Success is intoxicating. When you’re praised and celebrated, it’s tempting to fall for the stories others tell about you: you are invincible, destined for ever-greater triumphs. It’s not risk itself that undoes us but the illusion that risk no longer applies.

That’s why most accidents happen closest to home, not in unfamiliar terrain, but in the familiar. We’re comfortable. We relax, take our eyes off the ball. We’ve “done this a thousand times before.” It’s precisely when we feel most certain that danger is most imminent.

Consider this:

After capturing Seoul and advancing to the 38th Parallel, General Douglas MacArthur felt invincible. He sniffed a far bigger prize. Why not keep going? Why not seize Pyongyang? Why not drive all the way to the Yalu River, North Korea’s border with China, and unite the entire peninsula? He was hypnotized by the vision of a larger triumph. If he could pull it off, it would be the crowning moment of his career.

So, inevitably, the mission crept forward. He ordered his men to race headlong for the Yalu. “The war will be over by Christmas,” he said.

What he didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers were already streaming across the Yalu, preparing a massive trap. Once the intelligence finally came in, he and his inner circle of yes-men dismissed or distorted it. The result was catastrophic: tens of thousands of UN troops were thrown into chaos, in one of the most devastating retreats in American military history.

 

Putting it into Play

Complacency is the great saboteur of success. The moment we believe ourselves untouchable, we stop listening, stop questioning, stop scanning for risk. We feel invincible, or just very certain. And so our vigilance dulls.

There is power in daring great things. But it takes just as much power and self-awareness to stay humble and alert after success. It’s the moment you feel most victorious that you should stay most vigilant.