Order of Man - How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist ｜ OZAN VAROL

00:00:00.000 We've all heard the term. It's not rocket science and how that's true of most conversations and

00:00:04.720 topics and activities. There are benefits to thinking about problems the way that a

00:00:08.960 rocket scientist does today. I'm joined by Ozan Varol, a rocket scientist who formerly worked

00:00:14.560 with NASA. In today's conversation, we talk about what it means to test as you fly and fly as you

00:00:19.580 test the difference between strategies and tactics and why it matters, why it's important to give

00:00:24.700 your mind space to play and why thinking like a rocket scientist will help you make giant leaps

00:00:31.260 in your personal and professional life. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest.

00:00:36.840 Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more

00:00:42.540 time. Every time you are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your

00:00:49.760 life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is

00:00:55.480 said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is

00:01:00.540 Ryan Mickler and I am the host and the founder of this movement, The Order of Man. I'm glad that

00:01:05.060 you're tuning in, which is probably a little bit less than you normally would because you don't have

00:01:09.600 your long commutes that you're used to, or maybe you're not working out at your traditional gym.

00:01:14.400 So I understand that for many of you, it's been interesting to say the least in trying to find

00:01:20.700 your routines and your habits and your systems in the wake of everything being shaken up and stirred

00:01:25.800 and mixed up. And either way, whatever's going on in your life, I'm glad that you're tuning in.

00:01:30.640 This is very important that we continue to have these conversations regarding what it means to be

00:01:34.460 a man, how to make ourselves more capable as men, and then stepping up, of course, in our lives and

00:01:40.400 the lives of the people that we love and care for. That's our responsibility and our obligation.

00:01:44.920 And frankly, our honor. I know for me, as I step into my role as a husband and a father and a

00:01:51.280 business owner, a leader in my community, a neighbor, a friend, whatever it may be that I'm

00:01:55.900 definitely more fulfilled and satisfied in my life. So this is a podcast and a movement to encourage

00:02:00.320 you to do the same, and then give you the resources you need to become more capable of doing. So

00:02:05.860 I've got a really good and interesting conversation lined up with you today.

00:02:09.760 The guy's name is Ozan Virol. He's a former rocket scientist. I'm going to talk a little

00:02:15.680 bit more about him in a second. Before I get into that, I do want to mention my friends and

00:02:21.100 show sponsors. Normally I introduce origin right here, and I would certainly check them

00:02:25.880 out. But today I want to talk with you about another friend of mine, Bert Soren over at Sorenx

00:02:31.500 and the entire Sorenx crew. These guys make world-class top-notch exercise equipment. It's very

00:02:37.580 high end. Frankly, it's expensive, but of course you get what you pay for. It's high quality,

00:02:42.060 but they have stepped up in a time of need. And they realized that a lot of men aren't working

00:02:47.840 out at their traditional gyms, but still want to work out. And so they've made and created

00:02:51.840 in a space of, I think, less than a week, a very inexpensive, affordable rack that you guys

00:02:59.160 can purchase. It's called the off grid rack and mine should be here. I believe it should

00:03:06.480 be here today or tomorrow. So I'll make sure I post some pictures so you guys can see it.

00:03:10.600 But again, very inexpensive and affordable way to get yourself a rack so that you can work

00:03:15.460 out and continue to train in your basement or your garage or on the side of your house

00:03:20.620 or whatever. So go check it out. Sorenx, S O R I N E X.com. It's called the off grid rack.

00:03:28.720 And then a hundred percent of the profits from that rack are going to an organization called

00:03:35.040 coaches versus COVID-19. Again, the off grid rack by Sorenx, good people, a hundred percent made

00:03:41.900 in America doing great things. Go check it out. Sorenx.com, the off grid rack. All right,

00:03:47.780 guys, with that said, let me get into the introduction. Again, my guest today is Ozan

00:03:52.560 Verol. He is, or was born in Istanbul at the age of 17. He moved to the United States alone

00:03:59.980 by himself to study astrophysics at Cornell. And while he was there, he served on the operations

00:04:06.720 team for the Mars exploration rovers. And then if that wasn't enough, he then pivoted and graduated

00:04:12.460 first in his class from law school. And he also earned the highest grade point average in

00:04:17.080 his law school's history. So obviously this is a very intelligent human being that we get to have

00:04:23.120 a conversation with today. He now teaches law as a professor and his works have been featured in

00:04:28.780 the wall street journal, newsweek time, CNN, and the Washington post today. He's here to share some

00:04:34.640 of his knowledge with us from his book. Think like a rocket scientist. Ozan, thanks for joining

00:04:41.220 me on the order of man podcast. Right. And I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having

00:04:45.660 me on. Yeah, you bet. Uh, I, I can't remember who got us in touch initially. Maybe it was your,

00:04:50.180 your publicist or publisher, but, uh, got this book, think like a rocket scientist and I'm excited

00:04:55.840 to dig into it today. Awesome. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's do it. It's important conversations. You know,

00:05:01.280 we always hear the phrase that, you know, this isn't rocket science, but in your case, you know,

00:05:05.840 some of what your background is, is, is quite literally, it is rocket science. And, uh, and I

00:05:11.900 think it's good because a lot of the times we, and look here, here's what I fall into. I wonder if

00:05:16.340 we're opposite this way. I'm really curious about this. I tend to think less and react more. And I

00:05:24.040 wonder if you fall on the other side of that spectrum, like how would you define yourself when

00:05:29.220 it comes to thinking versus acting and finding that balance for yourself? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I,

00:05:34.540 I tend to find practical applications more interesting than, than theory. Um, so then just

00:05:41.080 to give your listeners a little bit of background here, I majored in astrophysics and in college

00:05:45.960 and then worked on the operations team for the 2003 Mars exploration rovers project, which

00:05:51.120 sent two rovers to Mars. But then I pivoted and went to law school and ended up becoming a law

00:05:56.680 professor, which is my, my day job currently. Um, and one of the, one of the reasons why I did

00:06:04.080 that was because honestly, with the substance of the astrophysics classes I was taking, there was

00:06:10.060 too little practical application. Um, and it was all very theoretical and I've always been more

00:06:16.460 interested in, in practical applications compared to, to theory. And to go back to your question about

00:06:22.680 whether, you know, the, the balance between thinking less and, and doing more, I'm probably

00:06:28.900 somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. And many of my classmates were definitely very firmly on the,

00:06:35.160 on the, on the, on the think side of the spectrum. And so it wasn't a great fit for me. I was thinking

00:06:39.720 about going and getting a PhD in astrophysics and that just would have been miserable.

00:06:44.280 Yeah. Well, uh, and I, you know, I gotta be honest, I, from my perspective, I'm like,

00:06:48.560 oh, and then you go to law school. I'm like, I don't know if that's, that's, that's quite the move

00:06:52.980 either, but it sounds like it's worked out well for you, man.

00:06:55.040 Well, I mean, you know, law school is, I remember, um, so I went to Cornell for, for undergrad and so

00:07:01.220 I was an astrophysics major and my senior year, I was seriously thinking about doing something else.

00:07:05.380 And so I took this law class that was taught by a Cornell law professor, but he teaches it only

00:07:11.560 for undergrads. And so you go in, you read real cases and he uses the Socratic method, which is like

00:07:18.120 he'll cold call on a student and then it's question and answer. You're, you're on the spot. And it felt like

00:07:23.500 a breath of fresh air to me. Uh, it was like, you know, we were reading these real disputes between

00:07:29.340 real people and real businesses. So for me, that was a lot more hands-on and practical,

00:07:35.800 like something that I can sink my teeth into compared to say, you know, the quantum mechanics

00:07:41.660 classes I was taking.

00:07:43.000 Right. Yeah. I could see how that would be a challenge. You know, it's interesting as we think

00:07:46.440 about these, and I don't know if it's a spectrum necessarily. I don't know if that's the right term,

00:07:50.420 but you get the point, you know, between thinking and acting. And it seems to me that the people who

00:07:55.200 act need to think a little more and the people who only think probably need to act a little bit

00:07:58.480 more. So it's like trying to balance yourself out based on your strengths and weaknesses and

00:08:02.520 what's going to serve you best.

00:08:04.280 I agree with that completely. And one of the things I'm doing this year is actually trying

00:08:07.800 to consume less and create more just because sometimes acquiring knowledge can be an excuse

00:08:14.760 for not actually implementing it. I mean, you can, you can read every self-help book known to man.

00:08:19.740 You can take every online course available, but if you're not actually executing it and you're

00:08:24.980 simply collecting information, that information becomes an obstacle to doing. So I completely

00:08:30.420 agree with you on there. But I think there was a happy medium that many people are missing right

00:08:34.860 now. Yeah. It is interesting because I'm in the quote unquote self-help space and I've actually

00:08:39.840 thought very much the same when it comes to books. You know, I used to, I used to wear the number

00:08:44.460 of books that I read as a, as a badge of honor, right? The more books I read, the better I was.

00:08:48.660 And, and what we do is we trick ourselves into thinking that we're actually moving the needle,

00:08:53.200 right? Like consumption is important, but at some, at some point we've got to produce.

00:08:58.480 And if, uh, if the production is, or excuse me, if the consumption is at the expense of the

00:09:04.420 production, it's not, it's not healthy for anybody. I agree completely. Yeah. I am really

00:09:09.240 interested about, you know, the title of the book is think like a rocket scientist. And I like how you

00:09:13.620 broke out the book into segments. Stage one, launch two is accelerate three is achieve.

00:09:18.840 It seems to me that stage one would actually be thinking, strategizing, planning, and you start

00:09:26.000 with launch. So help me understand that a little bit. Yeah, exactly. So the first stage is all about,

00:09:31.600 um, conceiving the idea. And there's a number of sub stages involved in that. Um, so for example,

00:09:38.780 the, um, the second chapter in the book is about first principles thinking. Um, because often when

00:09:45.000 we start thinking or when we start doing, like if you're more into, into the practicalities and you

00:09:50.880 jump into, into doing mode, we're too stuck with what we've done in the past and what other people

00:09:57.960 have done. So we look at, you know, people who came before us, say you're thinking about launching

00:10:03.360 a podcast or a blog, you look to what they've done. And then we copy what they did with little

00:10:08.460 variation, uh, businesses sort of look at the rear view mirror and do what they did yesterday.

00:10:13.220 And so first principles thinking, which appears in that first stage launch of the book, for example,

00:10:17.560 is a way of looking at the assumptions that you're operating under and actually questioning them.

00:10:24.920 So often the analogy I use, I think at one point in the book is like being in a jail cell,

00:10:30.200 uh, we're operating in this jail cell, but we're not even aware that the iron bars are there.

00:10:35.460 We're just simply doing what we're doing. You're free to open the door and leave anytime,

00:10:40.280 by the way, the jail cell was constructed by us. It can be modified by us, but we're so stuck in,

00:10:46.540 um, in the grooves of, of habits, uh, based on routines and processes that we have in place that

00:10:52.840 it becomes really hard to, to step back and say, you know what, I can actually leave. Uh, so one of the

00:10:59.040 examples I give in the book for, uh, for, um, a real life person who's put that into practices

00:11:05.060 is Elon Musk. When he started SpaceX, one of the deeply held assumptions. So this was the jail cell

00:11:11.860 that all rocket scientists, all traditional aerospace companies, I should say were operating

00:11:16.800 under was that rockets couldn't be reused. So once a rocket sends, it goes up to space and delivers

00:11:23.280 as cargo, it would either burn up in the atmosphere or plunge into the ocean and it couldn't be reused

00:11:29.840 again. Now imagine for a moment doing the same thing for commercial flights, like, you know, you fly

00:11:37.000 from, you fly from Portland to New York and then all the passengers leave the plane and then somebody

00:11:41.300 comes up to the plane and just torches it. Just demolishes it, right? Yeah, exactly. And that's what we

00:11:45.520 did for rockets for decades. And a Boeing 737 is actually about the same price as a modern rocket,

00:11:51.520 but commercial flights are so much cheaper because those planes can be reused over and over again.

00:11:58.600 Yeah. And so, you know, first principles thinking looks at that and says, well, okay,

00:12:03.480 this is an assumption that we're all operating under the traditional aerospace companies,

00:12:07.420 at least. Is there a better way of doing this? Is there a way of creating complete and quick

00:12:11.920 reusability so rocket stages can be reused over and over again? And there's still quite a bit of work

00:12:17.580 to be done to get there, but both SpaceX, which is Elon Musk's space company, along with Blue Origin,

00:12:24.340 which is Jeff Bezos' space company, have made quite a bit of headway there in terms of recovering

00:12:29.940 used rocket stages and then, you know, sending them back out to space like certified pre-owned

00:12:36.480 vehicles. So that's one way of reframing ideas or questioning assumptions when you're in that

00:12:43.780 initial, initial thinking stage when you're thinking through what you're going to do.

00:12:47.800 Yeah. It's interesting. You know, if, if we were to fast forward a hundred years or a thousand years,

00:12:52.040 those, those, uh, those people are probably going to ask or, or, or look at the way that we've done

00:12:56.820 it now currently or moving into is like, that's just the way you do it. And they'll think that

00:13:01.300 the way it was done a hundred years earlier was so barbaric, right? Like why would they do it that

00:13:05.420 way? Almost just foreign. I guess the question though, is how do you know what is a principle,

00:13:13.780 you know, a foundational principle that you can operate off of and what is an assumption that

00:13:18.500 you just have bought into? Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. And it's hard to tell the difference

00:13:26.200 until you really break apart a system and, and you try to get to the fundamental components. And

00:13:32.500 sometimes you reach those fundamental components, take something away, and then the system stops

00:13:36.900 working. Um, and then, you know, you've sort of uncovered a raw material that you can't do,

00:13:43.040 do without. And so this goes to the doing part and the testing part, but often to be able to sort

00:13:48.960 of hack through the assumptions that you're operating under, you might actually hack through a core

00:13:53.460 component. Um, but if, as long as you're, you're testing and not implementing right away, um, you can

00:14:01.160 contain the damage and you can realize, well, okay, this is one of the core components that can't be

00:14:05.180 removed from the system. And so I'm going to leave it in there, but I'm going to experiment with the

00:14:09.500 others. Right. I mean, that has to still work, right? Like if it can't work, then you probably

00:14:15.400 have dug too far. Right. Exactly. Or maybe, maybe not even with the principles, you know, I'm thinking

00:14:21.580 about in the context of, of ingredients, right? Is, is maybe you don't need to take that out

00:14:28.140 altogether, but can it be replaced, right? Is there something else that's more effective? You

00:14:31.880 think about cars, for example, do they need to run on fossil fuels or can they be run on

00:14:36.340 solar power or water or whatever? Fill in the blank. You're, you're way more familiar and,

00:14:41.500 and, uh, fluent in that language than probably I am. No, that's, I think that you're spot on Ryan.

00:14:47.480 And the, the other example that come to, came to mind is, is the raw materials of a rocket. Uh, rockets

00:14:53.660 used to use carbon fiber, but now one of the other things Elon Musk is doing is using stainless steel

00:14:59.520 instead, which is cheaper. Um, and so carbon fiber was assumed to be one of the non-negotiable raw

00:15:06.860 materials, but that also has been negotiated. So, you know, often I find that the, the, the correction

00:15:14.580 runs in the other direction. So it's not that people are questioning the raw materials and then

00:15:19.140 breaking the system is that they're not questioning assumptions enough. So they're not, I mean,

00:15:24.100 they're nowhere near the raw materials in terms of like questioning the assumptions and the processes

00:15:28.460 that we're operating under. And so, yeah, it can be a concern to question too much where you're

00:15:33.660 getting rid of a raw material, but, but the people I, I encounter on a daily basis, the corporate

00:15:39.420 executives that I work with are usually doing the opposite where they're not, they're not questioning

00:15:44.160 enough. Sure. The greater risk is that you're not thinking deep enough, not that you're

00:15:48.180 thinking too deeply. Right. Exactly. So let's, let's riff on, uh, on, uh, on Eli, Elon Musk here

00:15:55.000 for a minute. Sure. Why, like, what about him? Let me, let me back up and rephrase it a different

00:16:01.860 way. Why didn't somebody else think of this sooner? Like why, why, what about him makes him think the

00:16:08.620 way he does question these assumptions, create new ways of doing it and, and prove has proven time

00:16:14.780 and time again to be very, very innovative? That's a great question. Um, so the first thing that

00:16:20.800 popped to mind is he was an outsider to rocket science. So he was, you know, he found that PayPal,

00:16:28.900 which was initially x.com. And so he's coming from Silicon Valley from the internet world. Um,

00:16:35.860 and then once PayPal is sold to eBay and Elon cashes out, he goes to a beach in Rio. Although

00:16:44.940 his idea of beach reading, uh, wasn't the latest Dan Brown novel. It was the fundamentals of rocket

00:16:51.060 propulsion. And so he knew very little about rocket science and he picked it up by reading textbooks.

