To us who often move for the sake of movement,

Movement Creates Openings

There comes a time (or many) where we get frustrated with our current situation and seek a change. Sometimes the desire for change is so great that we’re willing to take any action, so long as there is movement. I have had this feeling many times. But what I’ve learned over time is that, in most cases, movement for the sake of movement is a waste of energy (with a few rare exceptions).

Don’t confuse movement with progress.

Denzel Washington

I find that frequently, when I try to breakdown a problem in life, I rely on analogies from BJJ to both illustrate the issue as well as work out a solution. There are times on the mat when you’re grappling an opponent where you’ll get stuck in an unfavorable position, for example, bottom position of side-control. Usually, a novice practitioner will become uncomfortable and struggle, squirming to get free. They might even attempt some basic escape techniques, but with that desperate mindset of “I don’t like this, get me out!”. The person on top usually doesn’t even need to actively attack in this scenario, he just waits for the person to move and takes advantage of the movement to progress to his next position or submission. Over time, you learn to accept discomfort and assess the situation while in that position. You begin to understand what is truly a threatening position where you must react and what is simply an uncomfortable one. Once we learn to sit in discomfort, the game changes. You’re no longer squirming on bottom and giving openings to your opponent; you can instead strategize your next series of moves when you see an opening in your opponent. This means that, for the person on top to progress, they too have to make a move, which actually leaves them open for an escape or reversal. This core learning, that movement is opportunity, carries over from BJJ to the world. You’ll hear people talk about chaos being an opportunity to make money, to establish new political order, and so on. It is hard to create change in stability, still doable, but hard. But when the environment is shifting, moving, changing, it is much easier to use existing momentum you find to make change. The downside is that any movement you create can also be used against you if you haven’t guarded against it. This is why movement for the sake of movement, in any aspect of life, is almost always not a good strategy.

Let’s go to a specific example that I encounter frequently: discussions on jobs and careers. Especially in the corporate world where I work, there are (always) negative aspects to the job. There are also positives, even if it is the core that is making money (that is the primary reason one works after all). It feels like now more than before, people have a high exposure to alternative job and career options; this is only amplified with the comparisons we see on social media: “How come I’m not making $30k/month?”. This feeling that the grass is always greener is that: a feeling. Many of my conversations with peers and friends (and myself) start with that feeling. But one should not make decisions based purely on feelings, some analysis must be done first. The grass may be greener, but that may come with more rainy days.

Define the Problem Before You Move

An example: a colleague of mine was frustrated in his job as an engineer at a large company and was perusing the market. To frame our problem: he enjoyed the actual engineering work itself so wasn’t looking for a career change, but his complaints came from some of the administrative responsibilities he had and the company’s org structure. As we were discussing his options at other companies, we worked past the feelings and into the analysis part. He could jump to a similarly sized company, but most of the issues he had with the company organization would be similar. Alternatively, he could take a job at a smaller firm which would have less problems in that area due a to a leaner, streamlined org structure; but administrative responsibilities would increase, and job stability would also go down. None of these things are good or bad, they simply are. Each person values various factors differently. There are also factors that weren’t listed above: compensation, flexibility, career mobility, etc. Maybe one job pays more but they expect you to be locked into that senior role for the rest of your career and you value career movement over higher income today; perhaps moving often in your career opens doors to positions with even higher compensation plans. Maybe one company has a fixed compensation program with no flexibility but is ranked high amongst competitors and another has a lower average compensation but a wider range based on performance and negotiation where the upper end exceeds the first company’s plan: someone who knows they aren’t very good at negotiating might pick the first company as a better option, versus someone who is more aggressive might prefer the second, versus a third person who is not very aggressive but knows they can deliver high performance results and wants to challenge themselves and grow their negotiating skills might choose the second company to stretch themselves. Both companies have positives and negatives and they are weighted differently to each assessor. There is a cost to any decision, even if the cost is simply eliminating the unselected option. This is not to discourage seekers of different opportunities, only to remind ourselves to look at the actual comparisons and not just fold to frustration and act on emotion, without strategy.

