We tend to think danger lives in failure. But, as Rony Meisler noted in a recent edition of his newsletter, the problem with vanity and success doesn’t show up when you fail — it shows up when you succeed. Because that’s when you become so convinced of what works that you stop paying attention to everything that might be changing around you.
The mechanism is more treacherous than it looks
When you discover something works — a strategy that took off, a skill that opened doors — your brain does the most natural thing: it tells you to repeat. And you repeat. It works again. It becomes a habit, you get better and better at it. So far, great. The problem is what you stop doing while specializing in what already works: you stop testing new things, challenging yourself outside the comfort zone, listening to the signs that the world is changing. After all, why touch what’s working?
And then the world changes. Slowly, slowly — and suddenly, brutally.
The research that explains it
American researcher James G. March spent decades studying how companies and people learn and decide. He showed that everyone lives in a permanent conflict between two forces: exploiting what already works (what pays off now, is predictable and covers the bills) and exploring what might work tomorrow (uncertain, costly, slow, and paying off only later, if at all).
The cruel detail: the short term pays faster than the long term. So every system — company, person, career — naturally specializes in what already works and stops renewing itself. In the words Rony highlights, this turns the most talented people and the most successful companies into machines perfectly tuned for a world that no longer exists.
It’s like becoming excellent at typing fast with two fingers, faster and faster — while everyone moved to voice and AI, in a world that no longer waits for typing speed.
Who is most vulnerable
The big lesson: the most dangerously vulnerable person isn’t the one struggling. It’s the one doing very well who stopped asking why. The mechanism disguises itself as intelligence — you don’t stop exploring out of laziness, you stop because it’s working, and everything around you confirms you’re right. Failure forces you to change; success invites you to stay put.
The question worth gold
That leaves the challenge Rony poses: what are you exploring today — something different, new, uncertain — that will ensure you’re still relevant five years from now? Or are you so busy being good at what already works that you never even asked the question?
Where technology comes in
This is exactly where AI and automation stop being a “trend” and become survival. The way of working that secured your results until now may be the very thing that leaves you behind. Exploring the new doesn’t have to be a leap in the dark: you can test a chatbot that serves customers on its own, content that attracts clients for free, an automated process — small, cheap experiments that keep your business moving while the world changes. Standing still on what works is the only guaranteed risk.
Post inspired by an edition of the Email do Rony newsletter, by Rony Meisler (founder of Reserva), drawing on the ideas of researcher James G. March. Worth reading at the source: businessofbrandspost.substack.com.