00:16:56.460 And one of the advantages that he has as an outsider is the ability to see things that the insiders miss.

00:17:05.160 So when you're, when you've been doing something for such a long time, uh, you're so ingrained in the

00:17:11.960 conventional wisdom that it becomes harder to step back and question assumptions and, and, you know,

00:17:19.280 see where the jail cell is that you're operating under. But when you're an outsider, like, like Elon was,

00:17:25.420 it becomes easier to come into a new industry and see these like seemingly obvious insights that

00:17:33.120 everybody else in that industry had missed. Um, and there's so many examples of, of people doing

00:17:40.100 this. Like the other example that came to mind as I was explaining it is Reed Hastings, who's the

00:17:44.880 co-founder of, of Netflix. I think he came to video rental from the finance world. Um, and he was,

00:17:54.180 he had incurred a bunch of late fees for, um, renting Apollo 13 from Blockbuster, I think. And,

00:18:00.200 you know, didn't return the movie in time. And so he's, um, he goes to the gym one day, he's on the

00:18:05.520 treadmill or whatever equipment he might be on. And, uh, and it, it dawns on him that with a gym

00:18:12.920 membership, you know, you pay 30 or 40 bucks a month and you can use it as much or as little as

00:18:19.160 you want. And he says, Oh, well, why don't we take that model and apply it to the video rental

00:18:25.400 industry where you pay a set fee every month and then you can rent as many movies or as little

00:18:30.400 movies as you want. And you don't have to deal with late fees that, that I had to, uh, had to pay for

00:18:35.780 renting Apollo 13. And that was the genesis of, of Netflix. And again, it's such a sim seemingly

00:18:41.760 simple idea, but it's, it's so hard to see it when you're, when you've been immersed into,

00:18:49.160 into that industry. It reminds me of a great quote by, I think this is Arthur Schopenhauer,

00:18:54.520 but he says talent hits a target that no one else can hit, but genius is a target that no one else

00:19:01.440 can see. Um, and in both the case of Hastings and Musk, I think they were able to see targets

00:19:07.660 that no one else could see because you know, amateurs, they were amateurs to the industry

00:19:13.340 that, that they were disrupting. Yeah. Amateurs. And then, and then a willingness to take some,

00:19:18.560 some risk as well. A lot of people can see these things. And I mean, how many people do you talk

00:19:23.480 with it that say, well, you know, I had that idea 10 years ago. Well, great. You didn't act

00:19:28.580 on it. So, so. Right. No, right. Exactly. Are you familiar with, uh, exactly. Are you familiar

00:19:36.040 with, uh, the, the blue ocean strategy, that book and the work? Okay. That's what, what this sounds

00:19:41.200 like. And, and for those of you who may not be familiar, it's, it's basically melding two industries

00:19:46.660 or two, uh, non-correlated ideas or thoughts into one and creating uncontested market space.

00:19:54.380 It's actually really interesting. Yeah. It's a great book. And, and, uh, the contrast to blue

00:19:59.980 ocean is the red ocean and it's red because everybody's fighting over the same fish and,

00:20:05.580 and, uh, everybody's going after the same low hanging fruit. But if you can create a new market,

00:20:10.760 find a blue ocean for yourself, then, you know, you're not competing with, with everybody else,

00:20:16.060 which is a, which is a huge, huge advantage. Um, and so, yeah, so certainly the ability to take

00:20:20.980 risks is, is another one, the ability to, to implement. I mean, as you said, it's, it's one

00:20:26.820 thing to conceive an idea, uh, to think about it theoretically, but it's something else completely

00:20:32.880 to actually put it into, into practice. So I'm sure, you know, the experiences of, of, of individuals

00:20:39.680 like Elon Musk have, have helped them as well, because this wasn't the first time Elon Musk

00:20:44.080 disrupted an industry. He's been doing that for much of his life. And so there's certainly other

00:20:49.980 things going on as well. Um, besides the factors that we mentioned. Yeah. This is why when we talk

00:20:55.700 with a lot of guys, for example, uh, and I'm trying to think about it in the context of what, you know,

00:20:59.800 most men would be experiencing, right? Most men aren't looking to start a, uh, uh, a company that's

00:21:05.160 going to fly people to, to space. Right. Right. But you know, they may, may be interested in,

00:21:09.900 in starting a new job or launching a business. And, and what a lot of these guys will say,

00:21:14.740 or even think is that, you know, I've wasted the last 20 years of my life in this career or this

00:21:19.920 pursuit. And now I'm going to pursue something completely different. I'm like, man, that's not

00:21:23.420 a waste. That's 20 years of experience that nobody else has. And you can see things in a way that nobody

00:21:28.980 else in this new industry does. Absolutely. And I see the same statements me made when it comes to

00:21:36.700 failure as well. Right. So people will say, well, I worked on this for a year and it failed

00:21:42.060 and it was a complete waste of time. Well, not necessarily. I mean, if you take, if you can

00:21:46.820 take what you learn from that failure of, of a year of trying something that not working and apply it

00:21:52.020 somewhere else, that's not a failure at all. That's an investment. It's an invaluable learning

00:21:57.060 opportunity. It's a data point that most other people don't have. Yeah. This, uh, this actually ties

00:22:03.160 in. We're fast forwarding here in the book a little bit. You had two, I think,

00:22:05.920 subchapters called, uh, nothing succeeds like failure. And then the next one is nothing fails

00:22:10.580 like success. It's a really interesting concept when you put the two together, nothing succeeds

00:22:14.760 like failure and nothing fails like success. Can you walk us through that? Sure. So to begin with,

00:22:22.920 with the first one, which we already started to talk about, which is nothing succeeds like,

00:22:26.840 like failure. Um, before I get into the substance of what I talk about, um, I do want to,

00:22:32.940 uh, riff on a little bit on this fast, uh, fail fast, fail often, fail forward mantra that's so

00:22:39.900 popular these days in, in Silicon Valley. Um, entrepreneurs are told to celebrate failure.

00:22:46.000 There are now conferences dedicated to celebrating failure. Um, there are these, uh, what are called

00:22:54.460 fuck up nights where people get together, thousands of people from all over the world, get together and

00:23:00.140 talk about their, their failures. Uh, Silicon Valley companies are now holding funerals for failed 0.97

00:23:06.620 startups complete with like bagpipes, uh, DJ spinning records, alcohol flowing freely. Wow.

00:23:14.160 I don't buy it. Yeah. I'm kind of on the page with you. Yeah. I don't buy it for two main reasons.

00:23:20.080 One is if you're celebrating something, you're not learning from it. Um, and two, no matter what

00:23:27.300 Silicon Valley tells you, failure sucks. The whoever says they celebrate failure and they don't mind 0.98

00:23:32.660 failing, I think is lying to you. Um, I failed more times than I care to remember in my life and

00:23:37.360 every time it sucked. Well, it's supposed to hurt. Like that's the point of failing is you don't want

00:23:42.580 to do it again. Right. And if it doesn't hurt, you're not going to learn from it again. I cite a

00:23:46.920 number of research studies in the book that basically explain, and one research is about

00:23:51.480 entrepreneurs and the other is about cardiac surgeons that when people fail, they often don't

00:23:56.600 learn from their mistakes because either they're celebrating their failures or the opposite.

00:24:00.540 they're blaming their failure on other factors. So they're blaming it on other people. They're

00:24:05.760 blaming it on bad luck as opposed to doing some internal soul searching and realizing what

00:24:12.380 mistakes they may have have made. And so one of the takeaways from that chapter is that it

00:24:19.040 can be just as dangerous to celebrate failure as it is to demonize it. So I think the goal should

00:24:27.300 be not to fail fast, but to learn fast and failure can be a really, really great teacher

00:24:35.280 if you know how to get the right lessons from it, which is why the title of the chapter is,

00:24:41.060 is nothing, um, nothing succeeds like, like failure. And I, you know, share a number of tactics in the

00:24:48.460 book about how, how people can, can learn from their failures, detect their failures, detect their

00:24:53.800 mistakes and learn from them. And then, as you said, the counterpart to that chapter is nothing

00:24:58.740 fails like success, which is the, the last chapter in the book. And, um, and the chapter opens with,

00:25:06.400 uh, one of the greatest disasters and rocket science history, which is the Challenger space shuttle

00:25:12.200 disaster. And, um, and in that case, uh, what happened was the O-rings on the shuttle and O-rings are like

00:25:20.300 these rubber bands, um, that sealed the solid rocket boosters to prevent hot gases from escaping.

00:25:27.680 They have performed this crucial function, but on the eve of Challenger's launch, the temperatures

00:25:32.720 at Cape Canaveral were just uncharacteristically cold. Um, and these O-rings tend to turn brittle in

00:25:40.200 cold weather and they have to be flexible to be able to perform their functions. A number of engineers

00:25:44.940 raised their hands and said, we should delay the launch, but the management overruled their

00:25:48.880 recommendations and, and, and went ahead with the launch and disaster ensued. And the, uh,

00:25:53.980 the recommendation to delay the launch was due to the cold. Like this was, this was an anticipated,

00:25:59.520 uh, potential error or, or something that would happen with these O-rings. Yep. Absolutely. 1.00

00:26:05.080 Absolutely. And six months before, and the NASA had been flying space shuttles with dangerous damage

00:26:12.100 to O-rings for about five years before Challenger. Um, and in each case, and this is getting to the,

00:26:17.460 to the title of the chapter, because nothing bad had happened to the shuttle itself,

00:26:22.460 the missions were all characterized as successes. Right. Right. You know, even though the O-ring 0.92

00:26:27.220 is damaged, you succeeded. So there was no reason to do things differently. But six months before

00:26:32.220 Challenger's launch, um, one of the engineers working on the, on the shuttle wrote a very prescient memo

00:26:39.200 saying, you know, if we don't do something about the problem with the O-rings, about the damage that

00:26:44.420 we're seeing on these shuttles that are returning back from space to, to their O-rings, the, the,

00:26:50.300 the, the result could be a catastrophe of the highest order, the loss of human life. He wrote

00:26:55.540 six months before Challenger and the memo was, the memo was ignored.

00:26:59.420 Is the, the hot gases escaping where they should be? Is it just that they're flammable? Is that,

00:27:04.140 is that the issue? Yeah, exactly. Um, and so, but the managers, the NASA managers were looking at

00:27:11.480 their past successes and saying, look, as long as we repeat the process that led to success in the

00:27:16.500 past, we're going to be okay. Right. Um, and then 17 years later, it happened again with,

00:27:22.860 with the space shuttle Columbia. And so NASA ended up fixing the technical problem that led to the

00:27:27.860 Challenger launch, but NASA didn't just have an O-ring problem. They also had a conformity problem.

00:27:33.540 And that problem, that underlying cultural flaw wasn't fixed. So then it happened again with the

00:27:38.940 Columbia where the technical flaw this time around was completely different. It was this foam piece

00:27:43.920 of foam that separated from the shuttle and struck the shuttle's thermal insulation, which is

00:27:49.540 responsible for protecting the shuttle from the heat of re-entry into the atmosphere. And a number

00:27:54.880 of engineers noticed the foam strike during the launch and they raised their hands and said, while

00:27:59.900 the shuttle was in orbit before it went back into the atmosphere to land, they raised their hands and

00:28:05.500 said, you know, we should ask the Pentagon to reroute some spy satellites to survey the damage in orbit

00:28:11.700 to see what can be done. But the managers, again, ignore the request on the basis that because foam

00:28:19.500 shedding, shedding had happened before and all of those missions were successful, um, then there is

00:28:26.480 no reason to do things differently. So success is a way of breeding complacency with the status quo.

00:28:32.380 So when we succeed, we assume everything went according to plan, right?

00:28:36.820 Too busy lighting cigars and popping champagne corks. We fail to realize that we succeeded despite

00:28:43.340 making a serious mistake or despite taking, uh, you know, a serious risk that we probably shouldn't

00:28:49.660 have been taking. And as a result, we don't learn from success. Um, and, and so it can be harder for,

00:28:56.980 and this is true for people and businesses, um, both, it can be harder for people and businesses

00:29:03.320 to survive their own success than to survive their failure. How do you, how do you identify that though?

00:29:09.420 Because, you know, I imagine with, with space shuttles, for example, there's certain tolerances

00:29:13.560 that these things can fall between and that's considered, you know, quote unquote safe or whatever

00:29:18.100 the term is. Like, how do you, how do you determine whether something ought to be analyzed or reviewed

00:29:26.020 or should everything be, you know, it's like, we only have so much time to focus on so many things.

00:29:31.620 So how do you determine what to focus your attention on?

00:29:34.780 Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so I think with, with the space shuttles in particular,

00:29:40.860 with the challenger in Columbia, uh, disasters, and these are well-trained engineers raising their

00:29:47.160 hands and saying this can lead to the loss of human life. So I think at that point, if you're

00:29:52.740 a manager, um, and you've got your people raising their hands and saying, look, something can go

00:29:59.400 seriously wrong with this. Um, I think in a case like that, where you've got someone with a very

00:30:05.120 well-trained guts that, you know, great experience saying we need to do something. I think it, it,

00:30:11.320 it makes sense to pay, pay attention to what they're saying, at least investigate, right.

00:30:15.980 Instead of just saying, well, we're just going to keep doing what we did yesterday.

00:30:19.420 Why hire though? It's, it's fascinating. It's like, why even bring those people on if you're not going

00:30:23.200 to heed their advice? Like, isn't that the point of having them?

00:30:26.040 Exactly. Totally. Totally. And so this, this goes into the, you know, the problem about conformity

00:30:31.260 and groupthink that I mentioned before. It's like, yeah, you're right. Why hire those people

00:30:34.920 if you're not going to listen to what they're saying. But as you can imagine, this is so common

00:30:39.220 across so many different industries. Yeah. You know, where CEOs bring in these brilliant people

00:30:44.240 to work for them and they don't, they don't listen to what they say. Um, and so, so that's

00:30:49.100 one aspect of it. And then the other aspect of it is, is, um, to, and this goes into the investigation

00:30:56.260 part. We tend to investigate what went wrong only after a failure, but we need to do that after

00:31:03.700 success as well. So don't just save the postmortems for catastrophic failures, but after you succeed,

00:31:11.080 and I, I do this in my own personal life too. Um, I look back and ask myself like, okay, so that was

00:31:17.880 great. That was a success, but what went wrong with that success? Right. Where were the points

00:31:23.420 of potential points of failure where I just got lucky? Um, and so I did this after I finished writing,

00:31:31.080 think like Iraq, a scientist. And, and for me, the writing process was overall a, a success,

00:31:38.180 but there were a number of points, um, in the writing process where things could have gone

00:31:43.660 haywire. So at one point in the process of writing the book, for example, I found myself in a complete

00:31:49.820 rabbit hole on this issue where I spent a month researching this very narrow question and didn't

00:31:56.680 write anything. Um, and if I kept digging down that rabbit hole, I would have blown the deadline.

00:32:01.840 Um, and so, but something I course corrected, I went back to, to the drawing board. I sort of

00:32:07.840 ditched all that research and actually ended up not including that point at all in the book,

00:32:12.540 but that was one point that was one point in the process where things could have gone sideways.

