When Success Became the Enemy
September 4, 2025
I was five years old, sitting in our living room, when I announced to my parents what I wanted to do with my life.
Most kids that age bounce between wanting to be astronauts, firefighters, or whatever superhero they saw on TV that morning. But I was dead serious when I told them: “I want to join the Army and be a soldier.”
My family just smiled and nodded, figuring it was another childhood phase that would pass by next week.
Thirdly, five years later, after completing my service as an artillery officer, they realized I hadn’t been joking around.
That moment in our living room became the thread that connected every major decision I made after that. High school classes, college choice, summer jobs, everything got filtered through one simple question: Does this get me closer to where I want to go?
While my friends were switching majors for the third time or having full-blown quarter-life crises about their future, I just kept moving toward that same clear target I’d set as a little kid.
Looking back now, I’m struck by how rare that kind of clarity actually is. And how powerful it can be when you have it.
The Question That Stumps Smart People
These days, when I’m working with leadership teams, I’m constantly amazed by how hard it can be for them to answer what seems like a straightforward question: Where is your organization actually going?
Not this quarter’s sales targets or next year’s budget numbers. But really going. Five years from now, what does success look like? What are you all working together to build?
I’ll watch entire rooms of accomplished, intelligent people struggle with this. They’ll throw around growth percentages and market share goals, but when you dig deeper, there’s no shared picture of the destination they’re all heading toward.
And without that North Star guiding every decision, everything becomes harder than it needs to be.
Should we launch this new product line? Should we expand into that market? Should we hire this person or completely restructure that department? When you don’t know where you’re heading, how do you possibly know which path to take?
Five-Year-Old Clarity
The companies that really thrive, the ones where you can feel the energy and alignment the moment you walk through their doors, they have what I call “five-year-old clarity.”
Everyone from the CEO down to the newest intern can tell you not just what they do day-to-day, but where they’re all heading together. They have that same unwavering sense of direction I had as a kid who wanted to blow things up professionally.
My military vision evolved over the years, obviously. It grew from wanting to handle explosives to understanding strategy, from leading soldiers to eventually bringing those leadership skills into the business world. But that core sense of direction? That stayed rock solid. And it made every career transition feel like a natural next step instead of starting over from scratch.
When your whole team shares that kind of clarity, something remarkable happens. Difficult decisions start making themselves. People instinctively know which option moves everyone forward and which one just creates busy work or distracts from the real goal.
It’s like having a compass that always points toward your version of true north, no matter how confusing the terrain gets.
The Test That Tells You Everything
Here’s a simple test for any leader: if someone asked your newest team member where your organization is heading in five years, would they give the same answer as your most senior executive?
If the answer is no, or if you’re not sure, then you’ve got work to do. Because without that shared sense of direction, you’re asking people to make hundreds of decisions every day without knowing what they’re really trying to accomplish.
That five-year-old sitting in his living room, announcing his career plans with complete certainty, understood something that a lot of organizations struggle with: when you know exactly where you want to end up, every step along the way becomes clearer.
The path might change. The timeline might shift. But that destination? That needs to stay crystal clear for everyone involved.o everyone, the damage is much harder to undo.
The Future is now
Jesus (Jes) Vargas is the Principal at DPMG Corp in Sacramento, CA. Jes and his team consult, coach and mentor business leaders in areas such as strategic planning, leadership development and Lean Thinking deployment. If you are concerned that there is not enough long-term strategic thinking going on in your organization, Jes can help. Call Jes at 916 712 6145. Or you can email him here.
