Big Think

Question: What’s the worst career advice you’ve ever received?

Aubrey de Grey: The worst piece of career advice that I’ve been given probably is advice not to get my hopes up. Some people say well you know if you aim really high and you try to let’s say get a particularly high flying job then you’re gonna probably fail, and you’re gonna be disappointed, and it’s gonna like set you back and you’re not gonna do so well. That’s never been me. I’ve always been the sort of person where if I aim high and something goes wrong and I don’t succeed on one particular task or one particular ambition then it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I learn from it; I move on; I try again. I’ve never had more problem of that sort, so I figure that may be true for some people, but it sure as hell as never been true for me.

Recorded on:  October 2, 2009