00:32:17.980 And so I'll do that review and then I'll create a set of criteria going forward. The next time I write

00:32:23.080 a book about what to do and what not to do, but most of us don't. And I, I wasn't doing this before

00:32:28.280 either, before I wrote the book, um, before, after I wrote the success chapter, I said, well,

00:32:32.780 I should probably, uh, walk the talk and apply this process to my own life. And that's been

00:32:38.260 really, really helpful to do that sort of review after you succeed when you're least likely to do it.

00:32:45.040 Man, let me, uh, let me hit the time out, the pause button real quick. Uh, I know a bunch of

00:32:49.540 you, like I said earlier, stuck at home with the fallout from Corona virus. And rather than binge

00:32:55.180 watch tiger shows on Netflix, I know that most of you, probably the overwhelming majority of you

00:33:00.800 would rather be doing something productive. Uh, and that's why I want you to join us in our

00:33:06.040 brotherhood, the iron council. I've seen a lot of online groups popping up over the past month or so,

00:33:10.600 but I'll tell you what, we've been working on this for the past five years, not the past five weeks,

00:33:16.120 the past five years to ensure that when you join with us, uh, you'll have a proven track record of

00:33:21.360 success to tap into. Uh, also when you band with us, you'll tap into the brotherhood and the

00:33:26.180 camaraderie that comes with it. You'll unlock access to our planning system, which is very important.

00:33:30.620 And of course, all the results it produces, but most importantly, uh, when this COVID-19 thing is

00:33:36.040 all over and it will be, uh, you'll be among the relatively few who took this time as an opportunity

00:33:42.060 to grow in every aspect of your life. And of course you'll be better off for it.

00:33:45.760 So if you're ready to band with us, or at least you want to know what it is we're doing,

00:33:49.040 then head to order of man.com slash iron council. Again, order of man.com slash iron council.

00:33:55.300 Go ahead and take a look, see what we're all about. And then lock in your seat again,

00:33:59.980 order of man.com slash iron council. All right, guys, do that after the show for now,

00:34:04.620 let's get back with Ozan. Yeah, I think it's natural tendency to fall into one of two camps.

00:34:09.960 One is, you know, you haven't been a success. And so you start to identify not as failing,

00:34:16.820 but being a failure, right? Like being a failure as a human being. Uh, and then I think there's

00:34:22.460 another camp that, you know, these guys have levels of success and naturally they just become

00:34:27.460 complacent and comfortable and think that, Hey, because I've done it this way and it seems to have

00:34:33.400 worked that if I continue to do the same thing, that I'll just continue to experience the same

00:34:37.740 results. And, you know, I run into that as well. It's like, as we've had success with this movement,

00:34:41.560 I'm realizing that in order to get to the next level or the next point, yes, there are first

00:34:47.760 principles, right? Like we talked about earlier, but there's also new things I need to apply and

00:34:51.520 new information I need to learn and new feedback I need to consider. Right. Absolutely. Um, and, uh,

00:34:58.540 and what you're doing, Ryan, I think is, is very rare, uh, because when, once people succeed,

00:35:02.940 they tend to just rest on their laurel laurels and, and, um, and not do things differently. Um,

00:35:09.480 I want to go back to something you mentioned at the beginning of that question, which is this

00:35:13.660 difference between our, when you fail thinking that I am a failure, uh, it's a really dangerous

00:35:19.420 way of thinking. And it's a very common way of thinking, but there's a huge difference between

00:35:24.000 saying I'm a failure versus this project failed. Right. Right. Because if you say this project failed,

00:35:30.840 it's no longer personal, it's no longer a part of your identity. Like you can distance it,

00:35:35.580 distance the project from yourself and realize that looking at that project that failed, you didn't

00:35:41.760 fail. You can try again with a different project and perhaps succeed. But once you put that distancing

00:35:47.020 between you two, learning becomes easier because now, okay, this project failed. Let's get curious

00:35:52.520 about what happened and why it failed and what can we learn from it? Whereas if you internalize it,

00:35:57.380 if you personalize it, it becomes really hard to, to take a risk again on a new project that

00:36:03.940 actually might end up succeeding. Well, it's just interesting because I think all of us have a

00:36:07.900 tendency to give meaning to phrases and words and experiences that aren't always there. Right.

00:36:14.580 So if you failed once, that doesn't mean you're a failure. If you identify it that way, you'll start

00:36:19.500 behaving that way and recreate those results. Uh, but also on the other side of the thing, we,

00:36:25.560 a lot of the times we, well, it's like this thing you were talking about where you're having

00:36:29.840 celebrations for, for failure. It's like, we try to reframe it in a way that makes us feel good

00:36:34.760 about it. It's like, just tell yourself the truth that you failed. You're not a failure. You fell short

00:36:42.560 like that and you can improve. And that truth is what's going to help you succeed moving forward.

00:36:49.720 But if you look at everything through the, the, the rose colored glasses, you're not going to

00:36:54.300 succeed. If you look at everything, like you're a loser, of course, you're not going to succeed. Just, 0.96

00:36:58.700 just tell it like it is and act accordingly. Exactly. And we tend to have a, an obsession with

00:37:06.260 grand openings, but the opening doesn't have to be grand as long as the finale is. So if you look at,

00:37:12.980 if you look at any major achievement in history, it didn't spring into existence overnight. Uh, there

00:37:19.920 was a trial and error process like Einstein's for several proofs for E equals MC square failed. Um,

00:37:26.520 Thomas Edison famously said, I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Um,

00:37:32.740 James Dyson, who was the British inventor spent over 15 years developing more than like 5,000

00:37:38.540 prototypes of this bagless vacuum before he settled on, on the one that worked. But if you can take

00:37:45.260 what, what, what didn't work from a failed project and apply it to something else, so if you're not

00:37:51.540 celebrating it, but if you're also not internalizing it, there's a happy medium there. Um, as you, as you

00:37:56.840 mentioned, where you can actually learn and grow from that, from that failure. Um, another favorite

00:38:03.020 example of mine, which I mentioned in the book is, um, in 1989, Pfizer, uh, developed this drug that was

00:38:11.340 intended to treat high blood pressure. And in clinical trials, the drug ended up being a failure.

00:38:18.720 Uh, but the male participants in the trial reported a strange side effect and that's how Viagra was born.

00:38:26.840 Right. Uh, so that's, that's sort of one example of taking what looks like a failed project, uh, to

00:38:33.600 treat high blood pressure and applying it to, to another field to, to create this revolutionary drug.

00:38:39.080 Well, and I think this, this ties into being open-minded about how all these things come

00:38:44.360 into consideration. Cause if you, if you scrap the project at, at first glance, you don't really

00:38:48.380 analyze what's happening or how it might apply to something else you're doing, then you're limiting

00:38:53.000 yourself to potential victories and successes. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, because often the, you know,

00:39:01.040 when, when something fails, um, it may have succeeded if things had gone slightly differently.

00:39:07.660 And so if you keep an open mind and if you see, okay, this particular angle failed, but if I pivot

00:39:13.460 just a little bit, I actually might hit the target. Um, and so, which is why this review process,

00:39:20.960 which we talked about after success, but certainly after failure as well can be really, really useful

00:39:27.760 because it's possible for good decisions to sometimes lead to bad outcomes. Um, certainly sometimes

00:39:35.020 bad decisions lead to bad outcomes too, but some of the decisions that you made that produced a failure

00:39:40.540 may have been good and you want to keep those in place. You don't want to scrap them. Um, and same

00:39:46.820 thing with success. Sometimes bad decisions lead to success. As we saw in the case of Challenger and

00:39:52.740 Columbia, the decision to, to launch, even though there was serious damage to the O-rings and pre previous

00:39:57.920 missions, you can make a bad decision and decision and you get lucky. And so you succeed. Um, so that's

00:40:04.400 why that review process is so important going back and looking at what, what happened and then sorting

00:40:11.100 the good decisions from the bad and keeping the good decisions, even though they produce a failure

00:40:16.060 in this instance. Yeah. I think it's important to remember that the, the adage that correlation does

00:40:22.640 not equal causation, right? So we might see the result of things and think, well, I got to scrap

00:40:27.560 this entire thing. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's, let's take a step back here for a second,

00:40:32.220 figure out, okay, was there, there's certain actions that led to that. And there's certain

00:40:35.700 actions that didn't, maybe we just take the bad and leave the good and drive on with that, which,

00:40:40.140 you know, ties into something that I actually was really interested, uh, in the book itself.

