But ideas can create culture, and culture is perhaps the most powerful force shaping human identity and decision-making. - Benjamin P. Hardy

If you’re close with some people, you could do brilliant and world-changing work. Among other people, you may be uninspired and dull, never fulfilling your deepest dreams (and, worse yet, never realizing what is missing in your life). Relating these ideas to the game of chess, former chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin explains in his book The Art of Learning (emphasis mine):

Ultimately, there is deeper meaning in the wormholes we experience than appears on the surface. Don’t let what may appear to be a setback become a missed wormhole of opportunity.

Author and philosopher, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, said, “Mental creation always precedes physical creation.