No one unwilling to be a foolish beginner can learn — Jordan Peterson.

I am not particularly talented at anything.

I was a pretty bad student in high school. I scored below the national average for English and didn’t even bother doing any maths subjects in my final year. I had poor behavior in school and didn’t get along well with many of my teachers.

As a result, I was put in an alternative education program for young boys at risk of dropping out of high school. This is where most of the boys that other teachers didn’t want to deal with were put together.

Okay, so academics weren’t great. What about sports?

Well, I was okay at sports but never really excelled in anything specific. I played soccer and golf but never really had any desire to improve myself. I wasn’t terrible as much as comfortably mediocre.

If you had asked my teachers or parents about my potential they wouldn’t have much information to go on. I was destined for an average life by all accounts.

I wouldn’t say that I am overly successful now but I can say I have excelled in life considering my humble beginnings.

I thought my experience was unique until I started to read about what makes successful people successful. What do they do differently? What habits, routines or mindsets do they adopt?

Many have come from humble beginnings and become very successful. From Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos to Gary Vaynerchuck, the one common thread I have noticed is that they all have:

The willingness to consistently look like a fool and fail publicly.

I’ve spent time consistently cultivating this mindset. How? Exposure therapy. I will put myself in new situations where I risk looking like an idiot publicly. If it is made to show, it is made to grow.

This might seem like a silly mindset to have. But I consider it a superpower. The ace up my sleeve. My weapon for success. The Hulk to my Bruce Banner. You get the point.

It might sound cliche, but failure is where I thrive. Failure is what clarifies. People think failure means you should stop. I disagree. Failure tells you where you need to work hard.

I get it. Failure sucks. It can be painful, and embarrassing and people will inevitably talk and laugh about you behind your back. It can feel like a punch straight to the face.

“But if you can train yourself to become someone who is OK looking stupid…you’re going to enter the top 1% of the world, probably very quickly. Because if you live like no one else is living today, eventually, you’ll be able to live like no one else,” writes Anthony Moore

We are given the message in society that failing is bad. Our education system punishes mistakes and rewards compliance. Traditional employment structures work the same way. Do your job, get a raise, and don’t take risks.

Social media is now making us all celebrities.

Our lives are curated, filtered, and managed to smooth out any inconsistencies. There is no room for anything short of perfection. We are being oppressed by the very same thing that is meant to liberate us.

We are told that looking like a fool, even in the short term, is something to be avoided. But the true potential of success is the ability to keep trying despite facing setbacks and failures.

“It’s the beginner’s mind that every great artist, or every great business person has, which is: you have to be willing to start from scratch. You have to be willing to hit reset and go back to zero.” — Naval Ravikant

Remember when you played as a child? You didn’t care if you looked stupid. You had no real concept of shame or expectations. You just played and become fully immersed in whatever you were doing.

Now that I am in my mid-20s, I am trying my hardest to cultivate that playfulness that I had as a child. I want to return to that state of flow I had when I was a kid. Playing silly games and make-believe stories in my head.

The mindset to look like a fool is becoming rarer at exactly the same time it is becoming more valuable. We live in an age of uncertainty. There are no longer any clear answers.

We need the ability to think creatively, experiment, and iterate over and over again without the fear that being a fool is a Scarlett letter against our name.

The Price of Not Looking Like A Fool

I am fortunate enough to work with some amazing and talented young people. But the one common thing I see holding back their latent potential is their fear of failure and looking like an idiot.

So what do they do?

They hold back. They don’t get specific on their goals. They purposely avoid taking any action. Why? Because being clear and taking action creates an explicit definition of failure. A clear line between being a fool and not.

For most people, confronting this hard reality is too much. Because failing means that they have no one else to blame but themselves. Not their partner, family, or friends. There is nowhere to hide.

Every goal is a judgment. Having no goals mean no judgment of whether you achieved them or not. But the price you pay for safety is purposelessness and regret. A life not lived to its potential.

So they rather live in the comfort of delusion rather than start to take responsibility. I get it. It is safer and less punishing. But opportunity lies where responsibility has been neglected.

“If you do not make what you want clear, then you will certainly fail. You cannot hit a target that you refuse to see” — Jordan Peterson

Some argue they don’t have goals in order to stay flexible. For them, not having a goal is freedom. But it is far better to become something than to remain anything but become nothing.

The worst decision for your life is none at all.

Benefits of Looking Like a Fool

For better or for worse, I don’t seem to have that fear. Call it ignorance or being naive, I tend to dive headfirst into things, not really caring if I make a fool out of myself or not.

• I started writing on Medium and consistently published articles. I can comfortably say my first 40 articles sucked. Like really badly. I don’t have a background in writing and as mentioned before, did not score well in English. I just had my first $600 month on Medium.

• I started a podcast with a friend in 2020 with no background in audio engineering or production. We never released the first 5 episodes because of how bad they were. We recently made $10,000 in revenue in less than 12 months.

• I started consistently creating content on LinkedIn. I would post 4–5 times a week on personal development, learning or interesting ideas. I now have people reaching out to me for speaking and engagement opportunities. I was even recognized by a complete stranger on the streets once.

I’ve experienced the insane benefits of what looking like a fool can do for your life.

The only things that can make me shy away from failing are public singing or dancing. But put enough beers in me and that inhibition also quickly goes by the wayside.

“If someone is better than you at something, it’s likely they’ve failed at it more times than you.” — Mark Manson

Success is 95% mental

If you can’t overcome that fearful voice in your head, you might never be able to achieve success. No matter how talented you started off.

Most people are living on someone else’s terms — avoiding ridicule and potential embarrassment. In most cases, this mindset comes from early memories or childhood. It’s crazy how much power these little memories have over us; how much power we’ve given to others, just so they wouldn’t laugh at us — Anthony Moore

The most successful people are those willing to start over again. Look at Elon Musk. He sold his first company for millions. He could have retired happily on this fortune.

But he decided to start something new. Something he seemingly wasn’t qualified for. To start at the bottom of a mountain again as a beginner and look like a fool.

He was called an idiot, naive and foolish. He was told to stick to his lane. Whether you like him or not, you’ve got to admire his ability to go against the grain and execute something he believes in.

The production of the first few Tesla cars was late. Like really late. His first 3 rockets blew up on the launchpad. His strength, however, is precisely his willingness to risk such a drop; to risk being once again at the bottom.

Tesla is now one of the most exciting companies in the world. SpaceX is regularly launching missions into space. Elon Musk is now one of the richest people in the world.

“Much that is great starts small, ignorant and useless,” writes Jordan Peterson.

If you are willing to look like an idiot today, you are on the path to being a master tomorrow.

What can you do now?

• Look at the goals you want to achieve and tackle them headfirst. You might fail. You might look like an idiot. But the taste of failure is much more palatable than the taste of regret.

• Get comfortable with rejection. Expose yourself to it. Ask for a discount at the next 10 restaurants you eat at. The almost guaranteed rejection will make you realize it isn’t as bad as you think.

• Let go of embarrassment. It is self-limiting. Embarrassment is what keeps you in your comfort zone. And the comfort zone is where nothing grows. If you’re unwilling to risk embarrassment, you’re unwilling to grow.

• Embrace fear. Fear can be used as a compass rather than a stop sign. Feeling fearful? Good. It means you are on the right track and taking the appropriate amount of risk.

• Forget the haters. Often the people who try to make you feel embarrassed are the ones least qualified to do so. They are living quiet lives of desperation and trying to bring you down with them. Ignore, block, or avoid these people.

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