when you backcast, you ignore the status quo and ask, “What would an ideal future look like?” Then, you reverse engineer the path from your current situation to that ideal future. (Shortform note: In a blog post, Varol says this is the one technique in the book he uses most frequently. In fact, Varol credits backcasting for helping him achieve his professional dream of working in rocket science: While still in middle school, he researched the steps other rocket scientists had taken on the way to success, then set out to follow in their footsteps—for example, by learning computer programming.)
2) Beware of the sunk cost fallacy, in which you throw good money after bad. When you dream big, you’re bound to get attached to the project, which means you’re more likely to succumb to this fallacy. To avoid it, work on the hardest part of an audacious project first rather than investing your time and resources into minor details. That way, if your project has a fatal flaw, you’ll discover that before you get too deep into it to turn around. (Shortform note: According to Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, another way to avoid the sunk cost fallacy is to think of your life as a “global account,” not a set of distinct accounts. For example, if you’re tempted to stay in a dead-end relationship, don’t think of the time you’ve already sunk into it—instead, think of your life in general and decide if this is how you want to spend your limited time on Earth.)
According to Varol, the path to achieving the impossible is rarely clear-cut—so to reach those goals, we have to get comfortable facing uncertainty. However, as Varol describes, this is difficult because humans are biologically programmed to resist uncertainty. For our earliest human ancestors, uncertainty could be a death sentence: If they heard a twig snap, the ones who were certain the sound came from a predator would have time to run, while the ones who languished in uncertainty would become that predator’s next meal. Thus, the people who disliked uncertainty lived long enough to pass their genes down to us. (Shortform note: In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman argues that people actually fall on a range of how much uncertainty they can tolerate. Some people are naturally bold and can comfortably tolerate more uncertainty than people who are naturally timid.)
However, Varol argues that while uncertainty might be uncomfortable, it’s also the path to the greatest discoveries. According to Varol, uncertainty plays a crucial role in science through anomalies—things that don’t conform to scientists’ expectations. Anomalies drive science because when everything follows the model or otherwise goes according to plan, we don’t learn anything new; however, when something doesn’t go the way we expect, it reveals the limits of our understanding and forces us to figure out what’s really going on. (Shortform note: Unmet expectations drive business success as well as scientific discovery. In Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt describes how noticing an anomaly prompted Howard Schultz to found Starbucks. While visiting Italy, Schultz became familiar with Italian coffee houses and realized that there were no comparable businesses in the United States.)
Varol offers two ways to embrace uncertainty in order to make big leaps:
1) Nail down what you do and don’t know for sure. Contain the uncertainty by listing exactly what you know about a problem or situation. Whatever’s left is the real uncertainty, which is probably smaller than it looked before delineating. Then, ask yourself: What’s the worst-case scenario? What’s the best? How likely are they?
For example, imagine you want to start selling a new type of product. The things you know might include the specifications of the product, how much that product will cost to manufacture, the price you want to give the product, and the fact that your competitors’ equivalent product is successful. An uncertainty that remains is the demand for your version of the product.
In the worst-case scenario, nobody would want to buy your product; in the best case, the product would be a roaring success. On balance, the most realistic scenario is moderate success; since people buy your competitor’s offering, there’s clearly some demand for that type of product. However, roaring success is unlikely, at least immediately, if your competitor has got a hold on the market. Ultimately, there’s still some uncertainty regarding the success of your product, but at least you’ve got a rough idea of how launching it may pan out.
2) Add a degree of redundancy to the important parts of your life. Redundancy is a safety measure—a backup to make sure things work out okay even if Plan A goes wrong (for example, it’s wise to back up all of your digital information in case something happens to your computer).
However, redundancy only helps up to a point, and too much redundancy can introduce a dangerous amount of complexity to a system. (Shortform note: In Antifragile, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes how humans are biologically redundant: We have backups of several important organs, like lungs and kidneys, so that we’ll survive even if one fails. However, if we had more than two of each, the potential for problems or infections might outweigh the benefits of redundancy.)
Reduce Uncertainty the Fermi Way
Nailing down what you do and don’t know for sure is similar to the process of solving Fermi problems. Fermi problems are a specific type of thought experiment popularized by physicist Enrico Fermi in which you attempt to estimate an unknown quantity without any additional information (for example, “How many piano tuners are there in New York City?”).
