If it’s broken, don’t fix it.
The Sunday pep talk for entrepreneurs here. Allow me to explain myself please….
You know the saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’m not a believer, this always sat wrong with me. I crave friction, it’s how things progress. This led me down a rabbit hole searching “quotes about fixing things that are broken.” This one popped up:
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”
And it got me thinking, yeah, sure …. but the time to BUILD a new roof is when a strong wind has ripped yours right off. And of course I didn’t find this in my quote search because it’s more of a statement, so obvious and with no twist of logic that could give it a witty stature warranting quotation marks. Regardless, it got me thinking how many times we find ourselves staring up at the rain gushing in and our instinct is to 1) throw a tarp over the couch, 2) wonder where we can find a guy to do a better repair job this time and 3) pray that somehow we can get the the wind to blow a little less hard in the future. And in the home example, this makes sense….
HOWEVER, when many of us are looking to start something on our own, or plow forward with bold ideas at work, protecting what we have, trying to salvage our investments, and hoping something better will happen in the future are three crutches that keep the best of us from seeing opportunity and seizing it.
Play a word game with me here:
Replace:
protecting what we have : ‘the couch’ with: ‘our salary, our security, our routine’
salvaging our investment: ‘the broken roof” with: “our time invested in our current path, our contacts, our built infrastructure”
hoping something better will happen in the future: “getting the wind to blow less” with: “get the ‘powers that be’ to do something, surely they have a plan.”
Here’s the thing, nothing will empower you more to make decisions and do the right thing for you (and that ultimately means those around you) than when you are staring down the face of your reality. I promise, this is where clarity lies, it is where creative visions take form. False hope keeps you out of the game everytime. It’s not about accepting the fact that trying something new will be uncomfortable, it’s about acknowledging the fact that staying where you are will inevitably lead to uncomfortability. And “uncomfortable” can be defined as a continued spiral into mediocrity that slowly chips away at you or maybe even worse, the realization that your industry literally has no future jobs for you. Both directions you can take involve being uncomfortable - it’s just that one of the paths may actually be leading you somewhere.
Protecting “what you have” requires understanding first what do you, indeed, actually have? Take stock of your assets, make a list, grade how secure it is. And ask yourself if the complacency, redundancy or mediocrity required to protect this list is really worth it? To do this with a full set of info, your list also needs to have a corresponding list of possible outcomes if you were to choose a different path. The delta between where your list is now versus where it could be when things ultimately go right is your upside. You don’t need to spend time quantifying that - up is good. The delta between your current list and if all things go to shit is where you’re probably focused. That’s human. This is where it is critical that you “current list” also reflects the reality of where that list is likely to be two year from now, 5 years from now, if you stay on your current path. Because your “if I take a chance and all things go to shit” delta may be better evaluated against your list of current assets 3-5 years from now - as nothing stays static in life. In other words : where am I likely to be in 5 years compared to the worst case scenario of the different path.
“Salvaging your investment” is a little like buying new tools to fix your VHS player (and if you’re reading this and don’t know what a VHS player is, that will go to serve my point). If you know your model is seriously outdated, and you know that there is a better model to be created, then think really hard about what’s stopping you.
“Hope is not a strategy.” Hoping the powers that be will fix things is futile when you realize 1) you may actually be more enlightened than them about the opportunities that exist and 2) their interests may not be, nor ever be, aligned with yours or 3) they may be too mired down in holding on to what they’ve got to seek alternate paths. It’s like when you realize for the first time that your parents don’t know everything. They are flawed. And as you grow they won’t always know what is right for you. Once you combine your smarts with the realization of their flaws, you will see that just because they haven’t thought of something or didn’t implement something does not mean it isn’t viable. It just means they don’t see what you do, and that’s fine. Because that is how new and better things, opportunities, get created.
So listen, I’m not telling you to go quit your job tomorrow. Especially if one of you reading this is on my team at Tibi (joking. Sort of.). But what I am telling you is just when you think everything is broken, and that there is no opportunity, that is EXACTLY THE TIME THAT THERE is opportunity to creat a new path. A new way. If everything was all sunshine and rainbows, not so much. So embrace the moment we’re in, get used to being uncomfortable, but just make sure that the rocks under your feet are jagged and sharp because your climbing up a hill and not slipping down a a slope to nowhere. Ok?
I needed to hear this today! The timing could not have been better.
This timing was perfect, Amy. I have been increasingly frustrated with some of my writing assignments and the algorithm's impact on my work, and instead of doing something about it I have been paralyzed. This new path is there — I see it, I know what to do — but have gotten too comfortable. No longer...
xx