Rafael Chiusi

When I was a kid, I remember feeling terrified.

during classes when the teacher would launch a stealth attack called oral pop quiz.

I can still feel the sweat in my hands and how fast my heart was beating.

And I remember also how relieved I was when my name was not called out that day.

I was deeply afraid of looking stupid or not having the right answer.

And it felt like the entirety of my character

was being assessed in those dreadful five minutes.

When I look back, I realize that feeling was not only present during the pop quizzes, it was present the entire time.

So if I didn't understand something, instead of asking, I used to think, just shut your mouth and you can ask a friend later.

This fear of looking inadequate or below average

haunted me for a long, long time.

And it took me years to realize that I was not alone in that feeling.

It turns out, many grown-ups feel like that too.

In April 26th of 1986,

a team of terrified, tired, overworked engineers were trying to desperately solve a problem with reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear plant after a disastrous emergency exercise.

When approaching the director, they were received with yelling and threats.

Now fast forward to around June of 2018, and after seeing many of his coworkers burning out

due to an overwhelming work schedule and also knowing that this could lead to potentially fatal errors.

Ed Pearson, one of the senior managers at Boeing for the 737 MAX project, decided to break the silence.

Go to the bosses, straight to the top.