A Concept to Challenge Your Status Quo
“If you can’t explain it to a 6-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein
Back pain is a CEO’s problem disguised as a medical one. Eighty-four percent of Americans have faced it, nearly half in the last quarter alone. Like scaling a company, each struggle is unique. But ask those who’ve battled it long enough, and you’ll hear evangelism for gadgets, therapies, and big-ticket solutions. Hundreds of products, almost none rated above 4.3 stars, flood the market.
The simplest remedy? Unanimously: stretching. Universally prescribed, rarely practiced.
Much like following up on stretches post-appointment, leaders know the importance of daily, simple disciplines, yet skip them in pursuit of “bigger” answers. A seasoned doctor told me, “90% chance you avoid me if you keep stretching, 90% chance you’ll see me again if you don’t.” Eight years on, inconsistency keeps me in the waiting room. The lesson: Obvious solutions gather dust while complexity grabs attention.
Here’s the leadership reflection: Too often we reject “stretching”, the action so simple, so repeatable, it’s invisible. Simplicity, as Steve Jobs said, can be harder than complex. But no optimization, strategy, or shiny new tool will outperform disciplined consistency. Success is the “sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out” (Robert Collier).
What is your stretching as a leader? What vital, boring act unlocks compound gains, yet is buried under complexity bias? Will you choose the consistency that keeps problems from returning?
Forward this to your team. Start tomorrow with a single, simple stretch that drives exponential results, then repeat.
Shared wisdom is exponential wisdom, challenge your peers to find their “stretch.”
