Change Sucks, But Irrelevance Is Worse
I get very concerned when I hear a colleague or client say, “It's how we’ve always done it.” It’s a gateway drug to irrelevance.
Why do we say it? Because change is uncomfortable. It feels risky, like stepping off a ledge without knowing what's below. But there's a worse kind of risk: doing nothing.
Irrelevance doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in slowly, like body fat. You keep doing what used to work, and for a while, it feels fine. But the world moves on. By the time you notice, it's too late.
Change feels like a gamble because it’s uncertain. Irrelevance doesn’t. It feels safe. But that's the trick. Staying the same is the gamble. It just hides the risk better.
The most successful people and companies understand this. They don’t wait for change to happen to them; they drive it. This is not because they love upheaval—they don’t—but because they know the alternative is worse.
It’s easy to look back and think, “Of course they adapted. They had no choice.” But at the time, it wasn’t obvious. They could have kept doing what worked before. Most people did. That’s why most people fail.
The good news is that the discomfort of change doesn’t last forever. You adjust. What felt new and risky begins to feel normal. And once you’re there, you see what others missed: the world didn’t stop changing. It never does.
Lesson Learned: The real choice isn’t between change and stability. It’s between discomfort now or irrelevance later. One is hard. The other is permanent.