Ranjay Gulati

Most of us want to know before we act.

That's why we say, let's be deliberate, let's be cautious.

Sometimes there's no way to know without taking action.

So if you're making a big decision, sometimes you break it down into smaller decisions.

And each small step you take, you're taking it in order to learn more.

So sometimes you have to act your way into knowing.

Now, I'll add to that another point, which I call confidence.

I don't like that confidence word.

It comes from research by a Stanford professor named Albert Bandura.

Bandura was also interested in fear.

And he recruited Stanford undergraduate students who were terrified of snakes.

Technical term is ophidiophobes.

And he was going to convince them over a period of several weeks with slow exposure, showing them videos and all, to ultimately hold a snake.

Actually, a corn snake.

They're harmless, don't bite, but they're six feet long.

They look scary.

Half the students dropped out as the study progressed.

The other half who stuck in there eventually held a snake.

What's most interesting is not that they did it, but how this simple study transformed how they thought about themselves.

It made them realize that if I can overcome one of my worst nightmare fears, snakes, I can do anything.