In Superforecasting, psychologist Philip Tetlock argues that the best approach to solving Fermi problems is to break the question down into smaller and smaller questions, then decide which of those small questions you can answer and which you can’t. This process reduces the overall uncertainty of the original question down to a few smaller, manageable uncertainties for which you can make educated guesses.
To achieve the impossible, we often have to abandon the status quo and find a brand new way of approaching a problem. However, according to Varol, doing this doesn’t come naturally—when we have knowledge of how things are done, we inevitably begin to assume that’s how things should be done. Our knowledge of the status quo dims our creativity and makes us less likely to question the norm. (Shortform note: This is a form of the anchoring bias, in which we unconsciously get stuck on whatever information is first presented to us. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes anchoring in detail in Thinking, Fast and Slow.)
Varol argues that the antidote to this tendency is first-principles thinking. In first-principles thinking, you throw out the status quo and question everything until you’re left with only the most fundamental components. For example, if we think about education, status quo thinking would keep us focused on schools, teachers, and grades. But if we abandon the status quo and use principles-first thinking, we’re left with the core of education: information to learn and a student to learn it. This opens the door for all sorts of innovative delivery methods, like online learning and self-directed learning.
To Maximize First-Principles Thinking, Combine It With Marginal Gains
First-principles thinking is related to the idea of marginal gains, which involves making tiny improvements to multiple components of something that, when combined, improve overall performance. Combining first-principles thinking with marginal gains can produce powerful results (for example, the British cycling team completely overhauled their performance in just five years by following this approach). Here’s how to combine these techniques:
First, break the problem down into its component parts (or first principles). For example, the British cycling team broke down their bicycles (into seats, wheels, and so on) as well as their training schedules (into sleep, avoiding illness, muscle performance, and so on).
Then, brainstorm ways to improve each component by even 1%. For example, the coach of the cycling team researched mattresses and pillows that would improve the athletes’ sleep.
Finally, implement the changes. Individually, they may not make a big difference, but when combined, the overall change can be powerful.
Varol cites SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, as an example of first-principles thinking. Before founding SpaceX, Musk wanted to get into the space industry, but he couldn’t afford a pre-built rocket. Musk employed first-principles thinking by questioning his goal and realizing that what he really needed wasn’t a rocket: It was a way to get to space. Instead of giving up, he figured out the cost of the raw materials needed to build a rocket and decided to build one from scratch.
(Shortform note: Musk is the most commonly cited example of first-principles thinking in the modern era (a quick Google search for “first principles” brings up multiple interviews with the billionaire CEO as top hits). Varol attributes Musk’s success almost exclusively to this tactic. However, Varol doesn’t mention another important factor that undoubtedly contributed to Musk’s success: Until recently, he reportedly worked up to 100 hours a week. In other words, first-principles thinking can help you succeed, but to become one of the richest people on the planet, you must also put in the hard work.)
Varol offers three tips to get started with first-principles thinking:
1) Focus on subtraction (getting rid of everything that isn’t truly necessary), not addition. This will help you boil down to first principles. What can you take away to increase your efficiency? What are you doing right now that you could stop doing to free up resources? (Shortform note: Minimalism authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus argue that the subtraction approach doesn’t just improve your thinking: It can also help you reduce stress, discover meaning and happiness, and pursue your passions.)
2) Try “kill the company” exercises in which you imagine yourself as your own competitor and try to spot fatal flaws in your plan, company, or product. This forces you to analyze your own strengths and weaknesses more objectively and question your status quo by taking on a competitor’s perspective. (Shortform note: This is a valuable exercise for any group, not just companies. For example, a city council in Texas uses a “Kill the Community” exercise to discover problems threatening the wellbeing of people in their city.)
3) Remember Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation—the one you might find by boiling things down to first principles—is usually the right one. According to Varol, that’s partly because simpler systems have fewer parts that could break and cause issues. But be warned—simple explanations can’t always address the full complexity of an issue. (Shortform note: This is how conspiracy theories arise. People tend to ignore the full complexity of a situation, which leads them to see oversimplified patterns that don’t exist.)
