Aim to Be a Zero
06-sep-2026 · Goa
Chris Hadfield commanded the International Space Station. Before that, he spent two decades preparing for missions that might never happen. He trained for years for spacewalks he wasn't guaranteed to do. He studied Russian for a decade before he needed it. He rehearsed emergency procedures thousands of times for scenarios with a very low probability of occurring. In every new situation, Hadfield says there are three types of people.
A minus one. A plus one. A zero.
A minus one actively makes things worse. A plus one actively improves things. A zero doesn't make things worse or better. They observe. They learn. They contribute only when they actually have something useful to add.
Most people walk into new environments trying to be a plus one immediately. They talk too much. They offer opinions before understanding the context. They try to prove value before they have earned the right to. Hadfield's advice is to aim for zero first. Don't damage anything.
Don't assume you understand. Watch. Listen.
Learn who knows what. Understand the terrain. Then, only after you have mapped it, start contributing.
I started applying this more often to my ~work~ and life. Instead of arriving with ideas on day one, I began asking more questions and observing more. Only then would I move to the next phase of offering input. When I finally did offer input, people listened differently because I had first demonstrated that I understood their world before trying to change it.
What made this more real for me was an interview call with someone who could potentially become our first employee. After the call, I reflected on it and realized that I had spent too much time talking and not enough time giving the other person space to share their view. I was trying to be a plus one when my role, at that moment, should have been to be a zero.
And perhaps that is the more interesting part of the idea. It is not that we should always be zero. It is a moving dynamic. Zero, then one. Zero, then one.
Observe. Understand. Contribute.
This is still a work in progress for me. To be a zero more often before trying to be a hero.
Zero or Hero.
2026-09-06, Goa.
PS: This philosophy was inspired by a reditt review of the book by Chris Hadfield.