> The essential difficulty in creating strategy is not logical; it is choice itself. Strategy does not eliminate scarcity and its consequence—the necessity of choice. Strategy is scarcity’s child and to have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others. There is difficult psychological, political, and organizational work in saying ‘no’ to whole worlds of hopes, dreams, and aspirations > > _— Richard Rumelt, via_ _**[Good Strategy Bad Strategy](https://substack.com/redirect/7a859fa6-1fc7-4b7b-b756-d19a3ec0a035?j=eyJ1IjoiMTM4bGEifQ.PZ-OR4qDrWvAlQRP7f0gstxNRmE7_mu_grHi7nSB068)**_ ### Insight & Action 🛠️ In business and in life (as Dan Hock said above): It’s painful to choose. It’s difficult to make decisions that inevitably close doors, because optionality feels safe. But accepting the reality of trade-offs and choosing between them is the only way to move forward. A strategy is not a true strategy if it doesn’t make clear what you’re not doing. Good strategy gives you a filter for saying “no”.  Companies, and us folks operating inside of them, are so much better at adding things than we are at taking things away. We’re better at setting goals and talking about what we’re going to do than we are at talking about what we’re not going to do. It's easier to add process than it is to ask why we're still doing that thing that worked great two years ago but mostly isn't relevant anymore. We’re better at adding meetings than we are at removing them.  **So, practice setting non-goals to help with focus and making your strategic priorities more clear.** #concept [[Concepts MOC]]