Think Like a Rocket Scientist

Musk’s selling point was that the engineers would “have the freedom to actually do their job—build a rocket—rather than sitting in daylong meetings, waiting months for a parts request to wend its way through a bureaucracy, or fending off internal political attacks

The hurdle to taking moonshots isn’t a financial or practical one. It’s a mental one.

The primary obstacles to moonshots are in your head, reinforced by decades of conditioning by society. We’ve been seduced into believing that flying lower is safer than flying higher, that coasting is better than soaring, and that small dreams are wiser than moonshots.

What you strive for becomes your ceiling.

“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

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success,” says James Cameron,

There’s far less competition for antelopes. Everyone else is busy chasing mice in the same crowded, rapidly shrinking territory.

The story we choose to tell ourselves about our capabilities is just that: a choice. And like every other choice, we can change it.

The story we choose to tell ourselves about our capabilities is just that: a choice. And like every other choice, we can change it. Until we push beyond our cognitive limits and stretch the boundaries of what we consider practical, we can’t discover the invisible rules that are holding us back.

Imagine a glass bottle with its base pointed toward a light. If you put half a dozen bees and flies into the bottle, which species would find its way out first?

The flies are the divergent thinkers, fluttering freely until they find the exit. The bees are the convergent thinkers, zeroing in on the seemingly most obvious exit path with a behavior that is ultimately their undoing.

Divergent thinking is a way of generating different ideas in an open-minded and free-flowing manner

The goal is to create a flurry of options—both good and bad—not prematurely judging them, limiting them, or choosing among them.

Einstein also explained, “is not a work for logical thought, even if the final product is bound in logical form.”

To activate divergent thinking, you must shut down the rational thinker in you, the part responsible for otherwise safe, beneficial grown-up behaviors. Set aside the spreadsheets, and let your brain run wild. Investigate the absurd. Reach beyond your grasp. Blur the line between fantasy and reality.

divergent thinking is a portal to creativity.

The “should” group zeroed in on the most obvious solutions—often not the best ones—but the “could” group stayed open-minded and generated a broader range of possible approaches.

“Convergent thinking alone is dangerous because you’re just relying on the past. What will succeed in the future may not resemble what succeeded in the past.”

Divergent thinking does not mean thinking happy thoughts, sprinkling some pixie dust, and watching them take flight.

We have to generate ideas first before we can begin evaluating and eliminating them. If we cut the accumulation process short—if we immediately start thinking about consequences—we run the risk of hampering originality.