The Compass Map
“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Here’s where most business advice falls apart right now.
Everyone’s telling you to make a plan. Set goals. Build a 3-year strategy. Map out your milestones.
With respect — that’s useless right now.
A plan is a map. It says: go to the tree, turn right, follow the river, climb the mountain, and you’re there. But what if there’s been an earthquake and the river has been diverted? What if the tree got cut down for someone’s house? What if the mountain isn’t where it used to be?
That’s where we are. The landscape is shifting under our feet. Any map you draw today will be wrong by the time you need it.
You don’t need a map – you need a compass.
Your compass is your internal guidance system — your values, your priorities, your non-negotiables. It doesn’t tell you what step to take. It tells you what direction to aim.
This is not the 2008-2020 era where you could set your direction and put it on autopilot. That 12-year stretch of relative stability where plans actually worked? Where you could set a 3-year goal and reasonably expect the world to hold still long enough for you to reach it? That era is over.
Whatever goal you have for three years from now is almost certainly a pipe dream. Not because you’re wrong to aim for it, but because the goal itself may not be there when you arrive. Or it may have transformed into something unrecognisable on the way.
So here’s what works instead:
- Set your direction, not your destination. Know which way you’re heading. Check your compass frequently. Adjust as needed.
- Take one step at a time. Take that win. Do it every day. One step toward something meaningful.
- Smaller steps risk smaller falls. Larger steps risk bigger falls. Step wisely, grasshopper.
- Be willing to go backwards. If circumstances demand it, that’s fine. Sometimes retreating is the smartest move. Going backwards in the right direction beats charging forward in the wrong one.
- Recalibrate constantly. The landscape is changing fast enough that what was true last month may not be true this month. Stay alert. Stay adaptive.
The level of uncertainty ahead of us is higher than anything most of us have faced in our lifetimes. You don’t have to predict the future. And you don’t have to know exactly where you want to be, you just have to know which direction you’re aiming — and keep checking your compass to adjust as the terrain changes underneath you.
When I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis — told it was incurable, degenerative, prepare for spinal fusion — I didn’t have a plan. I had a direction: get better. So I built my compass and started walking. One decision, one experiment, one recalibration at a time.
That’s how I found my way back to health. It’s how I help clients navigate business chaos. And it’s the approach I trust more than any strategic plan right now.
Compass over map. Direction over plan. Progress over prediction.
BTW if you want to learn more about how I became a medical miracle and healed my arthritis, grab a copy of my book: Using Arthritic Against Itself: