Escape Velocity

The force required to change is greater than the pull of habits and systems which have formed previous success.

At some point in our lives we all wake up one day having the same feeling. The desire to cast off all constraints and repetitions from daily life, leave the mundane behind, and head out into the great unknown. Adventure awaits, along with enlightenment, a reconnection to the world and a presumed shedding of our all too comfortable and boring “skins.” What does it take to escape the pull of routines, and when should we abandon things that have worked?

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Even as the fantasy is forming, we know it’s unlikely to be realized. As we age, our lives become more interwoven with things we can’t easily separate from, and responsibilities trump the desire for adventure and spontaneity.

The “mundane” is actually a lovely blanket of security that we become less likely to throw off from around our shoulders, the more we have experienced the true bitterness of a cold and foreign wind.

We might blame the trappings of adult life or the necessary structure of professional achievement, yet we are still products of our genetics, and we are a species that seeks to survive, like all species.

Survival sometimes involves casting out into the unknown, embracing fear and challenge, and seeing what is on the other side of the mountains. But survival more often than not requires repetition and routine. That strange fruit didn’t kill you, so you can eat it again. This cave hasn’t collapsed yet, so it’s still a good shelter. The fish are plentiful in that river, so we shall keep fishing in it. You are unlikely to abandon the fruits, cave or river, until something bad happens and forces you to venture into the unknown.

The failure of a previous survival system will force innovation and risk, as a matter of future survival.

But how do you innovate and change when the impetus is not coming from a survival instinct brought on from a dangerous or threatening failure? Initiating this kind of change goes against our genetic makeup, and requires a tremendous amount of force and conviction.

In physics, escape velocity is the minimum speed needed for an object to “break free” from the gravitational attraction of a massive body. The escape velocity from Earth is about 40,270 km/h (25,020 mph).

More particularly, escape velocity is the speed at which the sum of an object’s kinetic energy and its gravitational potential energy is equal to zero. If given escape velocity, the object will move away forever from the massive body, slowing forever and approaching but never quite reaching zero speed. Once escape velocity is achieved, no further impulse need be applied for it to continue in its escape. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

Science tells us once we’ve achieved escape velocity, we are in the clear. We won’t have to worry about getting pulled back to the thing we’ve sought to escape from.

Impactful growth or evolution, typically requires several periods of significant and turbulent change.

If we look back to the Great Oxygenation Event, about 2.3 billion years ago, we can see that a massive shift in how the Earth managed oxygen changed, and was most likely a necessary precursor for life as we know it.

Another period of radical transformation occurred during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when it is estimated that 75% of the lifeforms (including all non-avian dinosaurs) on the planet went extinct when an asteroid hit the earth.

Yet the devastation caused by the extinction also provided evolutionary opportunities. In the wake of the extinction, many groups underwent remarkable adaptive radiations — a sudden and prolific divergence into new forms and species within the disrupted and emptied ecological niches resulting from the event. Mammals in particular diversified in the Paleogene,[18] producing new forms such as horses, whales, bats, and primates. Birds,[19] fish[20] and perhaps lizards[12] also radiated. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinction_event

Radical transformation both destroys and creates.

If we apply this concept to our lives or professional pursuits, it’s safe to say that if you create enough change and disruption, and create enough new things to replace old things, you will never return to the previous ways of being. However, if you don’t achieve the required velocity of “x”, you risk being pulled back to that which you seek to escape.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein

If you want significant change, innovation and evolution, I suggest that incremental shifts and slow growth are NOT the best approaches to deliver substantial change. Be prepared to see some things die off as you strive to unearth and give birth to new ideas or ways of being. Be prepared for moments of extreme pressure and force to be felt as you undergo the rapid transformation. Be ready with the duct tape and the nails, because you’re job is to hold it all together while you are en route.

One could make the case that to proactively choose to change or evolve, we are getting a jump on what is going to need to inevitably happen. One could also argue that if we aren’t changing, we are becoming complacent, and complacency often results in eventual destruction.

