Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on fly... — Mary Kay Ash

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.

Author: Mary Kay Ash

Insight: We love this quote because it flatters us—it suggests that ignorance of obstacles is secretly a superpower. But there's something more useful hiding underneath. The real point isn't that bumble bees are dumb. It's that they operate without the burden of our particular human curse: the ability to talk ourselves out of things before we even try. Think about the projects you've abandoned, the conversations you've avoided, the applications you didn't submit. Somewhere along the way, you probably encountered a moment of doubt where you suddenly "knew" it wouldn't work. You became fluent in all the reasons why you'd fail. The bumble bee never gets that memo. It doesn't overthink. It doesn't scroll through ten years of evidence about why people like you never succeed at things like this. The strange part? That confidence isn't actually based on flying better than anything else. It's based on never having learned to doubt. And while you can't go back to being unselfconscious about your abilities, you can notice when you're using your intelligence as a filter instead of a tool. Sometimes the smartest thing is to fly first, calculate later.

Source: Mary Kay, p. 61, 1986

Doubt is the real obstacle

We love this quote because it flatters us—it suggests that ignorance of obstacles is secretly a superpower. But there's something more useful hiding underneath. The real point isn't that bumble bees are dumb. It's that they operate without the burden of our particular human curse: the ability to talk ourselves out of things before we even try.

Think about the projects you've abandoned, the conversations you've avoided, the applications you didn't submit. Somewhere along the way, you probably encountered a moment of doubt where you suddenly "knew" it wouldn't work. You became fluent in all the reasons why you'd fail. The bumble bee never gets that memo. It doesn't overthink. It doesn't scroll through ten years of evidence about why people like you never succeed at things like this.

The strange part? That confidence isn't actually based on flying better than anything else. It's based on never having learned to doubt. And while you can't go back to being unselfconscious about your abilities, you can notice when you're using your intelligence as a filter instead of a tool. Sometimes the smartest thing is to fly first, calculate later.

Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay Ash was an American businesswoman and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, one of the largest direct sellers of cosmetics and skincare products in the world. She is known for creating a company that empowers women to achieve financial independence through entrepreneurship and for her innovative business model based on rewarding salespeople with luxurious prizes and incentives.

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on fly... — Mary Kay Ash

Doubt is the real obstacle

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