Confronting an unlikely challenge requires a special kind of optimism, says Moderna co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan.
As the billionaire described during a commencement speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last month, paranoid optimism is something he has always adhered to, which entails alternating between extreme optimism and deep-seated doubt, allowing individuals to nurture their inventiveness while retaining a sense of rationality.
The Paranoid Optimism
Paranoid optimism embodies the determination and bravery to contemplate the most dire scenarios and then select a course of action moving forward.
Afeyan, who holds a PhD in biochemical engineering from MIT and served as a lecturer at the Sloan School of Management for over a decade, described himself as completely irrational and an eternal optimist. With an estimated net worth is $1.5 billion according to Forbes, Afeyan highlighted three actions that extraordinary people take to achieve what seems impossible:
They Imagine
Afeyan emphasized the importance of imagination in accomplishing impossible missions, noting that creative thinking is often necessary to generate new and original ideas.
Experts advise employing various techniques to stimulate creative thinking, such as the five-step approach known as design thinking, elucidated by Bryant University psychology professor Allison Butler to CNBC Make It in January. According to Butler, design thinking is like a checklist that involves steps such as observing people, learning from their experiences, generating insights, brainstorming innovative ideas, and beginning the prototyping process.
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They Innovate
Imagination will then fuel innovation, a concept Afeyan referred to as imagination in action. Afeyan noted that bringing particularly imaginative ideas into reality can be challenging, highlighting that these leaps often require unreasonable or even seemingly crazy ideas. Afeyan advises to ask ourselves a question: Why do we expect extraordinary results from reasonable people doing reasonable things?
They Immigrate
Lastly, Afeyan championed the advantages of immigration, which is essentially stepping beyond one's comfort zone. This was quite literal in Afeyan's case, where he spent his formative years in Lebanon within an Armenian household, later relocating to Canada and then Massachusetts. However, he emphasized that any endeavor involving exploration and unfamiliarity should be valued metaphorically as well.
Regardless of whether an individual originates from Cambodia, California, or Cambridge, Afeyan emphasized the capacity for intellectual immigration, stressing the importance of stepping beyond one's comfort zone, embracing new ways of thinking, adapting to the unfamiliar, and welcoming uncertainty.
Afeyan possesses firsthand experience confronting a formidable challenge: During his tenure, Moderna initiated the development of one of the world's initial safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in the nascent stages of the virus' transmission, before much of society retreated into quarantine and relied on Zoom calls.
While engaging in all three actions outlined by Afeyan could lead you to a path of uncertainty, this can also pave the way to achieving great career heights, just where you need to be.
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