Back in 2015, I worked in San Francisco, USA and learned about Tom Chi and the awesome work he was doing in Google’s Moonshot Factory. It inspired me to think bigger about solving the world’s most pressing problems. Google’s Moonshot Factory focuses on creating radical new technologies
to solve some of the world’s hardest problems.
When you think of the world’s hardest problems what comes to mind?
- Eradicating the world of poverty
- Providing clean drinking water for all
- Protecting our wildlife, environment and the ocean
- Curing critical diseases like Cancer
- Combatting the inevitable food crises
A good friend of mine, Dave McQueen sent me this video last week about Thinking in Moonshots. A moonshot is a lofty goal requiring you to make a big leap. It often means challenging yourself to think bigger and to be more audacious.
Moonshots feel uncomfortable because it means making a commitment to the WHAT before the HOW. You often are left questioning yourself, “How am I going to achieve this?”
“You lift your thoughts to think 10X instead of 10%.”
Andy Ayim MBE
The magic of moonshots is that you set your aspirations so high that it influences you to change your actions in order to attempt to meet the goal.
For example, our goal at Angel Investing School is to train 10,000 new angel investors by 2027. In order to train an average of 2,500 new angels over the next four years, we will need to scale our reach and impact as we have trained 500 in the last three years. When we first set this aspiration it felt CRAZY. But my team didn’t treat me as bonkers, instead, a strange thing happened, they got excited, they got behind it and they believed in it.
Moonshots tend to raise aspirations and motivate people towards a shared vision. It enables me and my team to work with partners who share our vision, values and aspirations. You start attracting the right people and resources to make big things happen.
It might be time to think bigger and leap to your next moonshot.