You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.
Interpretation
Success involves taking risks and making difficult decisions, not avoiding discomfort.
This quote emphasizes that true strategic thinking requires embracing discomfort and uncertainty. It suggests that rather than eliminating risks altogether, effective decision-making is about increasing the likelihood of achieving success through calculated choices and taking necessary risks.
In practice
This quote can inspire business leaders during strategic planning meetings.
The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each.
Every young man should aim at independence and should prepare himself for a vocation; above all, he should so manage his life that the steps of his progress are taken without improper aids; that he calls no one master, that he does not win or deserve the reputation of being a tool of others, and that if called to public service he may assume its duties with the satisfaction of knowing that he is free to rise to the height of his opportunity.
Increasingly, staying in the middle class - let alone aspiring to become middle class - is becoming a game of chance.
If not for food stamps, Medicaid, and various job programs, I would never have gone on to be the first in my family to go to college, the first black woman to represent my ward on the Cleveland City Council, and, ultimately, a State Senator.
I think when I was younger, I wanted to be a star, until I became a star, and then it's a lot of work. It's work to be a star. I don't enjoy the stardom part. I only enjoy the creative process.
Some are born great, others achieve greatness.
I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.
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