There are also those who want to make large jumps, maybe a big career change or starting a project they’ve always wanted to work on. Some will say “make the jump, follow your dreams”, while others will rebuke you and remind you of all the risks. This again comes down to the specific scenario and goes beyond feelings. Tim Ferriss talks a lot about capping the downside of any investment or business venture, i.e. if you can structure the worst-case scenario such that the risk is bounded and acceptable then go ahead with the project; if the negative risk is unbounded (has no limit or a very large limit), then that is where the decision becomes akin to a gamble. Say you are someone who has no dependents and you have a job in a relatively stable industry; there are constant job openings in your field and you’re qualified for most of them. The risk of quitting today then to start something new on your own is likely low: the worst-case scenario is that your project fails in which case you can get a job similar to the one you had prior to quitting, i.e. go back to square one. The worst thing to have happened was a few missed pay-cheques. If in another scenario you do have dependents and you work in an oversaturated industry where job openings are rare, then the calculation changes. You might need to have more saved up before you decide to quit; or you can choose to bound the risk by perhaps accepting that, in the case of project failure, you’ll have to work a lower paying job to keep your finances afloat until a position in your original field opens up. Even that risk might be too high compared to your personal risk tolerance that you might choose instead to prove your project (say with a pilot or proof of concept) alongside maintaining your current job to increase the probability of success of your endeavor after quitting (so that the upside risk goes from a pure unknown to, maybe, a 70% chance of success); the downside to this path is that the time to achieve your vision will likely increase, but, as I keep having to remind myself: everything comes at a cost.

The Art of the Scramble

Now, I do want to touch on the rare scenario where movement for the sake of movement actually is beneficial. If we go back to BJJ for example, sometimes you find yourself in a scramble. This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a fast back-and-forth where each opponent is scrambling to get into a dominant position. In a normal BJJ match, one opponent will usually attack and the other will attempt to defend; if the defense is successful they are in a new position where again someone has the opportunity to attack and the other can defend successfully or fail. Many matches play out like chess matches, sometimes the moves are faster, sometimes slower. A scramble is different in that during the scramble period there is no waiting: one opponent will attack, the other will defend and then throw a counter-attack, to which the first will defend or pivot then launch into another attack, and so on until someone reaches a dominant position. This high-energy back and forth promotes movement over stagnation, but the movement is strategic, not haphazard; not every attack is guaranteed to land, but the act of launching the attack forces your opponent to defend it instead of thinking of his own attack, and so it is a tactic of using a constant onslaught of attacks to keep your opponent on their back foot. Now, in a true scramble, your opponent is doing the same thing to you, and so it becomes a combined matter of skill and stamina as to who can last the longest and maintain their defenses and counters while also delivering precise attacks. It is much more energy intensive than the standard approach, but can be a very effective strategy. In this case, movement is critical and it must be maintained until a winning position can be obtained.

The deliberate movement in a BJJ scramble is very different than the squirming movement done by the frustrated novice. Similarly in life and work, movement induced purely from emotion is not constructive, hence why movement for the sake of movement is (usually) not worthwhile. However, there are times in life where movement is preferred over inaction. Say you have a vision and you’re set on it: you’ve assessed the risks associated with executing it and deemed that you have the appropriate resources. In these phases of life, it is often better to move than to stop moving. Make a move then assess it: if positive, then stick with the plan and make the next move; if not, then pivot and keep moving. Moving with no destination is a sure way to become lost, but if you have a guiding light then you can always measure if your last move got you closer or farther from your target and adjust. When training most AI models, some sort of error feedback is required for the AI to try to minimize error or get closer to an assigned target. Imagine training a model but not giving it a goal and telling it to simply move: there is no way for it to learn because it is moving and has no goal to compare to (similar to the person moving based on pure emotion). In our lives as well, we can sometimes become entrenched in making detailed plans and whenever an obstacle comes up we stop all progress and form another detailed plan. But this loses us the advantage of momentum which is often undervalued. It is better to pivot on the fly and adjust the plan live, keeping the final goal in mind and adjusting course as needed based on the feedback we measure.

In life, as in BJJ, we cannot move based on desire or frustration. Let frustration and desire be a spark for consideration, but nothing more. The real work comes afterwards, in assessing the situation and the moves available to us. Only when we have a strategy thought out should we move. Yet at the same time, once a target has been locked, move and keep moving; scramble for that dominant position and don’t get stumped on the first hurdle.

Sincerely,

A fellow novice trying to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and make strategic moves.