When Did ‘Good Enough’ Become Your Standard?
On India and On how you went from "your best" to "just okay"
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I asked a senior executive recently: “What level of productivity and energy are you operating at?”
“60%,” he said.
“How long has this been going on?”
“About two years.”
I let that sit for a moment. Then asked: “And that’s good enough?”
He didn’t answer.
The Thing Nobody Admits
Two years at 60%. Leading a large team. And calling it sustainable.
Most executives won’t admit this out loud. But they feel it.
The meeting where you let a mediocre strategy slide because fighting it isn’t worth the political capital.
The decision you approve even though you know it’s incomplete because “we need to ship something.”
The moment you stay silent when you should speak up because you’re “too senior to fight every battle.”
None of these feel like lowering your standards in the moment. They feel like being realistic. Strategic. Mature.
But string enough of them together, and you wake up one day operating at 60% while telling yourself it’s the best you can do.
The Pattern I See
Walk through any major tech company in Silicon Valley and you’ll find Indian executives at the top. Satya Nadella at Microsoft. Sundar Pichai at Google. Shantanu Narayen at Adobe. Arvind Krishna at IBM.
Their success is visible. Celebrated. And it creates a particular pressure for the generation following them.
When you’re the first in your family to reach senior leadership in a global company, when your parents sacrificed everything to get you here, when your success represents the culmination of multiple generations of striving - operating at 60% feels like betrayal.
So you don’t admit it. You keep showing up. Keep performing. Keep maintaining what you’ve built.
And the gap between what you’re capable of and what you’re actually giving grows wider every year.
India is a land of entrepreneurs. Of people who built something from nothing. Of relentless standards and impossible expectations.
But somewhere in the corporate climb, many executives trade that entrepreneurial intensity for corporate maintenance. The fire that got them here dims to a manageable ember.
They call it maturity. Growth. Learning to pick your battles.
But is it? Or is it just acceptance that 60% is sustainable?
What I Was Told
Throughout my career, I heard the same thing from bosses and colleagues: “Lighten up, Raju. You’re taking this stuff too seriously.”
They weren’t wrong. I was intense. Probably too intense.
But over the past 20 years I’ve learned there’s a difference between taking life seriously and taking myself seriously.
I don’t need to take myself seriously. The ego, the titles, the need to be right - none of that matters.
But life itself? That I take seriously.
There’s a one in a million chance to be born. To be gifted this life. So yes, I want to give it my best.
That shows up in how I work. How I interact. My demeanor. I’m probably more serious than the room needs. Less fun than I could be. I know this about myself.
But I’ve never been able to accept “good enough” as a standard.
On the other hand, perfection is the enemy of progress. You give it your best, you let it go, you move forward.
But “good enough” when you know you’re capable of better? That’s different.
The Weight of Being First
When you operate below your capacity long enough, something fundamental changes.
Your competence stays intact. You’re still good at your job. Maybe even excellent by external measures.
What changes is your relationship with your own judgment.
You stop trusting what you know. You start needing validation before committing. You check with everyone before deciding anything.
It looks like collaboration. It feels like wisdom. But it’s erosion.
You stop volunteering bold ideas. Why risk being wrong when you can be safely right?
You start justifying incremental thinking. “We need to be realistic” becomes your default response to anything ambitious.
You resent people who haven’t lowered their standards yet. The colleague who still pushes back annoys you. The person who demands better feels naive.
Eventually you forget what full engagement even felt like. You’ve normalized coasting so completely that anything more feels unrealistic.
The Quiet Crossroads
Most executives I work with aren’t in crisis.
They’re maintaining. Getting the job done. Hitting their numbers. Looking successful from the outside.
Feeling nothing on the inside.
They’re at a crossroads. Between accepting diminished effort as permanent or reclaiming the standard that made them who they are.
The leader who realizes she’s managing other people’s ideas instead of creating her own.
The executive who’s mastered the politics but lost the vision.
The senior person who’s so focused on not making mistakes that he’s forgotten what it feels like to build something.
The crossroads isn’t about your job. It’s about whether you’ll accept drift as your identity.
What You Can Actually Do
When executives realize they’ve been coasting, the first instinct is usually binary: accept it or quit.
But there’s another way.
Name it. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge. Where have you been settling? What standard have you let slide?
Pick one domain. Don’t try to fix everything. Choose one area - how you prepare, how you decide, how you develop others - and bring your real standard back there.
Watch what happens. When you operate at full capacity in one area again, you’ll learn something crucial about your environment. Does it welcome this? Or punish it?
That answer tells you everything about whether renewal is possible where you are or if it’s time to move.
The Question
When did settling become acceptable to you?
And more importantly: Is that actually the best you can do? Or is it just the best you’re willing to do right now?
The quality of your life isn’t determined by your position. It’s determined by the standard you maintain while you’re in it.
You can be a senior executive coasting and feel empty.
You can be anywhere operating at full capacity and feel alive.
The question is whether you’ll keep drifting or start demanding better from yourself again.
What Happens Next
If you recognized yourself here - if this hit close to home - you’re at a crossroads whether you’ve named it or not.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share more about this moment. Not telling you what to do. Helping you see clearly enough to choose consciously.
Join my private email list if you want that clarity.
Raju Panjwani
When high-performing leaders can no longer ignore the tension between who they are and what they do, they find me. | Former Morgan Stanley MD | 5X Entrepreneur | Executive Coach | Tsunami Survivor
Resources:
“The Dip” by Seth Godin
“Essentialism” by Greg McKeown
“The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
Where to find me: LinkedIn | Website
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