When Things Start Going Well — Three Things to Watch Most

It isn't only when things are very hard that a person must be careful. If anything, I think the moment things start to go a little well can be more dangerous.

When work starts flowing, revenue appears, your name gets known bit by bit, and calls start coming in that never came before, your judgment can start to wobble along with it.

When you're failing, you guard against everything; when things start working, confidence naturally grows and vigilance drops. That is exactly when new things to watch for appear.

First, beware of spam and phishing email. When nobody knows you, strange messages rarely come. But start a business, let your company name become searchable, expose a LinkedIn page or website, list your product on overseas services, expand your activity outward — and suddenly a flood of email begins. Investment proposals, marketing offers, interview requests, partnerships, overseas-expansion support, award notices, account verifications, payment problems, security alerts — many of them look, at a glance, like real opportunities.

The problem is that fraud, too, aims precisely at the psychology of someone trying to succeed. When people see the words they've been waiting for, expectation comes before doubt. One line — “we'd like to invest,” “we saw your company,” “we'd like to collaborate” — makes you click a link you'd never normally click. So the better things go, the more you must doubt that one link, that one attachment, that one login page. As a company grows, security stops being a mere technical issue and becomes a matter of survival.

Second, discern the people who approach you. When things aren't going well, relationships are relatively simple. You don't have much, so others don't have much to gain from you. But once results start to appear, the situation changes. When money, customers, networks, and a position worth being introduced to all arrive, people who never existed before naturally begin to approach.

Of course, some of them are genuinely good people, people who sincerely want to walk together. So this is not a call to suspect everyone. But whether a person is approaching you for you, or for your potential, money, information, connections, or title — only time reveals that. Especially when things start going well, the ability to judge whom to keep close matters far more than the ability to meet many people. Business, in the end, grows because of people and collapses because of people. One good person can save you years; one person let in wrongly can bring down years of accumulation at a stroke.

Third, don't look at today — look ten years out. When things start going a little well, the strongest temptation that arrives is impatience. Revenue rose a little, so you want to expand bigger; people are paying attention, so you want to look bigger; investment talk appears, so it feels like you must scale the company now; and once people around you start calling you a success, it feels like you must keep proving that expectation.

But make the wrong choices at exactly this point and growth turns to poison. Take every job that pays now and the company's direction disappears; hire more than needed and you must take unwanted work just to sustain the organization; inflate costs to look bigger and the numbers begin to chase you. So with every choice, look not at how much it earns now but at whether the choice will still remain in ten years. Does the technology remain? Does customer trust remain? Does the brand remain? Do good people remain? Does a repeatable structure remain? The businesses that last are not the ones that earned the most in a single moment but the ones whose assets accumulate as time passes.

That's why I think the abilities needed before success and after it begins are slightly different. Before things work, what matters is the strength to keep trying without giving up — to move again after rejection and failure. But from the moment things start to flow, what matters more is the power to decide what to accept and what to refuse. Not seizing everything because it's an opportunity, not keeping everyone close because they approach, not doing every job because it pays.

Before things go well, the ability to endure saves you. But once things start going a little well, the ability to protect saves you.

Growth, in the end, is not only the process of gaining more. It is also the process of learning what to doubt, whom to trust, and what to give up. So the closer you get to things going well, the colder you must be rather than excited. Think less about the one opportunity arriving today and more about where you will be standing in ten years.

To close, at the moment things start going a little well, remember at least these three.

1. Beware spam and phishing email.

The more sweetly a message is wrapped, the sooner you verify it — and double-check every link, attachment, account login, and transfer request.

2. Discern the people who approach.

You need not suspect everyone, but judge with time whether they see you or what you have.

3. Don't look at today — look ten years out.

Over today's revenue, attention, and expansion, choose what will remain: technology, trust, brand, people, structure.

Before success, you need the strength to endure;

after it begins, you need the strength to preserve your momentum.