昨天提到 The Book of Elon 里马斯克的一句 maxim：

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

我问大家，你怎么解读这句话呢？它的局限性是什么呢？感受到了恐惧，要逃才是啊，为什么要 do it anyway？你愿意这样做吗？

在 The Book of Elon 中，fear 这个词出现了 17 次。马斯克说他不是不害怕，如果一个人完全不害怕，那说明这个人多少有点问题。只是如果觉得这件事情太重要了，那即使害怕也要去做：

First of all, I feel fear. It’s not as though I have the absence of fear. I feel it quite strongly. But when something is important enough and you believe in it enough, you do it in spite of fear.

You shouldn’t think, “I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn’t do it.” It’s normal to feel fear. If you don’t feel fear, you definitely have something mentally wrong. Just feel it and let the importance of your mission drive you to do it anyway.

这里的重点是：let the importance of your mission drive you to do it anyway.

害怕什么呢？别人的看法？丢人现眼？这是个人层面的恐惧。如果做的这件事情不只是为了自己呢？你感到有强烈的使命感，你感受到命中注定我要去做这件事情，还是会害怕，但你同时会感到更强大的力量。既然成功是个几率事件，我们能做的只是提升它成功的几率，我们无法用「害怕失败」提升成功率。

如何面对困难坚持下去呢？从哪里获得力量？

马斯克说我不会这么想。我没想过放弃——

That’s not how I think. I think: “This is simply something important. It must get done. We will keep doing it or die trying.”

是有些人天生更乐观吗？有些人更幸运吗？马斯克是理工科出身，他的底层思维非常理性。当把成功和失败变成概率问题，剩下只是要做出一个选择，他说：

Failure is not good. Failure is bad. But if something is important enough, then you do it, even though the risk of failure is high. My advice for somebody who wants to start a company: Bear in mind, the most likely outcome is failure. Reconcile yourself to that strong possibility, and only if you still feel compelled to, do it.

That said, many people fear starting a company too much. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re not gonna starve to death; you’re not gonna die of exposure—really, what’s the worst that could happen?

如果你能接受「即使最终是失败的，我也还想做这件事情」，那就去做吧。你已经考虑到了 the worst-case scenario，认真地看到了 fear 的真实面目，会为自己的选择负责，那就也没什么可怕的了。

我想我们往往没有做一件事情，不是因为害怕，反倒是不够害怕——你可能只是随便想想，还没有开始就想到了各种退路，因为选择太多，觉得好像怎么选都有遗憾，都有 what-ifs。

反倒是直面恐惧，竟能神奇地解锁创造的自由——因为恐惧，你必须对自己诚实，你必须行动起来去验证。可能最终还是没能如愿，但你会对恐惧逐渐脱敏，提升了解决问题的能力，会感到「可能没有我想的那么糟」，然后多了一些 do it anyway 的自信。

Look fear straight in the eye and it will disappear. The nature of fear is that people don’t look at it. Look at it directly and it will be gone.