According to Varol, turning an impossible dream into an achievable goal is often a matter of reframing the problem. In fact, Varol argues that defining the problem can be even more important than coming up with a solution because it’s so easy for the brain to go into autopilot mode when it comes to solving problems that we’ve faced in the past. We get stuck in our conception of a problem to the point that it prevents us from seeing new solutions. Scientists call this “the Einstellung effect” (“Einstellung” is German for “set,” as in “set in one’s ways”).
(Shortform note: Research shows that the Einstellung effect can set in quickly—even after just five trials of a novel problem. To counter the effect, take frequent breaks when you’re solving a series of similar problems. These breaks serve as “pattern interrupts,” which reset your brain and allow you to see each problem with fresh eyes.)
According to Varol, to counter the inertia of familiar solutions, scientists reframe the problem. For example, when the tripod landing gear failed on a previous Mars mission, the Mars Rover team had to come up with a way to avoid the same mistake. The most important step was to reframe the problem: Instead of asking, “How can we improve the existing landing gear?” they asked, “How can we safely land a rover on a distant planet?” This reframe led to the development of an innovative airbag system that cushioned the rover as it fell to the Martian surface. (Shortform note: Varol cites this as an example of reframing a problem—however, it’s also an example of first-principles thinking. Instead of focusing on the specifics of the current solution, the Mars Rover team dug down to the root of the problem: landing an object on another planet without breaking it.)
Here are Varol’s suggestions for reframing a problem:
1) Differentiate between strategy and tactics. In Varol’s view, strategy is the what; tactics are the how. You implement a strategy using tactics—but the tactics can change if the need arises. To reframe a problem, try refocusing on the strategy and make sure you’re not getting stuck on an individual tactic. (Shortform note: This distinction between strategy and tactics is similar to the distinction between goals (the long-term what) and systems (the short-term how) that James Clear describes in Atomic Habits. However, Clear disagrees with Varol—he argues that focusing on goals/strategy can create problems because they are one-time achievements, so it’s better to focus on implementing solid systems/tactics, which will set you up for consistent success.)
Varol recommends reexamining your tactics by talking to people who are unfamiliar with your field. They’re not beholden to the tactics, so they’re more likely to see other ways of accomplishing your overall strategy. (Shortform note: In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown argues that this is one reason diversity is so crucial in a successful organization. A diverse group brings people with different perspectives together who may be able to spot outdated tactics that you don’t see.)
2) Beware of “functional fixedness,” which happens when we fixate on how something (a tool, an object, or a tactic) is “supposed” to be used. For example, if you’re experiencing functional fixedness, you may look at a shoe and see only a protective covering for a foot. On the other hand, if you break out of functional fixedness, you might see that a shoe can also be a tool for hammering a nail or even opening a bottle of wine.
To combat this, Varol advises focusing on form, not function. By refocusing on what something is rather than what it does, you can train your brain to see its full potential.
Practice Creative Reframing
Varol doesn’t mention a critical way to boost your ability to reframe problems: Practice coming up with creative ideas. For example, you might try the “In What Way” exercise, in which you choose two dissimilar objects and try to list as many similarities between them as possible. This encourages you to examine each object’s form and function separately. For example, you might ask, “In what way is a stapler like a director’s chair?” Answers include: Both contain hinges; both have parts that are made of metal; both could be found on a film set.
According to Varol, achieving seemingly impossible goals requires unrestrained creative thinking. To spark that creativity, Varol recommends using thought experiments. A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario you create in your mind in order to think through an idea, often in the form of a hypothetical question. For example, in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman proposes the thought experiment: What if Hitler had been born female? (Shortform note: Varol classifies thought experiments as tools for creativity, but that’s not their only application: They can also be used purely for fun or as an educational tool to get students thinking in new ways.)
Varol doesn’t recommend any specific thought experiments because the questions you ask should be unique to you and your areas of interest (for example, if you’re in healthcare, you might ask, “What would happen if we replaced human doctors with AI?”) Instead of following a specific formula, Varol recommends thinking of thought experiments as a form of unstructured play. Play is a valuable enterprise: It’s purposeless by definition, but that doesn’t make it useless. If you spend more time mentally playing by asking asking “Why?” and “What would happen if…?”, you may just stumble on a solution that puts your seemingly impossible dream within practical reach. (Shortform note: In The Gifts of Imperfection, author and researcher Brené Brown argues that play is more than just a helpful tool for creativity: It is literally essential to human happiness.)