00:40:45.140 And you talk about reframing questions for better answers. That's actually something that we

00:40:50.920 address quite often here is because I heard a quote one time and I love this quote and it says,

00:40:55.560 the quality of your life will be determined by the quality of questions that you ask.

00:41:01.060 And, and I'm, I've always been fascinated with asking better questions and the guys that

00:41:05.900 have stuck around for any amount of time with the order of men stuff that we're doing know that it's

00:41:10.540 like, ask a better question. You're more likely to get a better answer. So I'm really curious, uh,

00:41:14.920 on your take on reframing questions. So you come to the right answers.

00:41:19.000 Yeah. I love that quote, Ryan. I hadn't heard it before, but that's, I think that's spot on because

00:41:23.960 we tend to assume that breakthroughs begin with a smart answer, but they actually begin with a smart

00:41:30.680 question. Um, and, uh, there's another quote that's often attributed to Einstein. There's actually

00:41:37.020 no evidence that he said it, but I liked the quote. Um, he says, if I have an hour to, to solve something,

00:41:45.040 to solve a problem, he would spend 55 minutes reframing and redefining the problem and five minutes

00:41:50.340 actually solving it. Um, because often spending some time, um, in that initial phase of, of coming

00:41:58.660 up with a better way of framing something is going to lead to, to much better answers. So I'll answer

00:42:04.820 that question by, I'm going to give an example that I mentioned in the book and, and then share

00:42:09.540 one of the many strategies that I talk about in that reframing questions chapter with, with the

00:42:14.940 listeners here. And the example is from my life, from the Mars project that I worked on. So I started

00:42:21.380 working on the operations team for this mission back in 1999. And at the time, our mission was to

00:42:27.140 send one Rover to Mars in 2001, and then one Rover to Mars in, in 2003. Um, and in 1999 was a really bad

00:42:36.040 year for, for NASA. Uh, one of the things that happened was this other mission that we were not

00:42:41.940 responsible for called the Mars polar lander crashed and it crashed most likely because of a

00:42:48.620 fault in its landing system. Now this wasn't our baby, but our mission was going to use the exact

00:42:55.260 same landing mechanism that the Mars polar lander had used. And that mechanism had just failed

00:43:00.660 spectacularly. So our mission was put on hold and we went back and we were trying to figure out ways

00:43:07.040 of like coming up with a system, a landing system that's actually going to work. And, um, and I

00:43:13.580 remember my boss, who was the principal investigator of the mission, he walked into my office one day

00:43:19.420 and he said, I just got off the phone with, um, this person at NASA who had just gotten out of a meeting

00:43:26.960 with the administrator of NASA and the administrator of NASA wanted him to ask my boss a very simple

00:43:33.180 question, which was, can we send two rovers instead of one? So instead of doing what NASA had been,

00:43:42.320 had been doing before, which is they would send one rover to Mars every two years, the NASA

00:43:47.640 administrator said, well, can we send two rovers at the same time as opposed to one? And it, it's such

00:43:54.280 a simple question going back to sort of first principles thinking and these obvious insights that

00:43:58.960 we often miss that no one had thought about asking before because the problem wasn't just the

00:44:05.540 landing system. Of course we were going to fix that. But even if you fix that, there's so many

00:44:10.020 things that can go wrong when you're sending this delicate robot 40 million miles through outer space.

00:44:16.240 And then it has to land on this surface that's, um, littered with scary looking rocks. Um,

00:44:23.740 and so instead of putting all our eggs in one spacecraft's basket, we ended up sending two

00:44:29.820 rovers instead of one. And then with economies of scale, when you're building, uh, two identical

00:44:35.400 things instead of one, the second part ends up costing just pennies on the dollar. Um, that's

00:44:41.040 interesting. That's what I was going to ask. It seems to me that it would be significantly more

00:44:45.200 expensive. And if they're identical, then it's like, how do you equate for new technology or new

00:44:51.500 ideas or feedback that would improve the, the rover in the next two years, for example?

00:44:56.860 Right. Yeah. So they are identical, but the way that you come up with something new and which is

00:45:04.440 what we ended up doing is to send the rovers to very different locations on Mars. Uh, so they actually

00:45:11.980 ended up on like the opposite sides of the planet. Um, and the landing sites were very different in terms

00:45:17.160 of their geography, uh, chemical composition and whatnot. And so double the rovers meant double

00:45:23.640 the science as well. Uh, and each rover ended up sort of finding very different things on,

00:45:29.520 on the, the opposite sides of Mars. Um, and you know, I'm so glad we sent two of these because

00:45:36.480 one of them, they were named spirit and opportunity. One of them, uh, we were, I should step back and say,

00:45:42.640 these were built to last for 90 days. So that was their, um, lifetime warranty. Um, one of them

00:45:49.200 spirit ended up lasting for six years before it got stuck on soft soil. The second one opportunity,

00:45:54.460 and I still get goosebumps every time I say this, but it ended up roving Mars for 14 years,

00:46:01.120 really 14 years into his 90 day mission all because someone there to step back and reframe the problem

00:46:10.440 and ask a question. What if we sent two rovers that no one had thought about asking before? Um,

00:46:17.460 so I dedicate a whole chapter to exploring this idea of, well, how do you reframe problems to

00:46:22.180 generate better answers? One of the ways you do it is to distinguish strategy from tactics.

00:46:29.920 So we tend to use those two terms interchangeably, but they actually refer to very different things.

00:46:35.500 A strategy is a plan for achieving an objective. And then tactics are like,

00:46:40.440 the actions you take, the tools you use to achieve that, that strategy. If we become too fixated on the

00:46:48.280 tactic, we often lose sight of the strategy. So then we don't notice other tactics that are

00:46:53.840 available to us. But once you zoom out, once you ask yourself, okay, well, I'm working with this

00:47:00.480 tactic, but what is this tactic actually there for? What is it intended to do? In our case, our strategy

00:47:07.480 was landing safely on Mars. And the tactic we were using was, okay, well, we have to come up with a

00:47:13.540 safe landing system, but that's not it. If you zoom out and look at the broader strategy of how do we get

00:47:19.180 these rovers safely onto the Martian surface, then it becomes easier to reframe the problem and see

00:47:26.660 other tactics that you may miss. And so one tactic that we had missed because we were way too focused on

00:47:33.600 fixing this faulty landing system was sending two rovers instead of one. So moving from the what's

00:47:39.100 to the why, why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we actually, what are we actually trying to

00:47:43.260 accomplish is really, really important. And if you zoom out asking that question, you're often going

00:47:48.960 to be able to identify other tactics, other tools that you can use that work a lot better than what's

00:47:55.480 sitting in front of you.

00:47:56.180 Yeah. I think this is really powerful because I know myself and plenty of men who listen,

00:48:00.400 they, we get so caught up in the minutia and the day-to-day activities and the tasks and the emails

00:48:06.400 and the responding to phone calls and filling out and filing this report. It's like, okay, like all of

00:48:12.640 that stuff, yeah, maybe is important, but I think every once in a while we ought to take a step back and

00:48:17.200 say, is this necessary? And, or is there a better way to do it?

00:48:20.840 Exactly. And another way of reframing that question or asking it is, am I fighting the

00:48:30.260 alligators or am I crossing the swamp? Because fighting the alligators, I mean, we all know how

00:48:36.760 to fight those alligators, how to, as you said, you know, answer a bunch of emails, attend endless

00:48:40.960 meetings, but are they actually moving the needle? Are we just fighting alligators for the sake of

00:48:45.940 fighting them? Or are we any cross, any closer to the other side of the swamp that we're in? And

00:48:54.140 often the answer is no. And so then you have to stop fighting the alligators, zoom out and figure

00:48:59.620 out a better way to, to try to do what you're, what you're actually trying to do.

