Televisions

Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma describes how success can blind even the best companies to disruptive threats.

He provides the mid-20th century TV industry as an example. Giants like RCA dominated with vacuum tube TVs that were large, high-end products sold through specialty retailers, with recurring revenue from tube replacements.

When Japanese firms introduced portable, solid-state TVs in the 1960s, incumbents dismissed them as low-quality gadgets for unprofitable customers.

But the new technology improved quickly. Its portability, durability, and lower cost ultimately won out. The American leaders, stuck on their profitable peak, failed to adapt and disappeared within a few decades.

Lessons from Complexity Science

What caused the established TV manufacturers to miss the threat from upstart Japanese firms?

Complexity science offers a clue.

Complexity science explores how outcomes emerge from interactions of many small connected parts and helps explain dynamic systems such as markets, the human body or nature. Even though these systems are constantly changing, they can stabilize temporarily around maxima or minima (peaks or valleys) before eventually readjusting.

In the 1950s, tube-based TV makers were at the top of a stable market. Their success blinded them to a larger opportunity forming around solid-state technologies. Let’s call this blindness the Fog of Success.

Even when they recognized the potential, they had much to lose. Switching would mean disrupting their own supply chains, distribution, and customer base. To reach the next peak, they’d have to descend first. Moving from one maximum to another requires risk. We can call this risk the Valley of Fear.

Both the Fog of Success (FoS) and the Valley of Fear (VoF) kept the leading TV manufacturers on a temporary summit.

This isn’t just a big company problem.

Small businesses and individuals face it too. We either can’t see the higher peak, or we’re too afraid to give up what we have to reach it.

Let’s step through the FoS and VoF to understand when we are at risk of being trapped and how to move toward bigger things.

Fog of Success

Success clouds our vision more often than failure.

The high paying job you’re afraid to leave because you fear never making that much money again.

The top customer who you believe would never leave due to loyalty but would walk the moment they find a better deal.

The lucrative consulting business you assume AI will never touch.

Why does the fog of success blind us and what can we do to see through it?

We Overvalue Stability

Success often brings predictability, and predictability feels safe.

We confuse the absence of chaos with long-term viability. The secret to longevity however is adaptability not stability.

How to see through it:

Ask yourself: “Is this the path I’m on stable because it’s strong, or because I’ve stopped moving?”

Simulate what would happen if key pieces (a job, a client, a marketing channel) disappeared tomorrow. Would the change provide optionality or regret? If the change would be devastating, it is time to take action.

We Believe External Validation

Likes, revenue, and praise can signal progress but rely on them too much, and you stop trusting your own internal compass.

How to see through it:

Detach performance from purpose.

Ask: “Can I define my purpose without metrics?”

For example, a tube TV manufacturer might have thought their purpose was to be the “World’s Leader in Televisions” instead of “Your Choice for Home Entertainment”. See the difference?

One confines you to a position within a product category (a potential local maximum) while the other defines your service to a customer’s problem that is dynamic and open to change.

We Commit the Sunk Costs Fallacy

You’ve put years into building what you have. To walk away feels wasteful. But the time, money, and effort are already spent.

How to see through it:

Ask: “If I wasn’t already doing this, would I start today?”

If the answer is no, consider whether you’re protecting a true investment or just avoiding a hard decision to move in a different direction.

We Stop Being Curious

Success rewards execution, but over time it narrows your vision. You stop exploring, stop scanning for new opportunities or threats and stop asking better questions

How to see through it:

Make curiosity a practice. Set aside time each week to run experiments, explore new tools, industries, or customer problems.

We Become Overconfident

Success breeds confidence when it should breed humility.

Failure breeds humility when it should breed confidence.

You start thinking you’re untouchable, or that you’ve figured it all out. That’s when you stop listening, iterating, and preparing for change.

How to see through it:

Treat success like a temporary rental, not a permanent residence. Invite dissent and keep people around you who will provide reality checks.

Conduct premortems on your business and life to understand where potential points of failure lurk.

Valley of Fear

While the Fog of Success is blinding, the Valley of Fear is paralyzing. We see the potential peak, we’re just not sure we want to leave the one we’re on to pursue it.

Loss Aversion

This is the fear of giving up what you already have including money, status, momentum, and identity. It’s rooted in the pain of loss being stronger than the potential joy of gain.

How to counteract it:

The Regret Minimization Framework. This framework was popularized by Jeff Bezos and how he made the decision to leave his lucrative hedge fund job to start Amazon.

It’s a simple question: “In X years, will I regret not doing this?”

For Jeff, the answer was obviously yes. What about you? Will you regret not moving toward the bigger goal when you’re 80?

Learning Curves

After years of mastery, starting over feels humbling, even painful. You’ve built your identity on competence, and now you risk stumbling, asking dumb questions, and looking lost. That’s hard for high performers to accept.

How to counteract it:

Reframe beginning as leveling up. This isn’t about starting over it’s about starting from experience. You’re not back at square one; you’re just moving to a new game. The skills, pattern recognition, and resilience you’ve built come with you.

Uncertainty

The Valley of Fear doesn’t have a map. You don’t know how long the in-between will last or how deep the path can become. That unknown becomes paralyzing. Standing still feels safer than moving forward.

How to counteract it:

Experimentation. You don’t have to go all-in overnight. Dedicate resources to explore the next peak without leaving the current one. Use data and feedback to replace fear. Clarity comes through action not overthinking.

The Next Step

Success isn’t a final destination but a dynamic state.

The world is shifting faster than ever. AI, technology, and market dynamics will only accelerate that change. What made you successful today might quietly become your ceiling tomorrow.

You’re not a success. You’re someone who has been successful.

And successful people adapt.

Don’t be blinded by comfort or frozen by fear.

If you’re willing to let go of the small summit, there’s a higher one waiting.

Just get started and keep going.

My goal with The Leap is to provide you each Saturday with the knowledge, tools and lessons learned to help you get started and keep going toward building your future. 

Whether you are making the leap to startups, solo-entrepreneurship, freelancing, side hustles or other creative ventures, the tools and strategies to succeed in each are similar.