“You will never be entirely comfortable. This is the truth behind the champion — he is always fighting something. To do otherwise is to settle.”
― Julien Smith, The Flinch

I personally believe that there is always room for growth and change, and I also have a peristant curiosity and compulsion to examine problems and look for new solutions. This is probably why I am an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a painter.

What are you hoping to get out of all this change? Generally it is a desire to get “more” or “better” or both.

There are a few times I can recall reaching for something equivalent to escape velocity in my own life, both personally and professionally.

In 1985 I was in my freshman year of high school. I was painfully awkward and insecure, and most days I would sit at the back of the class and watch all the other kids crack jokes and interact. It seemed so easy for them, why was I having such a hard time joining in? At that moment, sitting in that classroom, I decided to change. The only way I was going to find out what kind of person I was capable of becoming was going to require some drastic action. I started giving myself daily tasks to train myself to feel confident; talking to someone outside my sphere of oddball friends, asking more questions when I was in a group setting, trying on different attitudes and approaches to see what fit, and what didn’t. Every day a new challenge, every night, I went to sleep with a growing collection of experiences that began to drown out the insecurities, and create new behaviors.

My social experiments and observations became more interesting than my feelings of not fitting in, of not being “normal.” I realized people would only judge me as harshly as I judged myself, and my intellect and humor were far more powerful than if I had the right outfit on (which I NEVER did) or wanted to chug MadDog behind the bleachers (I didn’t care for drinking or sports). I went exploring my universe and found my circles, my planets, my people, and my passions. Suddenly a confident, engaging and free-spirited human being emerged, something I desperately wanted but could never have achieved if I hadn’t decided to hit the launch button.

Much more recently, about four years ago, I realized my company was on auto-pilot. We were doing good work, were relatively successful in our industry, and saw a slowly growing base of happy clients and long-term employees. What we didn’t have was a real sense of purpose. I mean, as much as we all love them, “websites” do not inspire me to get out of bed every day. I was really questioning what all this effort was going towards? We needed to push past our current horizon lines and see what was possible. If for no other reason, to see what would happen if we really started increasing the velocity and the intensity of what we were doing. This required taking some big risks, like moving to our new office space, like hiring some more people to help us maintain our acceleration, and letting go of people who were holding us back. It required a questioning of the very core of the company, and reaching out to many more mentors and people whose input I respected so I could gain perspective. It required me to push my team into new roles, and help them learn new skills. It meant literally changing every facet of what had been working just fine. The end result after about 2 years of effort was the emergence of this “more” and “better” company, with a focused mission and spirit, and these evolved colleagues who had been with us on the ship. It was a wonderful and rewarding point to get to, after so much effort and many times questioning if the work would be worth it.

And now I’m finding myself in a state of required acceleration and change again, as we take a very hard look at how we are running our business and see if we can push ourselves into a new place where the trappings of our old company won’t clutter our vision, or fracture our approach. This voyage is still underway so you’ll have to check back in about 12 more months and I can let you know how it turned out — that’s my estimated remaining travel time. These are often long journeys.

Everything is in a constant state of change and evolution if we really look at things microscopically. Nothing is completely still, or stagnant. Even the new systems we create will produce their own kind of gravitational pull, and that will spawn new forms of innovation we hand’t necessarily expected.

You must determine what your required escape velocity is, and achieve it, or you’re doomed to return and have to start over again.

There is signifant effort in creating meaningful change. And you certainly risk failure to achieve the transformation. If you are responsible for moving an entire team of people through this process, you’re going to have to nurture them all, along with yourself. You’re going to have to watch every seam and latch, and ensure your team stays relatively intact. You can take a few bumps and bruises on the way, but you can’t have the whole thing blow up.

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein

How will you know when you’ve reached escape velocity?

Everything will feel effortless, and you may even forget you’re sitting in the driver’s seat. You will find yourself in a place of endless possibilities, with little in the form of obstruction standing in your way. You will feel your view is far reaching and clear, and that the people who are with you are standing beside you, not behind you, free to explore this new “place” you’ve reached.

If you enjoyed reading this post, let me know by sharing a story about how you reached escape velocity, and what happened once you got there.