Be wary of the sweet afterglow of success
Your business model works until it doesn’t, and your success in the past is a poor teacher for what it will take to find success in the future.
Bill Gates has said: “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
The sweet afterglow of success has a way of redefining as brilliant decisions all of the ways you got lucky and glossing over a lot of little things that never were quite right along the way. It can also blind you to a shifting landscape and emerging threats and opportunities. The skills, strategies, and activities that got you to this point may not be the same ones that that can take you to the next level.
Blockbuster has become an easy punchline for those looking to describe the very public failures of a fallen giant, but the company was a giant. It was tremendously successful for almost two decades, becoming the largest video rental store chain in the world, at one point controlling nearly a third of the home rental video market.
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