Offense vs. Defense: The other side of Success
In business or life, it’s always more fun to be on the offense rather than the defense.
It’s great to be looking ahead… At that next promotion. At that new house. At that next startup.
But here’s something to consider: Everything you gain is now something you can lose, and each time you move forward it gets harder to move forward again.
I don’t mean to be a kill-joy here or anything, but I have heard from an awful lot of business friends lately, and their positions really got me thinking.
As people move into high paying, high power roles in companies, and buy their dream houses, they stop looking for new houses and that next high power job gets a lot harder to find.
This is especially true in the current economic climate. Yes, things seem to have stabilized for the most part. Yes, companies seem to be hiring again. But they are conservatively hiring and grow in necessary areas only. This, combined with a significant slow down in well-funded startups has created an interesting dynamic. A lot of the people who were in huge demand a few short years ago, who companies were begging to have on board to help them grow, are sitting in jobs they tolerate but do not love.
A huge amount of the employed workforce has moved from offense to defense. Especially at the most senior, most entrepreneurial levels.
A good friend of mine recently stepped away from running his own company. He took a job for an up and coming company in a much more junior role. But I am willing to bet that three years from now he will be better off for it.
Now, I know… entrepreneurs are the never say die crowd. But what I see around me reminds me a of a story I once heard:
I don’t know if this story is true, but it goes like this… In order to catch a monkey you put a nut in a box, with a hole in it. The monkey can see the nut through the hole. He can reach his little hand in and grab it as well. But once his fist wraps around the nut, it is too big to pull out of the hole. At this point, you just go collect your monkey, because the monkey is so unwilling to give up what he has gained, that he won’t let go up the nut. He’ll hang on and be captured.
That’s the danger of being on the defense.
I can’t help but wonder how many of these dynamic people just need to be willing to let go of the nut, stop worrying about rather they can make more money somewhere else, and start thinking more like unemployed people, who just look for the best possible opportunities, without being held back by the fact that the new opportunity might be starting a little bit backward from where they currently are.
Perhaps the best way to move from defense back to offense is to drop back and regroup sometimes?
I don’t know for sure… but the business truth of the day is this: Success does not always come with security and a feeling of well-being. Everything you gain is something to lose. Know that when you go into it, and always find things to stay on the offense for, or life will break your spirit.
