What's Stopping You: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can, 2nd Edition

INTRODUCTION

“Failure is not an option,” said the actor playing Gene Kranz, flight director for Mission Control in Apollo 13, the 1995 movie dramatizing the near-disaster of the third Apollo mission to the Moon. But he was wrong. It was an option, which is why he said it. Kranz knew that his team had to think the unthinkable, invent the uninvented, do the undoable. And this meant employing classic alpha-male posturing to force them beyond their fear of failure.

He knew that failure was staring them in the face but, given the consequences of failure, any other option was not only preferable but imperative. Had he said “failure is almost certain, but let’s have a go anyway” his team would have been unable to get beyond their fear of public humiliation ...