Naveen Jain Discusses Three Things Keeping Us From Our Highest Potential

How can we move humanity forward? That’s the main question at the heart of tech entrepreneur Naveen Jain’s pursuits.

With his company Viome, Jain is helping people understand what foods are best for their unique physiological needs by “listening” to their gut and understanding their individual microbiome. Moon Express—another company Jain founded—is dedicated to unlocking the mysteries and resources of the moon for the benefit of humanity.

The award-winning entrepreneur pushes boundaries, believing that every problem has a solution—it is our limited thinking that keeps us from solving them. 24Life recently asked Jain for his thoughts on pursuing our fullest potential.

Stop looking for approval

“If you want people to like you, here’s a really easy thing to do: Do nothing, be nothing and stand for nothing, and people will think of you as a dull person and they will like you. But if you do anything, if you be anything and if you stand for something, then people are not going to like you—but you’ll start falling in love with yourself. Don’t worry about what people think of you, and start thinking about what is it that you care about. The minute you stop looking for someone’s approval, you start to move the humanity forward.”

Passion isn’t enough

“You can’t just be passionate about what you’re doing, you need to be completely obsessed with it. People talk about passion. Passion is for weak people. If you’re not willing to die for the life you’re living, you can’t live for it. Everything you do, you have to believe that it’s the last thing you want to do because that’s what you’re going to stand for.”

Daily habits do not success make

“One thing people always ask successful people is, ‘What are your daily habits? What are your daily rituals?’ And I always felt that’s the dumbest question you can ever ask because following someone’s habit doesn’t make you who they are. Following their thought process makes you who they are. So for example, Tony Robbins takes an ice bath every day. You can take an ice bath three times a day. You’re not going to become Tony Robbins. You become Tony Robbins by thinking like Tony Robbins. And to me, it’s really about the mindset, about the thought process. When they see a problem, how do they analyze it? How do they go about solving it? And if you do that, that’s what really makes you successful. So I would say it should be not the seven habits of successful people. It should be the seven thought processes of successful people.”

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