How to recognise and become a remarkable person

Executive overview

Most people hunt for passion or wait for greatness to arrive. Remarkable people develop both incrementally, through sampling, routine, and willingness to do what others won't.

Guy Kawasaki distils patterns from hundreds of interviews into a set of observable indicators — ways to recognise remarkable people and to become one.

The path to being remarkable is unremarkable: small steps, consistent habits, and the humility to know you didn't get there alone.

Remarkable people remember where they came from

• They recount childhood experiences to explain how they got to where they are.
• That awareness is the antidote to entitlement — the belief that you deserve success by default.
• Nobody becomes remarkable in a vacuum; teachers, coaches, parents, and friends are always part of the story.
• Humility about your origins is a marker, not a weakness.

Passions are developed, not found

• "Find your passion" sets the bar too high and misrepresents how life works.
• The alternative: keep an open mind, sample widely, scratch whatever itch interests you.
• Repeated scratching may eventually reveal a passion — but that's the outcome, not the starting point.
• Remarkable people rarely experience love at first sight with their calling.

Willingness to change paths entirely

• Switching industries or functions signals a growth mindset, not aimlessness.
• It requires embracing vulnerability: you will be bad at the new thing before you are good.
• Julia Child: copywriter → intelligence officer → French chef → TV star and author.
• Each pivot built on curiosity, not a master plan.

Making yourself indispensable

• Do what nobody else wants to do — it separates you from the pack fast.
• Andrew Zimmern's mentor: become indispensable by taking on tasks others avoid.
• Zimmern completed three internships simultaneously and received three job offers.
• Willingness, not genius, is often what makes someone irreplaceable.

Start small, not grand

• Remarkable outcomes rarely begin with plans for world domination.
• Wozniak built the Apple I because he personally wanted a small, cheap computer — not to build a trillion-dollar company.
• The analogy: learn to surf on one-foot waves, not hundred-foot ones.
• Trying to boil the ocean usually means boiling nothing.

Routine and discipline preserve decision-making energy

• Remarkable people protect cognitive bandwidth by standardising low-stakes daily choices.
• Julia Cameron's morning pages practice is one example of structured creative discipline.
• Identical meals, identical wardrobes: one fewer thing to decide means more focus for what matters.
• The goal is motion from the start of the day, not deliberation.

Hire people better than yourself

• The A-player rule: A players hire A players — or A+ players.
• A manager should be able to look around the room and honestly say everyone is better at their function than they could ever be.
• A rising tide floats all boats; surrounding yourself with talent raises your own performance.
• Carol Dweck's growth mindset is individual, but Mary Murphy adds that the environment matters equally — a growth mindset in a fixed mindset organisation is severely constrained.

Diversity as a marker and a necessity

• Remarkable people interact with diverse groups; their social media follows reflect that.
• Homogeneous thinking creates blind spots and sets up organisations for failure.
• When evaluating a company to join, look for: diverse employees, learning and development programmes, and a culture where asking "stupid questions" is acceptable.
• If you run an organisation, ask yourself honestly whether questions are safe to raise.