Pick Your Poison

I think there's an art to pivoting and the paradox is the longer it takes to decide the more likely it gets to talk your way out of it.

Even with all the necessary data at our disposal, we hope to not be the one who has to make the call.

A friend of mine asked my opinion on whether he should stay with his job or pivot to entrepreneurship. In my head, I said both are hard, you just have to sit down and decide which hard is worth it.

In the external world, I said it's a loaded question and don't know much of the overall situation to give a good enough opinion for him.

His background of sorts is earning a good salary at a white collar job which covers most of the basic expenses but not much beyond that in terms of savings/investments.

One of the main reasons I said the latter is because this is the kind of decision that sets the tone for much of what follows in life.

If he quit his job, he's more or less starting from ground zero, which does have good merit in terms of freedom and potential upside.

But then, the pressure to get back up could make his life seem miserable for awhile.

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Of course, no guarantee that he'll succeed too. What if he experiences a string of failures that ended up changing his perception for risk-taking entirely?

There are quite a few important angles to look at this from and yes, contemplating some of them, like financial obligations and opportunity cost, will dissuade one from taking the leap.

If he decides to stay, that seems like a relatively good decision, at least in the short term.

Eventually, I'm sure the impulse to jump ship from the corporate world will keep coming back, especially when he sees others making the leap.

It is said that we can delay the inevitable, but can't prevent it.

In this case, the prevention is choosing safety, while the inevitable aspect could be the regret of not trying.

In some sense, as opposed to timing whether he should make the pivot now or not, the more important question is about which version of himself he's willing to live with. The one who played it safe or one who took the shot and missed.

The hardest part is that no one can make this call for him. I can list pros and cons all day, but at some point he has to sit with the discomfort and pick his poison.

I wonder if the answer could reveal itself not via analysis, but just through observing which option keeps him up at night. Is it fear of failing or the other fear of never starting?

Weight of certainty

DEEP down, we always know what it is we have to do. Knowledge can make us powerless amidst the overwhelming weight of uncertainty.

The more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know, and each new piece of data feels like another reason to hesitate.

Hence, the longer we wait to decide, the easier it becomes to talk ourselves out of what we already know.

At some point, you have to believe in yourself and trust the process no matter which path you choose and the decision itself matters less than the commitment that follows.


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