Don't Eat Your Broccoli

Or, How to Stay in Your Comfort Zone

This issue of my strategy newsletter doesn’t say much about strategy. For one thing, it’s not about making big companies bigger. For another, it’s got no advice whatsoever about streamlining supply chains for nonfungible agile balance sheet tokens.

What I offer instead, just this once until the next time, is a tribute to comfort zones.

There’s a reason why we don’t want to leave our comfort zones: They’re comfortable. Why would we want to be uncomfortable? I thought we work hard to build comfortable lives. I have no desire to shriek down a frayed zip line twelve thousand feet above Lake Alligator. (As Butch Cassidy comforted the Sundance Kid, “The fall will probably kill you”.) I’m not steady even on a stepladder. I’d rather ____ (fill in activity devoid of altitude and alligators).

Note the sadistic glee when people exhort, “Get out of your comfort zone!” Note the contradiction in logic when those same sadists declare, “I love getting out of my comfort zone.” Note the opportunity to make everyone happy by telling said sadists that they are actually in their comfort zones.

No one is officially in favor of comfort zones. Well, that’s not quite right. No one is officially in favor of your comfort zone. “Get out of your comfort zone” is handy, all-purpose advice given by people who are comfortable giving advice. It’s the adult equivalent of eat your broccoli.

Worse: It’s awful marketing. Dissatisfaction guaranteed.

From a marketing perspective, what we have here is a failure to exhilarate.

Let’s take a step back. We need benefits to coax us out of our comfort zones, benefits that we cannot acquire otherwise. We can tiptoe out of comfort zones if the benefits exceed the costs. We are customers, weighing gains against pains in the markets of our lives.

In that spirit, I’d like to share a story. It involves a stepladder on steroids, a.k.a. a telephone pole.

Twenty-two years ago, I left my comfort zone for a week and attended a wonderful program run by PSI Seminars. In one exercise of that week, each person would climb a telephone pole (wearing safety harnesses, of course).

I watched one person after another scamper up the pole like squirrels on espresso. I knew it was impossible, but they seemed to have fun. Then it was my turn.

About eight feet up, I froze. I called for attention. I shouted to the participants that I’m afraid of heights and asked them to urge me on. They responded with a chorus of encouragement and cheers that I’ll never forget.

I kept my eyes clenched shut, opening them only for brief instants to find the next rung. And the next. And the next. And then this happened:

Let’s come back to Earth. Does that story illustrate the benefit or the cost of leaving a comfort zone?

Good question. All I can say is this: That photo still inspires me after 22 years, and I still plan never to climb another telephone pole.

Perhaps we can re-frame how we think about comfort zones. Perhaps we can stop thinking of them as irredeemable villains that ruin our lives and keep us from our next promotion. I suggest that the goal is not for us to get out of our comfort zones but, rather, to expand our comfort zones so we can reap the benefits and enjoy the lives we choose.

You don’t like broccoli? ?I like broccoli. You like olives? I don’t like olives. Sounds like synergy to me.

P.S. Since you got this far, you might also enjoy “Two Words to Help You Gut Check Your Career” in HBR.

P.S. We have comfort zones, so we might as well enjoy them. This song always brings me joy. Warning to young readers: It’s impossibly old, from when streaming involved water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGsz0eV-Ckk

#comfortzone #goals