00:49:03.360 This is interesting. And I think one of the, one of the misguided maybe, or even misunderstood

00:49:08.500 adages is, you know, like do hard things, right? We hear that a lot, especially in the space in

00:49:13.920 which I operate here. Like we want to be tough. We want to be resilient. We want to, uh, put

00:49:19.000 ourselves in difficult and demanding situations so that we can harden ourselves and be better.

00:49:23.740 But I think a lot of the times men interpret that as like doing it for the sake of it being

00:49:29.740 hard. It's like, no, it's like, it's good, but still it's gotta be moving you in the right

00:49:35.200 direction. Like you don't want to just get your, like punch your head against the wall a bunch

00:49:38.900 of times because you get to say you're tough and you can do it. It's like, what is that actually

00:49:42.840 moving you towards? And, and so having that at the forefront, I think it's very, very important.

00:49:48.200 And I, and this is something Ryan that I actually struggled with for most of my life. I mean, I've,

00:49:54.140 um, I've been in rooms with very smart people and I never felt like I was the smartest person there.

00:50:00.720 Um, but I always prided myself on my discipline. So I couldn't outsmart many of the people I was

00:50:06.640 working with, but I could out out discipline just about anybody I would tell myself. Um, and so

00:50:11.680 that meant for me is like, I wouldn't let myself experience joy unless there was pain involved,

00:50:17.760 unless there was like serious hard work involved and serious, painful hard work, hard work. Um,

00:50:23.780 and it's only been honestly within the past year where I'm starting to relax that mindset and letting

00:50:30.720 myself enjoy small moments and experience joy, even if there was no like hard work involved,

00:50:37.540 even if there was no pain involved and reframing that mindset. Uh, and it's still a work in progress

00:50:43.660 going from like, I'm going to work really, really hard on this to, I'm going to make really good

00:50:49.980 decisions. So focusing more on the quality of my decision-making process as opposed to focusing on

00:50:56.280 how hard I work. Um, and it's just the mentality that's been with me my whole life, the hard work

00:51:03.260 mentality. I mean, my, my dad was, uh, initially a blue collar worker. I grew up in Istanbul. I

00:51:08.940 definitely have that like immigrant mindset of like, you have to put in the hours, you have to sweat 1.00

00:51:14.080 and toil and switching from away from that mindset. Even though I now make my living as a, as a knowledge

00:51:20.740 worker has just been really, really difficult for me. Um, and it's only been in this past year that I'm

00:51:26.120 now focusing more on like, it's not about working harder than other people. It's about making better

00:51:32.160 decisions. Yeah. I mean, hard work is certainly a metric, right? Certainly something worthy of

00:51:37.580 measuring, but I think we get too focused on the wrong metric at times. Like another one that I hear,

00:51:42.900 and I'm really glad you brought this up is, and I've fallen into this trap is I, you know, I pride

00:51:47.720 myself on being gritty and tough and resilient. And so I'll, I'll bang my head against the wall because

00:51:56.080 I don't want to like be perceived as being a quitter. Right. It's like, right. Well, maybe that's

00:52:02.100 not the right wall to be banging your head against. So you're, you're defining your success

00:52:08.880 by grit when maybe I ought to define my success is like applying that grit towards the right

00:52:15.540 endeavor, the right pursuit, something that's actually meaningful for me and the people I care

00:52:19.880 about. Exactly. So you don't want to do the same thing over and over again, just for the sake of

00:52:26.300 persisting and having grit, if it's not actually moving the needle. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It makes

00:52:32.440 total sense. You know, there's a, I could talk all day about this stuff is really valuable. I want

00:52:37.640 to make sure I cover a few other points that are, that are from the book. And of course, there's a

00:52:40.940 lot more that we can go through, but I was really fascinated with the concept of testing as you fly

00:52:45.780 and flying as you test, because I think there is a, a balancing act there. If you're only testing and

00:52:52.520 never flying, of course, that's a problem. If you just fly without testing, of course, that's a

00:52:55.900 problem. So how do you strike the balance between thinking about it, testing it, and then actually

00:53:01.560 launching? Yeah. And I love that. Uh, there's been so many points in the conversation where we talked

00:53:07.520 about finding the middle ground. And I think the way you phrase it is, is perfect here as a book with,

00:53:12.140 with respect to testing, um, and, and flying. And so the test as you fly, fly as you test principle

00:53:19.520 from, it comes from rocket science and it basically says tests on earth must imitate to the greatest

00:53:26.980 extent possible, the same conditions in flight. So for example, during simulations for space shuttle

00:53:34.080 missions, scientists would activate like thousands of malfunction scenarios, drawing every imaginable

00:53:40.800 failure at the astronauts. And they would practice computer crashes and engine troubles and explosions.

00:53:46.540 The more catastrophic, the better. It's like that old adage. Um, the more you sweat in peace,

00:53:52.700 the less you bleed and more. Uh, and so testing the worst case scenarios, inoculated astronauts and,

00:54:00.760 and boosted their confidence and their ability to, to deal with, with, with just about any problem. Um,

00:54:06.300 and in our lives, we often don't implement the, uh, the test as you fly rule. So we either don't test

00:54:15.280 at all. We jumped directly into flight or when we do test, we, we do so in conditions that don't mimic

00:54:23.140 reality. So, you know, we practice a major speech in the comfort of our home when we're fully rested

00:54:29.200 and awake, even though, you know, you'd be better off like practicing that same speech in an unfamiliar

00:54:35.160 setting before an audience of strangers after downing, I don't know, five espressos to give

00:54:40.920 you the type of jitters that you're actually going to experience when you do this speech.

00:54:45.820 Yeah. I, I, in, in our financial planning practice, just to drive home on this point,

00:54:50.080 I used to have, uh, uh, prospective clients come to me with their current plans and they'd show it to

00:54:55.140 me. And I said, you know, this is a, most of the time it's like, this is a really great plan.

00:54:59.080 If everything works out exactly right, the market continues to increase by whatever the,

00:55:05.440 you know, 6% year in and year out without a losing year, you don't have any sort of, uh,

00:55:10.720 medical condition or, or disability. Nobody sues you in, in the right set of circumstances.

00:55:16.180 This is a beautiful plan. It just won't work in reality.

00:55:19.620 Exactly. So it's important to plan tests for the worst case scenario as opposed to the best

00:55:25.220 case scenario. Um, but you know, another example I give in the book is like preparing for sporting

00:55:31.880 events, for example. Um, we tend to train for say a running event from the comfort of a gym

00:55:36.860 while watching Netflix, but it makes more sense to actually prepare in the same environment as the

00:55:43.760 race, like facing the wind, the rain and the cold. So you can be desensitized to those,

00:55:48.660 to those conditions that are going to be awaiting you on race day.

00:55:51.920 Right. Yeah. I can see that'd be valuable. How are you then testing as you're flying? What,

00:55:56.620 what are some things you can do there?

00:55:58.980 So, um, the testing as you fly, but it is a, is a little misleading. The way it's phrased,

00:56:04.200 that basically means the, the structure of the test has to be as close as possible to the flight.

00:56:10.940 So you're not flying at the same time that you're testing, or you're not testing at the same time

00:56:15.060 that you're flying. It's just, it's maybe it should be called tests like you're flying or flying

00:56:21.080 similar to how you're testing it. Yeah. So that's the basic, basic principle is that to reduce the

00:56:26.360 distance between the environment that you're, you're training under and the environment that

00:56:32.160 you're, that the actual event is, is going to take place. Right. Okay. That makes sense. And,

00:56:36.760 and what you had talked about in the book is you talk about breaking points. So you're,

00:56:41.760 you're actually looking for the point at which it breaks so that you can, I assume improve its

00:56:48.740 capabilities, whether it's, whether your capabilities or the product's capabilities or

00:56:53.880 whatever it is you're doing. Right. And so you want to break, try to break whatever it is you're

00:57:00.060 working on before flight. Yes. That would be a good time to do it. Right. Far less expensive to,

00:57:06.720 to actually find the breaking point of a component, find the breaking point of yourself.

