Inertia is a powerful thing, as any physicist will tell you: “A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to continue its motion along its trajectory.” In other words, the power of the status quo. If one tries to apply forces to change a body’s inertial state, whether relatively at rest or relatively in motion, the power required is directly proportional to the direction of change intended.
If a 250 pound linebacker is charging at me (thankfully not a common event), my 150 pound mass would be insufficient to alter that body’s motion if I applied myself in direct opposition. But if I stepped to the side and nudged the linebacker on a vector perpendicular to his path, I could perhaps change his course by a few degrees. If I tried to push him perpendicular to his path, essentially attempting to force a ninety-degree course correction, my efforts would be unrewarded, given my mass. Unless of course I ran three times as fast as he was going and hit him from the side at exactly the right moment. That would amplify my force exponentially as a function of my mass. I’d be a crumpled and broken mass, however, at the conclusion of the event.
Consider the inertia of a career. One spends years of education and application of effort towards the nature of work that one might describe collectively as a professional path. Relationships are built, knowledge is gained, results are achieved and a significant body of memories is created. We charge ahead day to day, the workplace equivalent of that big linebacker, throwing our bodies and minds ahead with increasing momentum. Our football field is years long, our intended direction some goal line we’ve defined years ago, and the football of our self-described success tucked under one arm. When we encounter an obstacle, it is difficult to make adjustments, because with each year and with each re-commitment, our forward inertia increases.
When I have made course corrections to the vector of my professional direction, they were done easily early on. I didn’t have much inertia built up. I could change from salmon processing plant superintendent to restaurant cook to psychiatric ward aide in a period of days. And with only a few years in each of those early jobs, the inertia was minimal. Later in life, the changes took a couple of years each to effect.
I was speaking with a close friend of mine recently. She has been working in a career field for thirty years: finance and accounting. She has risen in the ranks and is now in charge of a dispersed global team for a large public telecommunications company. She knows her field expertly, has high compensation and is well-known in her professional circles. She has exactly zero satisfaction in her role. She’s felt this way for the last five years.
We were discussing my recent career change. She asked me, “Stan, why did you resign as CEO of KI Investment Holdings, a company you founded six years ago? How could you give that up?”
“As it turned out,” I replied, “I wasn’t giving up anything. I realized that my quality of life was getting worse, not better. I kept at it probably a year or two longer than I should have, considering the damage I was doing to myself physically and mentally.”
“What damage?” she asked, knowing personally full well what my answer would be. As is common for many who suffer career inertia, the reason wasn’t about the success of the business.
KI made its first investment in 2006. As of this month, we have achieved a 28% IRR and each portfolio company has achieved growth. We have a 100% on-base record, and a couple of runners have tagged home plate. No outs. Our investment strategy is working. So why step down? Because success was causing harm to my body, mind and relationships. It took a couple of very good friends to help me see that continuing my committed lunge towards that distant goal line would result in a collapse two inches away. So I resigned.
Then a couple of miracles happened. First, other owners of KI stepped up to lead. We’re changing our governance structure, hiring staff and will continue our efforts under a modified management approach. We’d talked about it for a year, but it took my unilateral decision to alter our course significantly. I stopped mid-field. Others on the team are taking the ball.
Within a month of that decision, out of the proverbial blue, a close friend, colleague and client asked me to help his company look way ahead and prepare for its second sixty years of growth. I couldn’t ask for a better team to join, a more meaningful role nor a better fit for what I can contribute.
The lesson for me, and which I hope is helpful to those of you who similarly struggle with finding the right path in your career, is that you can indeed make ninety-degree right turns in life. It is easier than we think.
All we have to do is stop. Breathe. Be quiet enough to listen to what life is telling us.