However, according to Varol, the modern world discourages curiosity. Why?
As a result, many of us gradually lose that childlike curiosity as we age. Varol argues that schools play a part in this because the American school system is designed to produce workers, not thinkers. (Shortform note: Many historians agree that the traditional American education system was created in response to the industrial revolution. Factories needed literate workers who could follow directions from authority figures, but pre-industrial workers were used to working on their own farms or in their own shops with little need to obey orders. Thus, schools as we know them sprang up as training centers to produce “punctual, docile, and sober” factory workers rather than independent thinkers.)
Varol notes that many famous scientists (like Einstein and Galileo) used thought experiments to drive their biggest discoveries. You may have heard of the famous “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment, proposed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger, in which a hypothetical cat is locked inside a box with a bottle of poison that will open at an unknown time. It’s impossible to know when the poison will be released, which means it’s impossible to know whether the cat is alive or dead without opening the box to check. Thus, the cat can be considered simultaneously alive and dead until the box is opened.
Varol describes how Schrödinger created this thought experiment to illustrate logical flaws in the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum physics, which held that “superpositions” (being in two states at once) were possible for quantum particles. The famous thought experiment poked holes in this theory by making it more concrete—intuitively, we know a cat cannot be both alive and dead, so the idea of “superpositions” must be similarly false.
Can We Actually Learn Anything From Thought Experiments?
Philosophers are torn on whether the sort of “intuitive” solution that the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment produces actually counts as “knowledge.” Some philosophers are Platonists (named for Plato): They believe that thought experiments can generate real knowledge the same way scientific experiments can. Thus, in their view, we can consider the conclusion of Schrödinger’s thought experiment—that, intuitively, we know that just as a cat can’t both be alive and dead, superpositions cannot be true—knowledge, because the experiment doesn’t have to take place in the observable, “real” world to be valid.
Other philosophers are empiricists: They believe that empirical experiments (using the scientific method) are the only way to generate new knowledge. In this view, all thought experiments can do is help us remember things we’ve previously learned by observing the physical world. Thus, in their view, we can’t consider Schrödinger’s conclusion accepted knowledge, since he hasn’t definitively observed that a cat cannot be alive and dead (or that superpositions don’t exist)—the experiment took place in his head, rather than the (observable) real world.
Varol doesn’t take an explicit stand on this debate, but we can infer that he believes in taking the best of both worlds: Use thought experiments to come up with new ideas, then test them in the real world to see how they hold up. We’ll learn more about how to test ideas in Principle 7.
Here are Varol’s top tips for using thought experiments to spark your imagination:
1) Imagine yourself as a six- or seven-year-old child. You have no responsibilities, no bills to pay—your only job is to play and imagine. In those circumstances, where would your mind naturally wander? Remember, it’s all just play—you don’t have to commit to or implement anything you come up with during a thought experiment. There are no stakes. (Shortform note: Letting your mind wander like this may seem a bit pointless, especially if you’re not going to implement the ideas you devise. However, Essentialism author Greg McKeown argues that unfocused play is an essential precursor to creativity. Put differently, you simply cannot come up with new ideas unless you take the time to play.)
2) Let yourself feel bored. Varol argues that boredom is important and endangered. It gives the mind enough rest and space to expand and make new connections that it can’t make while distracted or laser-focused on a problem. To give yourself space for boredom (and, subsequently, creative inspiration) to kick in, try taking a shower, going for a walk, or spending time daydreaming. (Shortform note: Allowing yourself to feel boredom can be difficult because we’ve conditioned ourselves to expect constant entertainment through technology. As Cal Newport argues in Deep Work, ubiquitous technology has literally rewired our brains to be addicted to distraction.)
3) Try combinatory play—the act of combining dissimilar things. Combinatory play is important for creativity. For this reason, many successful people dabble in diverse fields in order to help them develop ideas in their primary field. For example, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull set up a program called “Pixar University,” in which employees can take classes in subjects like sculpting and juggling.
To take advantage of combinatory play, collect insight and experiences from as many different fields as possible. Read books and watch films about subjects well outside your area of expertise. Try taking a class in or attending a conference on a new subject.
