“The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner.”
That’s the gist of the Red Queen hypothesis: adapt or die. Slow rabbits get eaten, increasing the number of fast rabbits in the gene pool. A fox must be quick to catch a rabbit, but only quick enough to stay well fed. You can think of it like an evolutionary arms race in which predators constantly apply pressure, forcing their prey into fitness.
Bottom line: the animal whose life is at stake has more incentive than the animal whose dinner is at stake.
It’s tough to come up with a better analogy to describe the professional world. On a micro level, it’s the new kid in the office proving he’s worth a paycheck pitted against the lifer who knows he’ll get a paycheck whether he shows up a nine or noon. On a macro level, it’s the disruptive startup pitted against the stodgy conglomerate (think Netflix vs. Blockbuster.)
At first, the pecking order always seems irreversible. But the proverbial rabbits realize something that many proverbial foxes don’t: once the rabbit trains itself to run just fast enough to escape the fox, the game is over. The foxes starve and become extinct while the rabbits repopulate.
Of course, nobody cares about the rabbits until the fox can no longer keep up. But that’s the point. If you’re the rabbit (i.e. under 30 and don’t have a corner office), bide your time. Assess the terrain. Figure out how shit works and who the important people are (hint: there aren’t many of them.)
While your “superiors” are resting on their laurels, you’re calculating, plotting, observing, reading—remember, if you play by the rules long enough, it becomes your game.
It’s the startup versus the household name; the trailblazer versus the incumbent; the wunderkind versus the starch-shirted conformist. Will all the rabbits escape the foxes? Doubtful. But it’s worth it to go down trying.
Have you read these five books to base your life on? Get the list, plus seven strategies I stole from legendary marketers to promote your work.
