that again left him feeling he was close to the right career path, but not quite there yet. With that success came new and intriguing opportunities in Washington D.C. So, he left academia and went to work for National Geographic. But he couldn’t kick the feeling that the career path he was on was just a close counterfeit for the path he should really be on. Here’s a more personal example: For years, Enric Sala was a professor at the prestigious Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. In his book How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins explored this phenomenon and found that one of the key reasons for these failures was that companies fell into “the undisciplined pursuit of more.” It is true for companies and it is true for careers. We can see this in companies that were once darlings of Wall Street, but later collapsed.

Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.Ĭuriously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure. Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts. Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities. Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call “the clarity paradox,” which can be summed up in four predictable phases:

Pursuit of less