Expertise has become a self-proclaimed qualification. Experts become experts by calling themselves that. Equipped with little more than fifteen minutes of Wikipedia knowledge, everyone and their cousin can claim expertise on something and begin spreading nonsense to the masses. As if the term “expert” were going out of fashion, various other terms have been invented that essentially mean the same thing. Thought leader. Influencer. Authority blogger. These days, you can find an expert on e...| Ozan Varol
I’m a recovering perfectionist. It’s a battle I’ve waged for years. I’d often catch myself spending a few futile hours moving paragraphs around on the same page for the sixteenth time. I’d become obsessed with every crevice and corner, every comma and semicolon, just to get the article or the book chapter perfect—as Sisyphus rolled his eyes at me. Of course, I knew about the usual vices of perfectionism—that it’s a futile quest to hit a moving target, that it can be crippling,...| Ozan Varol
During the first few years of my academic career, I’d begin the first class of each semester with the same cliché remark: “There are no dumb questions in this class. If you don’t understand something, raise your hand and ask.” My purpose was to comfort the students. But the remark had the opposite effect. In classes where I underscored the absence of dumb questions, I noticed that students were more reluctant to raise their hands. In hindsight, this was understandable. When the Presi...| Ozan Varol
An experimenter walks into a room and gives you these three numbers. 2, 4, 6. She tells you that the numbers follow a simple rule, and your job is to discover the rule by proposing different strings of three numbers. The experimenter will then tell you whether the strings you propose conform to the rule. You get as many tries as you want, and there’s no time limit. Give it a shot: What do you think the rule is? For most participants, the experiment went in one of two ways. Participant A sai...| Ozan Varol
In solving problems, our first instinct is to find the right answer. In boardrooms across America, executives fall over each other to be the first to deliver the correct answer to a perceived problem. Doctors assume they’ve got the right diagnosis based on symptoms they’ve seen in the past. Here’s the problem. When we immediately launch into answer mode, we end up chasing the wrong problem. When we rush to identify solutions—when we fall in love with our diagnosis—our initial answer...| Ozan Varol
Defer your dreams Squeeze yourself into boxes others have drawn And slaughter a little piece of you every day A life lived carefully is a life full of regrets| Ozan Varol
Attention is the most scarce resource you have. More than time. More than money. Easiest way to change your life? Change what you pay attention to. Attention is like a magnifying glass. Whatever you pay attention to gets amplified. Spend it on noise, and noise will multiply. Spend it on noticing beauty, and beauty will […] The post The myth of “you need to keep up” appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Books Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott. There’s a Carl Jung quote that I love: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This book picks up that thread and runs […] The post The best of what I’m reading, watching, and exploring (August 2025) appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
1. What's the worst that can happen? When it comes to creating worst case scenarios, my imagination is particularly vivid. My creativity kicks into high gear as I think about all the awful consequences that can follow from a simple decision gone wrong. I can visualize, in intricate detail, how life as I know it will come to a swift end from a bad blog post, a botched podcast episode, or a dumb question I asked. But, as the Stoic philosopher Seneca reminds us, “we suffer more in imagination ...| Ozan Varol
Until recently, rocket science was considered the exclusive domain of governments. Only powerful states had the know-how and resources required to launch a rocket into the cosmic ocean. When Elon Musk began shopping for a rocket that he could launch to Mars, he quickly realized that the price was astronomical--as high as $65 million (and he would have needed at least two, bringing the cost to $130 million). Additionally, this price tag was for the rocket alone. He also would have had to pay f...| Ozan Varol
I recently developed what I would consider a healthy obsession with the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed. I’ve never been a poetry-reading person—making room only for the occasional Rumi—which is somewhat ironic since my first name (Ozan) is Turkish for poet. Yet, the simplicity of Waheed’s poems—and her healthy disregard for poetry’s traditional rules—struck a deep chord with me. Consider this one: “would you still want to travel to that country if you could not take a camera with y...| Ozan Varol
Conformist criticism says more about the criticizer than the creator. When people appear to judge you, they’re often revealing a part of themselves that they’ve judged into silence—a part they hammered down to conform and fit in.| Ozan Varol
When I left my tenured academic job, there was no goodbye party. No schoolwide email. Not even a quiet handshake in the hallway. One day I was there—the youngest tenured professor, top teaching evaluations. The next, I was gone. Deleted from the website. Email account deactivated. Like I had never been there at all. It […] The post The end is where you begin appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
There’s something radical about letting yourself feel good before you’ve “earned” it. About laughing in the middle of the mess. About deciding that you don’t need to solve everything before you let yourself live again.| Ozan Varol
Back in 2010, I made a life-altering decision. At the time, I was a practicing lawyer at a litigation firm in San Francisco. I loved living in the Bay Area and working with a great group of lawyers, but I had grown tired of thinking of my life in six-minute billable increments. I began thinking about leaving the practice of law entirely and entering academia. I spent months agonizing over the decision, manufacturing every pro-and-con list imaginable, and consulting numerous people (who inevit...| Ozan Varol
Ozan Varol is a former rocket scientist turned #1 bestselling author and a world-renowned keynote speaker. Unlock strategies for sparking creativity and reimagining the status quo.| ozanvarol.com
Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Books Say Everything by Ione Skye. I’ve been on a memoir streak lately. You step into a life, not just a story, and if the writing’s honest, it’s hard to go wrong. This one’s from Ione Skye, best known […] The post The best of what I’m reading, watching, and exploring (July 2025) appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
But quitting? That’s reserved for the so-called faint-hearted—the ones who couldn’t hack it. “Winners never quit, and quitters never win,” as the bumper-sticker wisdom goes.| Ozan Varol
Imagine if a butterfly thought like a human. “First, I’ll land on the tulip at 9:00 AM. By 9:30, my plan is to sip from the lavender. Then I’ll take a strategic detour toward the dandelions before circling back for a networking session with the marigolds.” Or worse—it would obsess: “Should I start with the […] The post A butterfly’s secret to good decisions appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
I was halfway through a mediocre cup of airplane coffee when the first jolt hit. The plane began to shake. Then came the sudden drop. The woman next to me started to pray. My brain didn’t hesitate: Great. This is how it ends. Somewhere over Ohio. But of course, things were fine. The turbulence eventually […] The post The storm before the calm appeared first on Ozan Varol.|
But deliberate practice isn’t enough to play the game of life. Life is a game of incomplete information. You can’t see all the pieces on the board.| Ozan Varol
The success of that article prompted an introduction to the world’s best literary agent, who agreed to represent me for my next book. Six months later, I had a pinch-me-now publishing deal...| Ozan Varol
Discover Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol. Learn moonshot thinking, innovative problem solving techniques, and strategies to boost creativity and critical thinking. Transform your mindset with insights from a former rocket scientist and tackle complex challenges.| ozanvarol.com
SpaceX’s first three launches were spectacular failures. Many outside observers believed those three failures spelled the end of a company...| Ozan Varol
It was crushing. The kind of loss that feels personal—like the universe is slamming a door in your face just to remind you who’s in charge.| Ozan Varol
Mars is a master of deception. With its red hue, the planet might appear warm, cozy, and welcoming to the unsuspecting observer. But it’s not. Mars is a hostile place--not just because the average temperature is -60 degrees celsius, not just because it’s dry, and not just because it’s home to the type of intense dust storms that left Matt Damon stranded on its surface. Mars is hostile to us because it hosts the biggest graveyard of human spacecraft. When I started working on the operati...| Ozan Varol
That’s the thing about control: it often backfires. You can spend all your energy trying to patch symptoms, restore order, and return to “normal.” But in doing so, you miss what’s underneath.| Ozan Varol
I realized that “Does anyone have any questions?” was a stupid question. I had forgotten how hard it is for students who pride themselves on their...| Ozan Varol
The researchers were curious what types of questions in a role-played negotiation would lead the sellers to come clean with the problem. They tried three different questions.| Ozan Varol
Discover Awaken Your Genius, a best seller by Ozan Varol. Escape conformity, ignite creativity, and pave your own path with insights on personal development. Unlock your potential through transformative ideas and breakthrough thinking for self-improvement.| ozanvarol.com
If you want to learn and grow, you must acknowledge your flops, instead of sweeping them under the rug or making a flop look like a success.| Ozan Varol
For several years, I’ve asked myself the same question before making an important decision: What’s the worst that can happen? (And no, this isn’t the question I mentioned in the title of this post. We’ll get to that in a minute). The “worst that can happen” question is an important one. When I’m about to make a big decision, I tend to dream up nightmarish scenarios. I know I’m not alone here: When we face the prospect of uncertainty—whether it’s buying a new house or quitt...| Ozan Varol
There’s another type of price you pay—not for failing, but for failing to try at all. I’ve felt that pain before, and I never want to feel it again. To that end, I’ll share with you what I really want.| Ozan Varol
