Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Why 100% Is Easier Than 98%

Clay Christensen was the starting center on his university’s varsity basketball team. They had fought all season to reach the British championship finals. Then he learned the game was scheduled for Sunday — his Sabbath. When he told his coach he couldn’t play, the response was swift: “I believe that God will understand.” His teammates, his best friends, pleaded with him. The backup center had a dislocated shoulder. Everything hung on this one decision. Christensen went to pray and returned with his answer: he wouldn’t cross the line. Looking back decades later, the Harvard professor who revolutionized how we think about innovation saw that Sunday differently. “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time,” he realized. Because life is just one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. The marginal cost of bending a rule one time seems trivial, until it happens again, and then again, and at some point you notice you’ve become someone you never intended to be. His team won without him anyway.

Be The Change

Identify one personal principle you’ve been holding at 98 percent. In other words, what’s a commitment you bend “just this once” when circumstances press? This week, don’t cross that line, even if the cost feels real.