On being the fool, or how to probably change the world
What do I mean when I say:
"A prerequisite of being eligible to change the world is being okay with being a fool."
It sounds like a strange constraint given the size of the opportunity. But don’t let it fool you… chuckles at self.
We all know that sinking feeling of looking like an idiot—fumbling with GPS directions or wrestling a flatpack bedside table. That feeling sucks, and humans are wired to avoid things that suck.
Let’s switch contexts. Building products, businesses, and markets puts you in situations where you’ll be perceived as a fool. You’ll be mocked, ignored, laughed at. People won’t listen.
Because of this, people start trading time and resources just to sidestep discomfort. They walk wider circles to avoid the sting of embarrassment.
Try performing any skilled task with someone watching after you’ve been away from it for a while. It’s like all ability vanishes because part of your brain is now servicing anxiety instead of the work.
- The "top idea within my mind" is no longer on task.
- Mental power diverts to managing how foolish I look.
(below is a link to Paul Graham’s “The Top Idea in Your Mind” for essay.)
That diversion adds drag. It pushes out the time to reach the goal and flattens the critical thinking you need in the moment.
It’s remarkable how much progress you can make once you stop caring what others think.
Of course, getting there is painful. Learning to withstand looking like a fool is gruelling. Conviction in your beliefs is the only shield strong enough to sustain you through it.
Without conviction, you’ll quit before you get far enough. With conviction, you can withstand ridicule long enough to make something real.
Sam Altman (founder of OpenAI) says, “Most people want to be accepted, so they won’t take risks that could make them look crazy.”
Contrarians might argue you don’t have to look like a fool to change the world. That misses the point. It’s not about looking foolish—it's about not caring either way.
Without that indifference, you pay the mental toll every time.
Consider Ignaz Semmelweis. He noticed midwives who washed their hands before delivering babies weren’t losing infants. Doctors, meanwhile, walked straight from the morgue to the maternity ward without washing, spreading fatal infections.
Semmelweis was ridiculed, dismissed as a fool, and eventually died in an asylum.
That was only 178 years ago.
If problem-solving is a muscle, you train it by crossing domains. Stay in one narrow lane and you only learn predictable patterns. Explore more fields and the compounding kicks in.
What idea looks foolish today but becomes tomorrow’s common sense?