Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

If someone were to ask me what my ideal job would be upon moving on from graduate school, I would probably say something to the effect of,  "I'd like to be in a job that evokes a sense of respect from my friends, their friends, and most everyone that I meet. In addition to that, it needs to be a job that has path which leads to a cool title and a lot of money. I picture myself in a corner office with windows where you have an incredible view of whatever city I work in... "  Fast forward to today and let me describe my ideal job for you, "I'd like a job that gives me the flexibility to spend time with the ones I care about, provides me with enough money to live within my expected standards, AND allows me to work with people that I like that value my contribution." PERIOD.  What they don't tell you in business school is that the first description of an ideal job is far from ideal.  Sure,  everyone ogles over your title on LinkedIn and on your bus...

All you need to do is move the needle.  Work paralysis occurs when you get bogged down in the timeline of where you should be.  You want to lose 20 pounds, but it has to be gone by tomorrow.  You want to be at the next level in your job and you wonder why it's five years after you expected to be there.  You want your business to transform overnight, but you forgot how many years it took to for it to become what it's become.  Ctrl-Z doesn't work in life because life is a journey and a marathon.  All you need to do is move the needle in the right direction--- whether you feel it's an inch or a foot.  As long as it's moving.

In the management consultant profession, consultants are paid for 1 of 2 things: to solve problems; or do something that clients don't have the resources or capabilities of doing themselves.  If you stay in the profession long enough, you begin to develop a false sense of confidence -- something along the lines of, "whatever your problem is, I'm sure that I'll find a way to solve it -- I'm THAT smart."  After all, who wants to go the consultant that says, "I don't know."  Sometimes, as consultants, it's actually in our best interest to say, "I don't know." The alternative is that we provide our clients with a half-baked answer that that ends up making a client's situation the same or worse, rather than better.  It's like asking your family doctor to solve an eye problem when the best recommendation would have been to send you to an ophthalmologist.  As you progress though the consulting profession (or probably ...