Fund manager Joon Yun argues entrepreneurs need a camera mindset, observing without assumptions, rather than a projector mindset that fills in expectations. He demonstrates how adults miss obvious details: in a perception test, most see only three letter Fs in a sentence when there are actually six. Children typically count correctly because their brains haven't yet shifted to filtering out information.
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The first rule of being an entrepreneur, in my opinion, is to be a camera. Now, what does that mean? What does that mean to be a camera? Well, as it turns out, once we exit our childhood, our brain behaves more like a projector than it does a camera. What do I mean by this? When we're young, we can see almost anything. Have you guys been around little children? I mean, doesn't it seem like they can see things we can no longer see? They keep pointing out things for us, and they amaze us by what they're able to see. And they call it out for us. And after age 12, we're still able to think, we're doing great things out there, but we lose that ability to see. We also lose the ability to acquire things like language, acquire complex skills like skiing. All these things are really available to us in the first 12 years. So what is that all about? First of all, do you even believe me that it's hard to see what's in front of you? That our brain is behaving like a projector instead of a camera? I'm gonna put you guys to a test. This is a very easy test, not a trick test. All you gotta do is read this one sentence and count the number of times the letter F appears. It's a short sentence. After you're done, look at me so I know that you're done. You guys ready? Yes. And by the way, ironically, it's easier, easier to get this Test right from the edges. But yes, go ahead and sit back there and count the number of times the letter F appears in this one sentence. Read it front to back. Read it once. When you're done, look at me. Okay. How many people saw all 3? 5. Somebody saw 4. Somebody saw 5. 6. A couple people saw 6. OK, so the real answer is— well, how many people saw 3? Just raise your hands. How many saw what? 3. 3 F's. How many people saw 4? How many people saw 5? How many people saw 6? How many people saw 7?
I have a question.
Yes.
5-winged flies.
Ah, good question.
How come what?
5-winged flies. It's a made-up idea of a 5-winged fly.
And it said experience of many years. How can any flies experience many years?
The goal was to write a nonsensical sentence so it's easier for you guys to pick up the Fs, and yet it's still hard. So in tests that are done across the country, you guys are obviously younger than the average. The answer is 6. And kids under 12 never get it wrong, and the older you get, the more likely it is that you're gonna get the answer wrong. Now, now that you know the answer, see if you can count all 6, those of you who saw something different than 6. 5 flies, of, of, fic, and of. You skipped one. So this is an amazing thing. As it turns out, very few adults can see all 6 Fs, Even though it's right in front of us. And the majority of people see 3. I'm talking about 90% plus of adults see only 3 Fs. So what's going on here? Why does our mind go from being a projector— going from being a camera when we're young to being a projector? Mm-hmm.
