Excerpt of a spoken segment (Matthew McConaughey, via Vishen Lakhiani's upload) arguing that the word "unbelievable" is a misguided, disrespectful term because it places an unnecessary ceiling on human experience. The speaker says labeling remarkable things "unbelievable" paradoxically diminishes belief, calls constraints on potential "man-made," and uses an Icarus/wax-on-wings metaphor to show people prematurely assume their limits.
Chapters
Stupid ass word. It's a cop out. I love this quote from your book. Unbelievable and why you say this is the stupidest word in the English language. Would you read that and tell us about this? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What a foolish word. A rude and disrespectful word. We think we use it to flatter and give credit to. Wow. What an unbelievable play. What an unbelievable film. What an unbelievable act of courage. What an unbelievable sunset. Now why would we define things that are incredible and awesome things that actually make us believe in them more with this pillar of Antonomy. Yeah, don't like the word at all and think we should get rid of it because the things we usually say unbelievable about are the things, as I said, that make us believe in the awesomeness of life more. And you also go on to say a roof is a man made thing. Yes. This is, this is a, this is a. I really love this one and unpacking what this means. And I think the human, each of us individually can really dive into this one. The constraints we put on ourselves, our potential, those are man made. Who the hell do we think we are putting those ceilings above ourselves? I've done it. I do it all the time. Things are going so well, I get nervous. Geez, why me? Why do I deserve this? This is too good. It's too good to be true. This is unbelievable. That's a very arrogant thing for me and us to do. It's an arrogant thing for us mortals to put a roof overhead and go, well, that's as good as it can get. That's as much as I can succeed. That's as much as I can love. That's. That's as sad as I can get. That's as happy as I can get now. No more. Again, we're just tapping into the 11th percent to use the Icarus analogy. Wings. The wax starts to melt on Icarus's wings when he's flying too close to the sun. Most of the times we think, we think our wax is melting on our wings because we're too close to the sun. There's still ice and snow on the ground. It ain't even close to being hot enough to melt the wax. We've got so much further that we can fly that we do not give ourselves the credit for. So take the roof off and say no, this is not even close. As good as it can get. I'm tapping into the 11th percent I've got. Trust me. I trust that we have so much further we can fly than we even mortally give ourselves credit for and to put a ceiling on ourselves is actually arrogant. Sa.
