Why proof always comes second
You don’t need proof. You need belief first.
Most people wait for evidence before they commit. Proof first, then belief. But the people who actually build something new almost always run it backwards: belief first, proof later. They act like the thing is already true, and reality eventually catches up to them.
Marc Andreessen put it this way: “The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.”
You can see it from the outside too. In 2008, Airbnb’s founders were broke, and every investor they’d pitched had passed. Nobody believed strangers would pay to sleep in someone else’s spare room. So they printed election-themed cereal boxes, “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCain’s,” and sold a few hundred on the street for $40 each. It made them close to $30,000, barely enough to survive a few more months. It also proved something to themselves before it proved anything to anyone else: that people would pay for something Airbnb-shaped if you packaged it right.
I’ve tested the same mechanism on my own numbers, just without the cereal. I believe I’m the best at what I do: no one attracts talent and manages people in a way that actually lets them thrive quite like I can. I believed that long before I had any proof it was true. Since then, every year has been a record year, each one bigger than the last. Every market I’ve entered has turned profitable. More of the best people want to join the team, not fewer. Now I have the proof, so I am doing more because of it. But the proof came second. The belief came first.
Different scale, same order of operations. Belief doesn’t wait for proof. It creates the conditions proof needs to show up in.
What are you waiting for proof on, that you should just start acting like is already true?
Harsh
I share my learnings as a business builder, daily on my WhatsApp Community and LinkedIn, and weekly on this Sunday Email.
In persuit of a belief, I have bled nearly 100 Lacs. Haven't given up as yet. Obviously the result becomes the proof.
I strongly support this. We are getting too dependent upon EvidenceBased decisions. Atleast in Healthcare.Where does initiative,passion,commitment to learn from your mistakes and change and adapt to the changing circumstances and pursue with your original new new thought leave you in this world of Evidence Based Healthcare? It may be too late for the Evidence to gather the facts. Not that Evidence Based Healthcare is less important. But passion and commitment and the qualities I described is much more important.