When you have a task, the first thing you normally do is to start working on Step One. But there’s a step before Step One, and it’s more important: the step where you decide which task you should work on in the first place. 

• The default option isn’t always the wrong one, but it’s always riskier than it looks.
• The comfort zone of the default option is a dangerous situation and mindset to be in.

When you skip Step Zero, you end up on whatever default path is for people in your situation. You become a doctor because that’s what people in your family, ethnicity, or in-group do. You go to grad school because that’s what people with your academic background do. 

Successful people are unusually good at Step Zero, even though not many of them start out that way. 

Step Zero is obvious the same way your blind spot is obvious: always front and center, but never quite in focus.