Before Step One there is Step Zero
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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.
You are a follower, not having any space to decide what you really want to do.
Successful people are unusually good at Step Zero, even though not many of them start out that way.
We usually understand that we’re supposed to work hard to be successful. That makes sense: successful people work hard. But how did those successful people decide what they should be working on? That is never shown, and that is the Step Zero.
- 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.
RELATED IDEAS
Startups take off because the founders make them take off.
Generally, startups take a push to get them going. Once they are on the track, they will usually keep going, but there is a separate and robust process to get them on a roll.
It doesn't happen automatically. It requires thinking and reflection. No one likes to fail, lose time and energy. That’s why we need to make an effort to learn from the things that we wish we didn’t do.
A startup is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem.
Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four.
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