Combinatory Play Lowers the Stakes
Varol doesn’t touch on another reason combinatory play is so powerful: It lowers the stakes. When you work within your own area of expertise, you may feel extra pressure to succeed—however, when you work on something outside your area of expertise, no one expects you to perform well. That way, you can take the pressure off yourself to come up with an earth-shattering idea, which frees your mind to pursue innovative solutions for their own sake.
In Creativity, Inc., Catmull describes how Pixar University classes take advantage of these lowered stakes to promote team bonding. Employees in these classes are trying something outside their usual field, so they’re all automatically beginners. This allows employees to transcend the usual hierarchy and create social bonds with people they may not otherwise interact with in the company.
According to Varol, one thing that holds us back from pursuing moonshots is cognitive bias. One powerful form of bias is confirmation bias: We’re more likely to seek out information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that contradicts those beliefs.
Another powerful bias is the narrative fallacy: We tell ourselves a story about the world around us and then cling (or “anchor”) to that story even when it’s being proven false in front of our eyes. Varol argues that this is especially dangerous when our opinions become part of our identities—in that case, changing our opinions on a subject threatens the very core of how we see ourselves.
The Origins of Bias and How to Avoid It
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman offers insight into how these biases develop. According to Kahneman, human thinking happens in two distinct systems: System 1 involves immediate, unconscious thinking and System 2 involves higher-level, deliberate, conscious thinking. We often call on System 2 to double-check our intuitive System 1 thoughts. However, Kahneman argues that in the case of confirmation bias, we often don’t think to call in System 2 because being proven right feels good emotionally, so System 1 doesn’t send up any red flags. A similar process happens with the narrative fallacy: The story we tell ourselves feels right, so we don’t think to question it.
So, how can we avoid falling into these cognitive traps? According to Kahneman, we’re more prone to biased thinking when our higher-level cognitive resources are taxed by exhaustion or stress. Therefore, to avoid bias, make your most important decisions when you’re relaxed and well-rested.
Varol says that scientists, on the other hand, see their initial opinions as working hypotheses, not as fact. Their goal is to test those hypotheses—which, in the best case, means trying to disprove them, not prove them. When scientists fail to disprove a theory, their faith in the theory grows; when they succeed, they advance knowledge for everyone (like how historical scientists advanced our understanding of the world by proving that the Earth is not flat). Scientists have no use for hypotheses that aren’t falsifiable because if there is no possible way of proving a theory wrong, you can never know if it’s right. (Shortform note: Hypotheses that can be disproven are called “falsifiable.” Falsifiable hypotheses can be disproven with a single piece of evidence to the contrary. For example, the hypothesis, “Our sun is the smallest star in the galaxy” can be disproven by finding a single star smaller than the sun.)
Varol offers two suggestions for overcoming bias:
1) Come up with more than one hypothesis. Varol argues that when you have one hypothesis, no matter how tentative, you’re guaranteed to anchor to it. To avoid that, come up with multiple hypotheses that conflict with one another. This will help prevent you from anchoring too much to any of them. (Shortform note: This advice is easier said than done, especially if you’re working on a project that you’re passionate about. According to Ryan Holiday in Ego Is the Enemy, passion can actually derail success when we get so caught up in one idea that we become unable to see any flaws in our ideas.)
2) Look at your beliefs as though they were someone else’s. This gives you some distance that can help you maintain objectivity.
However, you can only do this up to a point, as it’s impossible to identify all your own blind spots. To do that, you’ll need to run your opinions by other people and let them poke holes in your ideas. (Shortform note: In Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio recommends weighing other people’s opinions of your ideas based on how qualified they are to comment on the subject. Take the judgments of inexperienced people with a grain of salt.)
Before pursuing a new idea for achieving the seemingly impossible, successful people and companies conduct tests to ensure the idea will work as planned. According to Varol, successful tests must:
Rocket scientists test equipment in space-like conditions before launching it into space. According to Varol, their goal is to expose the equipment to as much stress as possible in order to find the breaking points. That way, they can fix those problems from the safety of Earth rather than waiting for them to develop during a space mission. (Shortform note: This happened in January 2021, nine months after Think Like a Rocket Scientist was published. NASA tested their new deep-space rocket’s engines, which were supposed to run for eight minutes but shut down after just one minute on the launchpad. While some politicians interpreted this as a sign of NASA’s decline, those inside the organization said the test gave them helpful information.)
