What It Takes to Change the World

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

— Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, 1997

Most people have heard this quote. You’ll find it on classroom walls and all over social media. It has doubtless inspired a great many people, myself included. I think it’s a great quote. But it leaves a great deal unsaid.

Why should anyone in their right mind believe that they can individually change the world? And when the trials inevitably come, what gives that belief a foundation strong enough to carry them through?

Inspiration can get us started. The harder question is what keeps us going after the initial excitement wears off, when progress is slow and the work begins to hurt.

The dreamers and makers see the power each individual has to shape our collective future. We study the men and women who have done extraordinary things, and try to understand how they became capable of doing them. We discover that what we once thought was the limit of our capacity was only the edge of what we had tried.

I remember thinking in fifth grade that I had peaked—that I would never be able to learn more than I knew at that instant. It’s funny to think about now, having studied everything from quantum mechanics to parallelism to advanced electricity and magnetism. I had mistaken the limits of my experience for the limits of my mind.

When my teachers said, “You can do anything you set your mind to,” I believed them. I still do. True, we can’t turn an apple into an orange with our minds. But we are beings with immense potential—with “the ability to become anyone [we] want to be,” to borrow a line from The Pretender. Most people limit themselves through what they tell themselves, what others have told them, or the discomfort required to grow.

A quiet, happy life is an extraordinary thing in its own right. There is no obligation to spend your life chasing some grand ambition. But for those with a deep-seated drive to build or discover or change something, there will be growing pains. I’ve been through plenty already, and I know there are more to come.

Again and again, the work of business and industry brings me back to one word: resilience. When you are broken, will you go home? Or will you pick up the pieces, study the faults, and build a better version of yourself?

Sheer perseverance accounts for a great deal. Sometimes, staying with something long enough is what makes the difference. But relentless self-improvement—there is no more powerful tool I know for shaping who we become. You study the attempt. You change how you work. You return better equipped for the next one.

I’m borrowing Michelangelo’s image of the form already held within the marble, waiting for the sculptor to release it. But I want to take that image further: in shaping ourselves, we are both the sculptor and the stone.

Relentless self-improvement is the tool with which we shape and whittle away at that unhewn block of marble. Perseverance keeps the chisel moving; self-improvement teaches us where to strike. We learn what to preserve and what to let fall away: the fear of making mistakes, the habits that keep us small, the limits we have accepted without testing. Each attempt shapes the marble and strengthens the hand that works it. And with enough time, a beautiful statue will stand, and much excess will have been removed.

I’ve found that people often underestimate how long time feels when you’re living through it. A year sounds manageable from a distance. A year of sustained effort, especially with no guarantee of success, can feel very long indeed. Then you have to consider the possibility of another year after that.

That is why the people around you matter so much. When you falter, you need someone who can help you up. When they falter, you need to be there for them. You need people who can offer an honest perspective when yours has narrowed to the problem in front of you. The longer the endeavor, the more that support matters.

When people study figures like Napoleon or decide they’re going to “give themselves to the grind,” I wonder how much they understand about commitment. It is easy to admire relentless effort from a distance. It is harder to build a life that can sustain it.

Too often, self-care and friendship are treated as extras. Why spend an evening talking with friends when you could be building your app? Because you are a person who needs those friendships, and your ability to work depends on the life supporting it. If you devote every available hour to the app and none to the people around you, eventually you will feel the cost.

You can admire someone’s stamina without assuming you already have it. Stamina develops, and so does judgment. Working more hours does little good if you keep spending them in the wrong direction. Part of commitment is learning what deserves your effort and what helps you keep giving it.

So get the right people on your team. Make friends. Find people you trust, people you can learn from, people whose ambitions you want to help make real. Even if you have no project underway, look around. When you really find what you want to push hard on, who would you want on your team?

The belief that you can change the world needs something to stand on: a willingness to grow, the resilience to begin again, and people who will help you keep going. Build those things alongside whatever you hope to make.

Make friends. Make mistakes. Change the world.