Sometimes the Bigger Risk Is Staying Where You Are
Investor at a sovereign wealth fund. Strong trajectory. A clear path ahead. The kind of role you work hard to earn and feel grateful to have.
And I kept thinking about leaving it to do an MBA.
The question that came up every time was the same one: what if it doesn't work out?
That's the calculation most high performers make when they're standing at a crossroads. We're trained to assess downside. To stress-test the move. To ask what we stand to lose.
What we rarely ask is the second question.
What is the cost of staying?
Not just financially. Not just in career terms. But in terms of the version of yourself you're not becoming. The thinking you're not developing. The capacity that only grows when you move into uncertainty.
I made the decision. I left.
What I didn't predict was how much it would change the way I think. Not just what I knew — but how I processed the world. Being in a room with people from completely different industries, cultures, and career paths forced me to question assumptions I didn't know I was carrying. I became more genuinely curious about perspectives that differed from mine. More comfortable with ambiguity. More adaptable when the ground shifted.
Those aren't soft skills. In the decade of leadership that followed, they were the capabilities I reached for most.
In investing, I learned that uncertainty isn't a problem to be solved. It's the reason outsized returns exist. No uncertainty, no premium.
High performance works the same way. The people I coach who are stuck at a crossroads are rarely lacking information. They're carrying a question they haven't yet let themselves ask honestly: what is the real cost of not moving?
Widening your tolerance for uncertainty isn't reckless. It's often the most strategic thing you can do.
This week in The ROE Letter I explore this further — and in the paid Brief, subscribers use the ROE lens to examine where their own energy is and isn't generating return. https://substack.com/@charmianlong
Does the real risk lie in staying put?
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