Elite rowers know a paradox: grip too tight, and you could catch an oar and be thrown into the water; grip too loose, and you’ll lose control.
Success demands the same impossible balance: an iron grip on your goals, but an open hand with your methods.
The best people I’ve worked with have a light grip. They treat their plans and ideas as the best available at the time, but are quick to discard them if something better comes along. The average person holds on too tight, ignoring better evidence.
The right grip isn’t about strength – it’s about knowing exactly when to hold and when to adjust.
This idea was inspired by Graham Duncan, who said in a recent interview:
I rowed a lot in high school and a bit in college. And when you’re holding the oar, there’s a tendency to really grip it, in which case your forearm tightens up and you’re kind of muscling it. Versus there’s a version where your grip is like paradoxical. It’s both solid but also loose. And if you catch a crab, it’s called catching a crab, where the oar goes under the water, the blade goes under the water, and you can get thrown into the water if you’re not careful. In that case you need to be able to let go of the oar, otherwise you’re going in the water. So there’s this tight but loose grip that I started noticing that when I speak to certain people, if someone’s ideological about the thing they’re discussing, they’re kind of subtly conveying to you it’s not up for grabs, it’s not debatable.