Optionality is persuasive. In finance, options can only have positive value - that is mathematically proven.
In life, the math does not hold.
Often, more options do mean better positioning. And going on a straight, unique path may seem, and even be, more risky than having branches available for you to collect their fruits.
Be aware. Optionality shatters focus.
The peril of optionality
The collective consciousness shapes our lives intensely, unless we reflect on those biases and make autonomous choices about what we want to do, how we want to live, who we want to be.
My perception is this collective consciousness - which by the way also changes with time, culture, social circles, and other circumstances - brings to some of us an abstraction of success and the path to it that contains, among other things, the idea of optionality as core advantage to one’s life.
This concept can be valuable. A Stanford graduate is far more likely to achieve success in their career or entrepreneurial journey than the average person. Alumni from top consulting firms can have advantages in their career progression for the experience and credentials accumulated and take top executive jobs more easily than people with other paths.
This comes from credentials and networking too. But the resources they gathered, which increased their options, are a foundational advantage.
The issue is, because optionality can have such value, it becomes compelling to the point that one will think in terms of optionality and may lose complete sight of their focus. Of what is their essence. What do they really want.
They run in a parallel lane, watching their objective grow more possible and more improbable at once.
Optionality feels good. Like you were above things. Every time you climb one step, you’re higher, you’re “better positioned for future opportunities”.
However, being better positioned for future opportunities at some point means being worse positioned for the opportunity that you want.
When to stop?
How to identify that moment?
Essentialism by Greg McKeown actually incentivises “essentialists” to explore opportunities, more than the typical person. But at some point we need to start finally focusing on what we really want.
I write this in a time I believe this moment seems to have arrived. And the reason can be in my experience both internal and external.
AI has become transformational to the point that the work that can be done with minimal resources is fundamentally different. Perhaps it has never been easier to start a venture.
On the other hand, I’ve found myself in a situation where what I would like to learn/have learned was decently achieved.
One of the things that might have been hindering a certain movement towards what’s really essential, though, is the confusion that all this optionality path can cause. You learn and do so many, different things. In the process forget part of who you are.
For me, it’s about being relentless. Relentlessly curious. Gritty in pursuit of excellence. Doing something I believe will create real, positive change in lives.
I don’t think necessarily of a “dent in the universe”. I think of the people I can and must help.
If you’re fortunate, you might arrive to this conclusion like I hope to arrive myself, that time has come to get down to the ground and bring your essence into reality.
Taking the leap
Taking the leap is a lot about rewiring your brain. It’s about becoming who you are. About conceiving and believing that your vision is material, real, not a dream, not a delusion. And it can even be delusional, but it’s real.
In practice this looks less poetic. It looks like, for example, cutting the certainty of a salary and betting that your project will work.
It can also look like letting go of the path you’ve always had just because it’s “safe” - which is many times subjective - and creating the life that you want, owning your time.
True, taking the leap does not require only faith. Also you should be doing your part, putting in the work. Nevertheless, if we sometimes feel lazy - lazy about effort, lazy about building courage - time will remind us what really matters.
Once you stop circling around your objective.
Once you stop taking tangential lines that get you close, not there.
Once you stop seeing your vision from above.
Once you get to the ground.
What will happen?
When you stop. To then start.