Think Like a Rocket Scientist

Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

By: Ozan Varol

Narrated by: Ozan Varol

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

One of Inc.com’s “Six Books You Need to Read in 2020 (According to Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, and Adam Grant)”

Adam Grant’s number one pick of his top 20 books of 2020

One of Six Groundbreaking Books of Spring 2020 (according to Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Dan Pink, and Adam Grant).

A former rocket scientist reveals the habits, ideas, and strategies that will empower you to turn the seemingly impossible into the possible.

Rocket science is often celebrated as the ultimate triumph of technology. But it's not. Rather, it's the apex of a certain thought process—a way to imagine the unimaginable and solve the unsolvable. It's the same thought process that enabled Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind, that allows spacecraft to travel millions of miles through outer space and land on a precise spot, and that brings us closer to colonizing other planets.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to think like one.

In this accessible and practical book, Ozan Varol reveals nine simple strategies from rocket science that you can use to make your own giant leaps in work and life—whether it's landing your dream job, accelerating your business, learning a new skill, or creating the next breakthrough product. Today, thinking like a rocket scientist is a necessity. We all encounter complex and unfamiliar problems in our lives. Those who can tackle these problems—without clear guidelines and with the clock ticking—enjoy an extraordinary advantage.

Think Like a Rocket Scientist will inspire you to take your own moonshot and enable you to achieve liftoff.

©2020 Ozan Varol (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Smart and witty, Varol's masterful analysis explains complicated scientific principles and connects them to ordinary life for a mainstream audience."—Publishers Weekly

"Varol's polymathic background—rocket scientist, law professor, public speaker—makes him an engaging guide for this book, which cannily blends memoir, pop science, and self-help manual...A charming and insightful airplane read on innovation."—Kirkus Reviews

"The scientific method of observing, developing a hypothesis, testing it and revising as needed has survived centuries for a reason: It works. And, as bona fide rocket scientist Ozan Varol shows, that approach—plus boundless curiosity—is handy whether you're designing a Mars lander or figuring out what to have for dinner."—Discover Magazine

Good material but needs a pdf attached

Really great material and concepts. I continued to the end even though the author cadence was super tough to listen to. He drops the volume of the end of the sentence so I can’t hear it unless I turn the volume up loud. If you republish this book please get someone else to read it. I would love to dwell more on the concepts but there is no accompanying reference unfortunately. Mr. Varol says it’s on his website but I can’t find it.

clever ways to approach problems

this book is great at illustrating how the way you frame a situation in your mind can dramatically change the results that you achieve. I will need to review the accompanying material to help me practice this in my daily life, but I know these are ideas I would like to have available in my mental toolkit.

Best book this year

I have listened to about 70 audiobooks this year covering all sorts of genres. This one was by far the best.

I wish this book was written earlier!

I loved the book. You can say that I devoured it. The only problem in the audio format is that it's a bit harder to get back to a specific point. Hence why I bought a physical copy. It's one of those books that you'll come back to more often than you think.

Excellent Book! Horrible audio post processing!

The book is wonderful, and I think one can enjoy it a lot more in printed format. The concepts are interesting and the overall premise is intriguing. The narration is pretty flat but what kills it is the significant drop off in volume at the end of almost every sentence! This is something that could have been easily fixed in post processing, but, once again, audible delivers a great book with extremely poor and frustrating audio. A shame.

Amazing

Wow, it starts off a bit slow. Once it gets going, you wont be able to turn away from it. The stories, examples used are simple and effective. Easy to understand and informative. Loved it.

Never think the same!

I’ll never approach problems the same way again! This book is wonderful and gives insight into how ANYONE can and should think like a scientist!

Probably the best book I've read in 2020

This book starts with practical advice which I put into action on both my job and writing immediately. However, it does not stop there, The three sections of the book - launch, accelerate, and achieve each have information which can be used even before you have finished the section. My favorite from accelerate was his discussion on strategy versus tactics and truly identifying the problem. In this section, he also goes into why it is difficult if not impossible to change a person's opinion because people do not want the feedback which might be diverse to their opinion.

great insight

I really enjoyed the thoughts, ideas, and examples he shared throughout the book! I have already recommended it to many friends and colleagues.

Extremely Thought Provoking!

I learned a great deal about thinking and planning around various initiatives. Plus, learning about the space industry was cool. My desire to learn more about this industry has increased dramatically!

Thanks for sharing your experiences!!