Why I picked this one up
I'll watch anything with Peter Diamandis in it. The guy is one of those speakers where you just keep clicking through his videos — he's bullish, he's specific, and you can tell he's not doing any of this for the money or the fame. He co-founded Singularity University out in California, which is basically a machine for producing entrepreneurs who think on a global, abundant, no-limits scale. So when I saw he and Steven Kotler wrote Bold, I went in expecting a mindset shift. I got one.
They'd already written a book called Abundance about all the resources we have access to today. Bold is the follow-up — it's about taking those resources and actually going global with them. Not "we built a slightly better version of something that already exists." Real, unfathomable change.
The XPrize story is the whole book in miniature
The part that stuck with me most is Diamandis telling the story of the XPrize. Fifteen years ago he had a vision: private spaceflight, and eventually Mars. He wanted to offer a $10 million prize for the first team to build a reusable orbital vehicle. Problem was, he didn't have $10 million. He went to Richard Branson, he went to people at Google, he went to basically every billionaire and wealthy person he could find. Nobody would fund it. NASA didn't even want to touch it.
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He kept going anyway. And it eventually kicked off a full-on revolution in private space transportation — teams and research pouring in from everywhere, all because one guy refused to let "no money" mean "no project."
That's the line I now use on myself when a deal or an idea gets rejected a few times: the resources catch up to the vision if the vision is real enough. I don't wait until I have the capital lined up before I start building conviction around an idea.
"Crazy" is just a word for "not done yet"
There's a quote in the book I think about constantly: something is called crazy right up until the day before it's achieved. Facebook produces zero content and is the largest content platform in the world. Uber owns no taxis and is the biggest taxi company. Airbnb owns no hotels and is arguably the largest hospitality company on the planet. All of that was "crazy" the day before it worked.
In real estate, I hear "that'll never work here" constantly. I've started treating that phrase as information, not as a stop sign.
The three-part framework: technology, mindset, crowd
The book breaks going big into three pieces:
- Technology — pick something obtainable that still sounds crazy, aimed at a global outcome, not a local tweak.
- Mindset — Diamandis is straight with this: it's roughly 90% mindset, 10% actual resources. Your will to get it done matters more than your bank account at the start. That's exactly what Tony Robbins says too, and I buy it.
- Crowd — today there is genuinely no easier time in history to raise money or attention. Kickstarter, Fundrise, going viral off one video, one post. The tools to build a movement around something you actually believe in are sitting right there.
Where I push back a little — and where the book agrees with me — is that having a vision and a movement isn't enough. If you want to feed everyone on Earth or eradicate poverty, that's admirable, but it's unsustainable without a real business behind it. Government can't do it at that scale. A lot of people have the will and the vision and skip straight past the business model. That's where big missions die.
The one habit I took out of it
Diamandis talks about cutting negativity out of your life — specifically, stop watching the news. Not because the world is perfect, but because there's so much good happening that gets drowned out by what gets covered. Most people are just good people. I've leaned into that more since reading this: less noise in, more building out.
Who should read this
If you're building something and you keep telling yourself you need more capital, more connections, or more permission before you start — read this. It won't hand you a business plan. It'll hand you the will to go get the resources for one.
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