In 2016, I went on stage for my first Demo Day at the AppWorks accelerator. I had prepared for three months, revised the presentation countless times, and my hands were still shaking five minutes before going on stage.

The result? No one remembers what I said that day. Including myself.

But I remember one thing: the fear before going on stage was ten times bigger than anything that actually happened after I got up there. That was the first time I realized that the volume of fear is completely disproportionate to the volume of real threat.

This discovery was repeatedly validated on my entrepreneurial journey. Housen Market, Ban-Mu-Tian, various companies—every time I switched paths, what held me back was never insufficient capability, but being paralyzed by fear before I even began.

Fear Is Outdated Firmware

The fear system was originally a good thing. Tens of thousands of years ago, when you saw a wild beast, adrenaline spiked, you ran for your life, and you survived. The problem is where are the wild beasts now? But our brains are still using the old firmware of “being abandoned by the tribe means starvation” to process a work email, a rejected proposal, or an awkward moment in a social setting.

This is a serious misalignment between biological instinct and modern society. Except for matters of life and death, all other fears are illusions created by the brain. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of what others think of you—these aren’t real threats; you’ve magnified the world’s difficulty by ten times, then deified the rules and trapped yourself.

Psychological overload is the invisible prison of mediocrity.

Demystifying the Strong

The habit of seeing others as big and yourself as small is the main cause of confidence loss.

I’ve met many “legendary” figures in the startup world. After close contact, I discovered that any strong person’s rise is essentially the result of the combined effect of timing and foundational resources. Strip away the halo and everyone is human, everyone has moments of screwing up, everyone has times when they don’t know what to do.

Don’t let others’ light extinguish your own lamp. Everyone has their own rhythm; see others as equals to regain your sense of home field advantage.

Make Something Crappy First

The difference between winners and the mediocre lies in 0.1 seconds—the mediocre wait for “foolproof conditions,” winners choose “make something crappy first.”

My best personal example is this website. The first version of paulkuo.tw was so ugly I was embarrassed to show it to anyone. But I pushed it online. Then during those 12 days I wrote about in “Super Individual Case Study,” I used it while improving it, refining it to the current version. If I had waited until I was “ready” to start, this website would still be in my head.

Once you get moving, 50% of problems automatically disappear, and the remaining 50% will grow their own pathways during the process. Resources aren’t waited for; they’re attracted by your energy as you charge forward.

Mental Independence Is the Ultimate Trump Card

Switching from “seeking approval” to “self-improvement”—once this switch is flipped, fear automatically dissipates.

This is the realm that the I Ching speaks of: even when not understood, the heart remains untroubled. I spent fifteen years in seminary, and the greatest gain wasn’t knowledge, but learning to continue walking when there’s no audience. When your life’s main thread changes from “pleasing others” to “self-evolution,” many things become clear—dare to express yourself because you’re no longer afraid of judgment; able to enter the game because you’re no longer entangled with gains and losses; dare to persist because you know fate is created through collision.

From Personal Psychology to Systems Thinking

This is the same thing as entrepreneurship. In circular economy, there’s a concept called “minimum viable loop”—you don’t need to wait for a perfect recycling system to start; run a rough loop first, then optimize while operating. Human psychological construction is the same: don’t wait until you’re “ready” to set out; get yourself spinning first.

This is even more true in the AI era. Something you spend three months planning might happen while the world has already turned thirty times. Taking action first isn’t a compromise; it’s the only reasonable strategy.

Correction in motion is a hundred times more effective than planning in stasis. Seeing through the logic behind fear—it’s an outdated survival program, not your real situation—is the opening move for breakthrough.