I think the minute you have a backup plan, you’ve admitted you’re not going to succeed.
Elon Musk said so. Chew on this for sometime before you read the rest.
I was not honest with the above. It was not Musk who made the statement but Elizabeth Holmes, at the peak of her popularity. It has been a hard fall for her from then to now; she is now accused of fraud.
Did your opinion of the quote change with the source? Did you go from awe to retching?
I believe we give as much importance to the source of a quote as to the quote itself. We should be internalizing quotes and aphorisms by divorcing the source. A quote should be evaluated solely on its content, not who it came from. When we do not do this, the aura of the person shadows the import of the saying, reducing it to personality worship. The significance of the quote tends to get lost.
The act of viewing a quote objectively also acts like a shit umbrella against famous people getting away with baloney like the above from Holmes. If a successful person makes a statement, we take it at face value thinking if she says it, it must be true. We should guard ourselves against this attitude.
Internalizing a quote just on its content is not easy to do as we all love narrative fallacy, but it is worth trying. As with everything, we get better at it with practice.
Image credit: Ilyass SEDDOUG
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