On Leaping

This morning, in honor of February 29th, Seth Godin shared these thoughts in his daily message :

Every four years, we have a worldwide holiday to celebrate this sort of leap. The leap of choice. Not to suddenly get from here to there, but to choose to go on the journey.

It’s only once every 1,460 days, you can do it.

Leap today.

Perhaps we begin by visualizing it. In the most concrete terms you can find, write it down. If you took a leap today, what would it look like?

Thanks to the framework in “The Confidence Map,” we do just that.

All our “leaps” in life happen in the Launch Pad.? Leaps are experiences where we take action yet have no idea of the future outcome.? We have control but no certainty.? We put the car in gear with no idea of the road ahead or where it may lead.? Whether we are starting a business, typing the first words of our book on our computer, or any of the other millions of leaps we take, they all begin in the upper left box of the Quadrant.

What we fail to appreciate, though, is how much where we are on the Quadrant the moment before matters to how we feel when we leap.

Some leaps, like getting on a ski lift for the first time, involve voluntarily leaving the Comfort Zone.? We deliberately introduce uncertainty into our lives, feeling confident we will figure things out.? We imagine our experience like a roundtrip – where we leave the Comfort Zone, do something adventurous in the Launch Pad, succeed, and then end up back in the Comfort Zone.? We are confident we will ski safely down the slope and end up safe and warm in the ski lodge at the end of the day.

We wouldn’t get on a ski lift – to leap – if we imagined that moments later, we would be riding down the mountain in a ski patrol toboggan wrapped like a burrito.

As leaps go, our jumps from the Comfort Zone into the Launch Pad tend to be well-thought through ahead of time.? Moreover, they are our choice.? We decide whether to leap or not.

In other cases, we leap from Stress Center to the Launch Pad.

These are those moments when we leap less out of choice than necessity.? Faced with intense uncertainty and powerlessness, we feel compelled to do something – even if it is wrong.? We leap when we race to Home Depot for parts when a pipe bursts. ??We leap when stick out our thumb to hitchhike when we’ve run out of gas.? In the Stress Center, we do something to improve our current condition.

During COVID, we saw lots of corporate leaders leap.? They cut inventories, drew down on their credit lines, and cancelled orders.? They jumped out of the Stress Center into the Launch Pad hoping that by taking action, they would get back – and get their businesses back – to the Comfort Zone.

When we look at our leaps from the Stress Center, they tend to be highly impulsive and emotional.? Like fight and flight, they are a fear response.? We do something, hoping it will work.

While on the surface, our leaps from the Stress Center may appear to be the most challenging, they’re not.? In those cases, we feel compelled to act.? The consequences of inaction are so daunting and obvious that our Stress Center leaps are all but choiceless decisions.? We must.

If, in the Comfort Zone, we can leap, and, in the Stress Center, we must leap, in the Passenger Seat we are typically terrified to leap.

To appreciate why, we need to consider how we feel in the Passenger Seat.? Passenger Seat environments typically involve taking direction from others.? We’re following someone else’s lead.? They’re in control, not us.?

To leap from the Passenger Seat, then, requires that we swap our current environment, in which we have certainty but no control, for the Launch Pad, in which we will have control but no certainty.? The Launch Pad and Passenger Seat are opposite confidence environments.? In leaving the Passenger Seat for the Launch Pad, we must choose to go from the back seat of the car to being the driver – frequently after being told by the current driver that we’re no good behind the wheel, if we have ever been allowed to drive at all.? In the Passenger Seat we are obedient followers not take-control leaders.

That backdrop of perpetual followership, inexperience, negative reinforcement, self-defeating stories, and other limiting factors make it especially hard for us to leap.? We don’t feel like we have the skills, tools, talent, qualifications, resources, or standing to leave the Passenger Seat.? Taking control is the last thing we can imagine doing, let alone succeed at.

The result is that in the Passenger Seat, we often associate leaping with failing.? We feel all but certain that if we leap, we will end up in the Stress Center, not the Comfort Zone.

To counter these feelings, a successful leap from the Passenger Seat requires planning and preparation.? Well ahead of time, we must think through the skills and resources we will need so that when we do leap, we increase the odds of our success.? We may also need to leap with others.? Successful social movements demonstrate that there is power when those in the Passenger Seat leap as one.

As I share in “The Confidence Map” our location on the Quadrant matters.? It drives our feelings, preferences, decisions, and actions.? Nowhere is that clearer than in the moments right before we leap into the Launch Pad.

If February 29th is pushing you to leap, I hope these thoughts help you to appreciate that it’s not a one-size-fits-all experience.? It makes a big difference whether you are volunteering to leap because you are in the Comfort Zone, if you are feeling forced to leap because you are in the Stress Center, or if you are afraid to leap and must be better prepared because you are in the Passenger Seat.

Looking before you leap isn’t only about where you hope to land; it’s about better understanding your launch point – and its implications – too.

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Peter Atwater is the author of The Confidence Map: Charting a Path from Chaos to Clarity and an adjunct lecturer in the Economics Department at William & Mary, where he studies the impact of changing confidence on decision-making.