I made a big career decision, but it does not feel that way. Here’s why
In December 2023, I made a career transition which, in the words of some, looked like a “big change.” I left Amazon to pursue an entrepreneurial experiment. However, the change does not feel as big as it looks. How can it be?
The answer lies in how I made my choices. The methodology I used was new to me, and I believe is widely applicable. It boils down to a question:
What would you do if you had 5% more courage?
Before I share more, bear with me for a couple of short and important premises.
This article is:
my response to those who asked “How have you decided to change careers?”
an open door to my mental kitchen. I expose my baking process, rather than a baked cake, following a variant of work with the garage door up. You can see it as open-sourcing a methodology for decision-making.
a personal answer based on personal experience. So make it personal, but don’t take it too seriously.
What this article is not:
career advice, professional advice, or personal advice. In fact, it isn’t advice at all.
about why one would pursue a decision or what to pursue. Questions of meaning are deeply personal, and the context of decisions is relative.
And a grain of salt: not all situations are created equal and some decisions take a lot more courage than others. In critical situations, some decisions take 50% more courage or 100% more courage. The more extreme the consequences, the more courage is required.
A walk around a pond with a question
In the fall of 2022, I found myself touring a pond in the outskirts of Berlin, unable to appreciate the stillness of the water or the sun-like colours of the Autumn leaves. I was haunted by one question: What would you do if you had 5% more courage?
I was there for a retreat on “Freedom and Responsibility,” organised by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. While capable of philosophising about these concepts in an academic fashion, I could not free myself from 10 words and a question mark. Nor could I take responsibility for them.
At the time, I felt professionally fulfilled, at least on the surface. At Amazon Web Services, we had just launched the Center for Quantum Networking, a first-of-its-kind initiative. Another one followed, the research alliance between Harvard and AWS. This was my third role at Amazon and one I had been longing for: focused on deep tech, on the very long term; an opportunity to bring a whole new set of technologies to the world. All things that not many people enjoy in a career. Then, the question of 5% more courage played a key buried in me and the desire for more and different things started echoing.
The importance of courage and the curse of the 5%
The question of courage is one that hardly gets asked in decision-making environments, at least the ones I had been part of. Rather, one gets invited to think about what makes sense from a business, policy or career perspective. In part, this is because the line between courage and foolishness is blurry. In part, it is because humans are risk-averse.
Courage without calculation is impulse. But calculation without courage can make us languish. Neither are advisable nor desirable on their own. That is why the question of 5% more courage is so powerful. If you want to be called a “fearless leader” — a resounding title I hear too often in fear-free contexts — how can you not have the courage to do something that is only 5% different?
That is the curse of the 5%: acts that only require a little more courage are simple, actionable, and reversible. So there are virtually no excuses that prevent you from taking them. You realise that, maybe, you are not as courageous as you thought. With the right mindset, then, this curse becomes a gift.
In my case, I had been talking to friends and family for years about wanting to publish a novel. Yet, I had never written a single line of fiction. I read lots of it and even lots of books about how to write fiction. But nothing more. I could blame the “writer’s block” — if only I ever tried to become a writer. I could blame the lack of time, but I was making time for many other things, like coming to a leadership retreat. The reality is that I had not found the courage to try.
From decision-making to “decision-accumulation”
The 5%-more-courage question helped me turn my ambition to try and publish a work of fiction into a manageable plan. It stopped feeling like trying to move a boulder, it became more like assembling Lego bricks. I made a commitment to write a short story and to share it with a few friends. Then, chance presented itself.
On Sunday, 5 December 2022, a friend sent me a link to a literary contest called “25th Hour”. You get a question, a two page word limit, and 25 hours to submit a short story. I hesitated, thinking about all the things I should have done that prevented me from sitting down and writing. I had signed up for yoga, I had to do laundry… Then, I asked myself: What would you do if you had 5% more courage?
I sat down and wrote. It was highly uncomfortable at first. But I never stopped since. I kept on adding Lego bricks to that first act of 5% more courage. I wrote 150 words every day. I tried out a reading club with a few friends. That became a monthly recurrence. Next, I met with an editor. Suddenly, earlier this year, I got my first short story published. And finally, I understood that I needed more time for writing. I have not written a novel yet, but I changed my career in a way that makes writing a priority. Whether that is about how to make governments more tech savvy or narrating cycling trips.
I went from decision making to what I call decision-accumulation. Decision-accumulation means treating decisions like assembling Lego bricks, rather than trying to move boulders. Change results from a series of smaller and deliberate choices, which compound over time. Through accrual, I found myself on the other side of my decision, almost naturally.
It is a little like walking for the first time: it feels natural when an adult stands up and moves around, but getting there takes a series of awkward, seemingly unrelated attempts. P.s. I don’t remember how it feels to move from crawling to walking, but I have recently observed some small humans undergo that transition.
In a sequel to this piece I will dive deeper into the methodology and the benefits of decision-accumulation. In the meantime, I would be curious to hear from you:
What would you do if you had 5% more courage?
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A 5% ask
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