Here are Varol’s suggestions for testing your ideas rigorously:
1) Conduct tests under real-life conditions. Don’t assume that you know how the tests will turn out, or that something like a survey (in which you ask people to imagine a certain outcome and predict how they’ll react) is actually representative of real life. Such tests can fall victim to the observer effect, or the fact that merely observing a situation tends to impact the outcome—in the case of an in-person survey, the results may be skewed because people modify their behavior when they know they’re being watched.
2) Don’t rely on one single tester. When you test something, Varol believes you either need multiple testers or you need a way to test the tester to ensure you can trust the results. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight but the numbers aren’t budging, it could be that your exercise plan isn’t working—or it could be that your scale is broken. Only by weighing yourself on a different scale will you be able to tell where the problem is.
(Shortform note: In The Design of Everyday Things, author Don Norman argues that testing should be an iterative process, not a one-time thing. In other words, test an idea with a small group of people (Norman recommends five to start), make any necessary adjustments, then test again with another small group. That way, you can run your idea by lots of people without having to gather a huge group all at once.)
How to Test Like Pixar
While testing under real-world conditions is ideal, there are tradeoffs to this type of testing—namely, it doesn’t allow you to control as many variables as laboratory testing. To strike a balance between real-world and controlled laboratory testing, you can create a miniature version of your ideal real-world conditions. You still get the benefits of real-world testing, but since the situation is only on a small scale, you have a better chance of controlling variables.
In Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull describes how Pixar uses its iconic short films as testing opportunities for new directors or animation techniques they’re considering using in feature films. The process of making a short film is similar enough to the process of making a feature film to be realistic but is more condensed and requires fewer resources. This gives the benefits of both real-world and laboratory-controlled testing.
When you shoot for the moon, you’re likely to experience at least a few failures on your way to success. Varol argues that failing and learning from failure are two very different things, and the former does not guarantee the latter. Failure stings, so it’s more common for people to brush painful failures off and quickly move to salvage their ego than to sit down and closely examine exactly what went wrong. (Shortform note: Examining failures in order to learn from them is important, but it should be done in moderation. According to Awaken the Giant Within author Tony Robbins, dwelling too much on failure can create limiting beliefs about your potential and sabotage your future attempts at success.)
According to Varol, rocket scientists have a complicated relationship with failure. Some missions (particularly those with human lives at stake) have very little room for failure. However, in every other scenario, failure is a normal part of life as a rocket scientist taking scientific risks. Therefore, scientists value “intelligent failure”: the kind of failure that can be learned from. Varol argues that good scientists approach their failures with genuine, disinterested curiosity. (Shortform note: According to Nassim Taleb in Antifragile, nuclear engineers adopted this mindset after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Now, engineers assume that some form of failure is inevitable, so modern nuclear reactors are designed with built-in protections in the case of catastrophic failures.)
Here’s how Varol believes you can best learn from failure:
1) Cultivate psychological safety (an environment in which employees feel free to take smart risks and fail). To do this, Varol says, companies can reward “intelligent failures” either with compensation or praise and set a good example by having leaders share their failures publically. (Shortform note: According to The Culture Code author Daniel Coyle, another way to cultivate psychological safety is to encourage your team to have fun and genuinely enjoy themselves. This promotes a strong group bond and helps people feel safe to share their failures.)
2) Shift your thinking from short-term gains to long-term success to ensure you learn from each failure. This can help take the sting out of failure, which hurts in the short term but can be a valuable learning experience in the long run. (Shortform note: David Goggins, author of Can’t Hurt Me, recommends using a journal to process your feelings after a failure and help you learn from it. Try answering questions like, “How did the failure affect your relationships with others?”)
3) Consider the underlying causes. According to Varol, when something goes wrong, it’s tempting to identify the most obvious cause, fix that, and consider the whole issue resolved. However, the most obvious cause is often just a symptom, not the root of the problem. Dig deeper and find the root cause to truly solve the problem.
Address the Real Issue, Not the Symptom
Looking beyond the obvious symptoms to the hidden cause of an issue is difficult but important. Journalist Johann Hari opens his book, Lost Connections, with a story that illustrates this point. While on a trip to Vietnam, Hari became seriously ill with severe nausea. When he begged the doctors for anti-nausea medication, they refused: The nausea was only a symptom, but it could give them important information about the nature of his illness.