00:57:11.760 before race day, before game day, before the actual launch. Um, and there's so many, I mean,

00:57:18.040 so many times businesses don't do this where they launch a, say a website without finding its breaking

00:57:24.740 point, without actually testing it properly and making sure that it's going to withstand the type

00:57:30.720 of pressure that's going to be applied to it on, on, on launch day. So yeah, it makes sense to find

00:57:36.200 the breaking point before you launch it. So you avert catastrophe. Right. Yeah. And it's, uh,

00:57:43.040 I'm sure you're, you're familiar with the concept of red teaming. Is that? Yes. Yes. You know, so

00:57:48.260 you're actually looking for things that could go wrong. I also try to build in contingencies if I'm

00:57:53.840 going to do something challenging or difficult and, and try to assume what could potentially arise and

00:57:59.260 keep me from achieving what I'm after so that I can prepare myself. Like if this happens, I will do X,

00:58:05.820 Y, and Z. If that happens, I will do A, B, and C. So you start building in all these little

00:58:09.900 contingency plans and hopefully none of that happens and that's fine. Right. But if it does,

00:58:14.900 you're prepared for it. Exactly. And another thing you can do is to add a redundancy as well.

00:58:20.060 So that if one component fails, the other continues. And, and so for your personal life,

00:58:25.620 that could mean like, okay, so you now currently have a stable corporate position, but what happens

00:58:32.560 if there's a major reorg and your position disappears? Yeah. Is there a redundancy in place?

00:58:37.780 Like, is there a second, second source of income that, that you can use? And so I, I always think about

00:58:43.700 this when I'm structuring, designing my own life is, is diversifying, um, my income streams so that

00:58:51.220 like, if one thing isn't working or stops working because something unexpected happens, I can lean

00:58:57.580 on, on the others. It's just really interesting. I don't know if this is a defense mechanism or what,

00:59:02.760 but it seems to me that we as human beings have this incredible ability to, uh, see catastrophe in

00:59:10.140 other people and think that it will, it will never happen to us. Right. So we see somebody get

00:59:14.520 disabled or, or face a lawsuit and we're like, Oh, that really sucks, but that's not going to happen

00:59:18.920 to me. And so we don't do any planning when we see other people struggle. Exactly. Yeah. That's such

00:59:23.920 a good point. And that's just all the more reason to like dig the well before you're thirsty and start

00:59:30.520 preparing now and before a crisis strikes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I took a lot more notes and, uh, just for the

00:59:37.540 sake of time, I'll leave them here in my, uh, in my notepad and let the guys who are listening,

00:59:41.620 who want to know more, read the book. Cause I'm telling you guys, there's a lot of great

00:59:44.820 information in here. That's very, very applicable to everything that you might be dealing with

00:59:48.580 outside of building rockets and launching them towards the moon or Mars. So, uh, I do want to,

00:59:55.300 I was going to ask you a couple of questions as we wind down here. Uh, the first one is what

00:59:59.000 does it mean to be a man? Um, that's a great question. And, and the, the answer that popped

01:00:06.600 to mind as we've been, as we've been talking about, like first principles, thinking and

01:00:10.320 reframing problems to generate better answers is, is a particular practice that I want to

01:00:15.400 leave, uh, your listeners with Ryan, which is that it's considered very unmanly to say,

01:00:23.460 I don't know. Um, and I want to suggest just the opposite. I think people who are striving

01:00:30.800 to improve themselves say, I don't know frequently. Um, and we hear that message all the time,

01:00:39.600 right? Like if you're a man, you fake it until you make it. And we've all become experts at the

01:00:44.500 faking part. But the problem is when you pretend to know the answer to a question, you're not only

01:00:50.200 fooling other people, but more importantly, you're fooling yourself. And as physicist and Nobel

01:00:55.780 laureate Richard Feynman says, you are the easiest person to fool. So you can't, you can't learn what

01:01:02.580 you think you already know. And, and the best way to learn from your failures and just to learn

01:01:09.020 period to grow is to be more open about saying, I don't know. Um, and it actually takes a lot of guts

01:01:16.600 to say that, especially in this day and age, when you're listening to someone explain something to

01:01:21.060 you and like something doesn't make sense, instead of nodding and like bluffing your way through a

01:01:27.040 makeshift answer, just step back and say, you know what? Like I'm, I'm ignorant in that area or

01:01:31.920 just, I just don't know. Could you please tell me more? Because that's the, that's the key to growing

01:01:36.820 and learning. But before you admit lack of knowledge on something, you're going to put your

01:01:43.080 blind blinders on and you're not going to learn and grow. I think that's a great point. I think,

01:01:48.460 I think the guys who listen to this podcast understand that. And now it's just a matter

01:01:53.260 of ensuring that we, we apply that right. When we bump up against something that we aren't familiar

01:01:57.380 with is, you know, ask the questions, get familiar with it. You may not know that doesn't mean you

01:02:01.980 can't learn it, go out and learn it. Exactly. Yeah. So the last question I have for you is how do we

01:02:07.120 get connected? If somebody is listening and wants to, wants to know more, what's the best way to do that?

01:02:12.260 Well, if people want to check out the book, it's called think like a rocket scientist,

01:02:15.360 simple strategies you can use to make giant leaps in working life. And that's available

01:02:20.080 everywhere that books are sold. But the episode it's, it's being released on April 7th and the

01:02:25.620 book won't come out until April 14th. But if you pre-order the book, you'll get a bunch of amazing

01:02:31.420 pre-order bonuses that, you know, are at least 10 X the, the cost of a single copy of the book.

01:02:38.160 And you can find those pre-order bonuses at rocket science book.com. And you'll also find links

01:02:44.020 there to purchase the book. And then if you're interested in keeping in touch with me, I have

01:02:48.380 a weekly email that goes out to 19,000 people every Thursday that shares an article that I wrote

01:02:55.580 that week, along with recommendations for other articles, books, tools, really anything that helps

01:03:00.540 us reimagine the status quo. And you can sign up for that by heading over to weeklycontrarian.com.

01:03:08.460 Well, good. Well, I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate all your insight. And of course,

01:03:12.160 your experience in bringing this world that many of us are not familiar with at all into something

01:03:18.380 that we can apply into our own lives. It's very, very powerful. So I want to, uh, on a parting

01:03:23.100 note, thank you for your work and thank you for taking the time to share with us today.

01:03:28.440 Thank you so much, Ryan, for having me on. This was a great conversation.

01:03:32.980 All right, gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with Ozan Virol, uh, man,

01:03:37.520 what an amazing individual. And you know, it's interesting as smart as an, as, and as intelligent

01:03:42.560 as this human being is, uh, he has a very, very powerful ability to explain things in

01:03:49.500 meaningful and significant ways. And then of course, uh, the, the ways that we can digest

01:03:54.480 that information and then apply it in our lives. And that's the most important thing.

01:03:58.060 The knowledge is great. The information is wonderful. Uh, but if we're not turning that

01:04:02.300 into wisdom, which is practical application of said information, then, you know, obviously we're

01:04:07.260 leaving, leaving a growth on the table. So I would encourage you to pick up a copy of his book.

01:04:11.760 Think like a rocket scientist. You're not going to be disappointed. Very, very good. Of course,

01:04:15.460 went through a lot of that information here in the podcast, but there's so much more in the book that

01:04:19.840 I know a lot of you guys would get value from. So make sure you check that out. It just released

01:04:24.080 today as of the recording or release of this podcast. So go check it out. Think like a rocket

01:04:28.860 scientist. Also connect with us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, everywhere, except

01:04:34.700 for maybe like, uh, I don't know, tick tock. We're not there yet. I don't know if we'll ever be there,

01:04:40.100 but most of the, uh, the platforms that you guys would be engaged in. We're there. All right. Check

01:04:45.260 us out on Instagram at Ryan Mickler, Twitter's at Ryan Mickler, Facebook at Ryan Mickler. YouTube is

01:04:50.400 at order of man. All right, guys, we're going to be back tomorrow for the ask me anything with Kip

01:04:56.180 Sorensen. Uh, and we'll plan on talking with you then until then go out there, take action,

01:05:00.700 become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

01:05:05.140 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:05:08.940 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - April 07, 2020

How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist ｜ OZAN VAROL

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript