I fear complacency the most. When things get better, people tend to want more for less work. — Lee Kuan Yew

I fear complacency the most. When things get better, people tend to want more for less work.

Author: Lee Kuan Yew

Insight: There's a particular trap that success creates: the moment things start working, we tend to ease off just when we should be tightening our grip. It feels natural. You've solved the problem, so why push harder? But that's exactly when the ground shifts beneath you. The competitor who was struggling yesterday has learned from it and is now hungry. The skill you mastered five years ago is becoming standard. The market you dominated has new players entering because it proved valuable. What makes this fear so sharp is that complacency doesn't announce itself. It feels like relief. It looks like confidence. You're not being lazy—you're just being reasonable, right? Except reasonable in a world that's always changing often means falling behind. This applies whether you're thinking about your career, a relationship, a business, or even your health. The people who keep getting better aren't necessarily more talented; they're the ones who stay slightly uncomfortable with where they are. The hard part isn't doing the work when you're desperate. It's doing the work when things are already pretty good. That's when you find out what you're actually made of.

Source: From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, p. 300, 2000