A junior Sony engineer, Ken Kutaragi, develops a 3D graphics chip for a video game console. His own executives, who run a “safe” and serious electronics company, tell him to abandon the “toy” and get back to “serious” work. His invention would eventually become the Playstation.
A biologist, Rachel Carson, presents evidence that popular pesticides are poisoning the food chain. The powerful and trusted chemical industry spends millions to brand her as a “hysterical woman” trying to stop “safe, modern progress.”
A pianist, Thelonious Monk, insists on playing “wrong” notes and using jagged, off-kilter rhythms. For over a decade, critics and labels dismiss him, pressuring him to play the “safe,” smooth, and technically “correct” way.
Every creator, innovator, and leader faces this moment. It’s the gravitational force of the status quo—a powerful pull that tries to revert every new idea back to the mean.
By definition, new things are unproven. They are fragile. And in that moment, when the world wants to compromise your vision into mediocrity, you have one job: Hold the line.
Holding the line is about protecting the potency of a new idea before it has a chance to prove itself. It’s the willingness to stand strong in your way, based on your visceral belief, instead of acquiescing to everyone else’s way.
The risk of not holding the line? Mediocrity. Regret.
I’m reminded of Frank Sinatra. His entire legacy is defined by the song “My Way.”
If he had lived, sung, and compromised like everyone else, he wouldn’t be Sinatra. He’d be a forgotten wedding singer covering other people’s contributions instead of making his own.
The people who make history are the ones who hold the line.
When that gravitational force pulls on your next big idea, will you let it be sanded down? Or will you find the conviction to hold the line?
To your creative success…
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