Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…I really like to start by just imagining what is the future that you actually want? What is the world that you want to live in? What is the future of transportation? What is the future of healthcare? What is the future that you want to live in and exist in? And for example, right now I have a wall in my house in my office, which is my vision for what I'd like the world to look like in 2050. And so it's not necessarily that you can bring that into existence or you can will that into existence, but just to start to get clearer on what you would like that world to be like. Would you like it to be more inclusive? Would you like it? For me, one of the things I desperately want is everyone on this planet to have their basic human needs met. What are those things that you believe are so important that you would love to see exist in that future? And I think an exercise we often do is what is wild success for X, or what is wild success for Y? And then equally, what is terrible failure for those things? And you can apply that just to abstract thinking in different industries. You can do that, apply that. We do that for the whole company for different areas of the company. And I think just taking that very long timescale of 10 years and getting a really crisp idea of what you want, of what you don't want, that's sort of the first step. And I think a lot of people don't spend quite enough time imagining that. And then the next part is you don't want to just have this crazy big dream and then do nothing about turning it into reality. You kind of want to have a ladder that goes all the way up to the moon, which is your crazy, wild vision. And then you want to have rungs that just work its way up step by step. And so you want to get that really clear picture of the future that you would like and then just take little step, after little step, after little step. And it doesn't matter how small that first step is or how seemingly inconsequential if it is working towards that future that you want to will into existence, then you'll keep on climbing up that ladder in the right direction. I think a lot of people hearing this might feel like, "I do this. Yeah, I have a vision. I know where I'm going. I have this big idea." What do you think they might be missing about just what this actually means and why they're probably not thinking big enough, they're not making the time to think this. I think it is easy to be discouraged by the two, because they're completely two complete odds. They're completely different ends of the spectrum. So one is dreaming about the future, not that you think you can will into existence, it's just the future that you want. And then the next part is taking the tiny step that might be extremely microscopic and it feels a little embarrassing to be like, "I want a future that is," whatever it might be. And then to take such a microscopic step because I think you often have the future in one side or don't spend much time thinking about that. You're just thinking about the bricks before you. And so I think it's also naturally we all get distracted by day-to-day. It's your email, your Slack, the things that are kind of in your face, the reality that lives around you every day that kind of pulls you into this moment right now. And so I think actually just making time to spend thinking about that is probably one of the most critical pieces. Just literally dreaming what is wild success in 10 years, what is terrible failure in 10 years is a really great place to start, is just spending some time there. And then even if that is so big and so vast and so wild, having that very first step is so important because then you take that little tiny first step and then the next step then that compounds for us, it's been compounding over a decade as we continue to work towards that same mission and vision.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.