Later, Hari learned that the nausea was a clue that his kidneys were shutting down, and listening to his symptoms had literally helped save his life. Similarly, when we wallpaper over the most obvious symptoms of a problem, it can obscure the real issue and prevent us from truly learning from the experience.
When you’ve finally achieved what once seemed impossible, avoid the trap of complacency. According to Varol, success can be as dangerous as failure because we underestimate the role that luck plays in success. That’s because when we succeed, we don’t analyze our strategy as much. We think, “It worked, so it must have been a good strategy,” even though that’s not necessarily true. (Shortform note: In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that ignoring the role of luck in success is a common human fallacy. However, according to Taleb, the bigger the success, the more likely it is that luck was the key determining factor.)
Varol believes that success isn’t final, and as humans, we’re never done growing. Therefore, even when you succeed, don’t think of yourself as having “won.” That mindset is dangerous—you think you’ve already succeeded, so you no longer need to work hard or monitor your progress. Some of the most successful people in history thought of themselves as works in progress, not established champions. This prevented them from becoming complacent. (Shortform note: According to Superforecasting authors Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, this constant drive for self-improvement is a common trait in “superforecasters”—people who can predict the future with better-than-average accuracy. In fact, Tetlock’s research shows that this mindset is three times more important than any other factor in determining superforecasters’ success.)
The other principles in this book are structured around examples of things rocket scientists do well. However, Varol centers this principle on two famous failures in the field of rocket science: the fatal explosions of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. Varol argues that the underlying cause of both disasters was complacency caused by a string of previous successes. This complacency prevented NASA’s leadership from critically examining small problems with the Challenger and Columbia launches—similar issues had worked themselves out in the past, so NASA leaders mistakenly assumed the same would automatically happen this time.
(Shortform note: In The Chimp Paradox, Steve Peters argues that complacency isn’t the only common reaction to success. Sometimes, success can also generate a paralyzing fear that we won’t be able to repeat the performance. In the case of the Challenge and Columbia disasters, it’s possible that this fear of failure and the accompanying pressure to succeed pushed NASA leaders to take unnecessary risks rather than publicly admitting to a problem.)
Here are Varol’s tips for learning from success and avoiding complacency:
1) Pay attention to “near misses”—successful experiences where things almost went terribly wrong but didn’t—instead of waiting to learn from spectacular successes or failures. (Shortform note: Varol argues that it’s easy to overlook “near misses” and lump them with other successes, but other authors disagree. For example, in David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell describes how people who survive a traumatic experience often view it as a “near miss”; however, the traumatic experience often becomes a sticking point in their lives and is neither easy to forget nor classed as a success.)
2) Always analyze your decisions, and do so objectively. Before making a decision, Varol recommends using a premortem analysis—a thought experiment in which you assume that you’ve already made a particular decision and it went horribly wrong. Try to explain what went wrong, then come up with ways to avoid those pitfalls. As you go, list a rough probability for each possible issue. This will give you a clearer picture of the situation before you begin a new venture. It’ll also prevent you from slipping into complacency and assuming things will go right. (Shortform note: According to The Obstacle Is the Way author Ryan Holiday, this technique dates all the way back to Stoic philosophers. The philosopher Seneca advised his students to plan their reactions to potential negative outcomes in advance so they’d never be caught off guard.)
After making a decision, Varol recommends using a postmortem analysis to figure out what went wrong (and what went right) in something that already happened. When you conduct a post-mortem analysis, ask yourself which parts of the outcome were due to luck and which were due to good decisions or skill. (Shortform note: If you lead postmortems for a team, be sure to vary your questions after each project, as Catmull advises in Creativity, Inc. Otherwise, your team may begin to predict your questions, leading to less critical thinking on the spot.)
Varol believes the best way to learn from success is to examine your “near misses.” Let’s try that now.
Describe your most recent “near miss”—a time when you got lucky, or an experience that went well but could easily have gone very poorly.
Think of the steps leading up to the near miss. What did you or your team do well?
In the steps leading up to the near miss, what could you or your team have done better?
If you undertake a similar project in the future, what changes will you make to the process based on this analysis?