Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

Look at any monstrous company or bloated bureaucracy collapsing under its own weight, and you’ll find a historical lack of curiosity.

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 Over time, our organizational arteries get clogged with outdated procedures.

The journey cannot end once the mission is accomplished. That’s when the real work begins. When success brings complacency—when we tell ourselves that now that we’ve discovered the New World, there’s no reason to return—we become a shadow of our former selves.

“When it comes to idea generation,” Adam Grant writes in Originals, “quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”

In solving problems, we instinctively want to identify answers. Instead of generating cautious hypotheses, we offer bold conclusions. Instead of acknowledging that problems have multiple causes, we stick with the first cause that pops to mind. Doctors assume they have the right diagnosis, which they base on symptoms they have seen in the past. In b

Although we glamorize rocket scientists, there’s an enormous mismatch between what they have figured out and what the rest of the world does. Critical thinking and creativity don’t come naturally to us. We’re hesitant to think big, reluctant to dance with uncertainty, and afraid of failure. These were necessary during the Paleolithic Period, keepin

Changing the world one problem at a time requires delaying gratification. Most things in life are “first-order positive, second-order negative,” as Shane Parrish writes on his website Farnam Street.37 They give us pleasure in the short term but pain in the long. Spending money now instead of saving for retirement, using fossil fuels instead of rene

To think like a rocket scientist is to look at the world through a different lens. Rocket scientists imagine the unimaginable and solve the unsolvable. They transform failures into triumphs and constraints into advantages. They view mishaps as solvable puzzles rather than insurmountable roadblocks. They’re moved not by blind conviction but by self-

every annual letter to Amazon shareholders, Jeff Bezos includes the same cryptic line: “It remains Day 1.” After repeating this mantra for a few decades, Bezos was asked what Day 2 would look like. He replied, “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.