The Corridor Principle: Why Some People Succeed—And Others Don’t

Imagine you’re looking down a corridor.

It’s long, dark and disappears into the distance.

Without a guarantee of what will occur, you proceed down it.

You’re willing to risk uncertainty and the normal fears that accompany such a feat, for the sake of adventure.

As you move down the corridor, new doors open up on both sides of you.

On the other side of these doors are opportunities.

• Opportunities to produce new knowledge about improving habits, adding new skills and sustaining excellence
• Opportunities to gain new insights into your capabilities as an individual
• Opportunities to improve the actions you’re taking toward your goals—opportunities that we could not have seen and/or could not have pursued had we not taken action earlier

Now imagine another person who has an opportunity to proceed down the same corridor.

She is unwilling to proceed down the corridor of uncertainty until she can be assured that she will be successful—something that will never happen.

The question is obvious: which person do you identify with more?

The Corridor Principle

In the 1980s, Robert Ronstadt of Babson College conducted a 12-year study into the subsequent careers of the graduates of the school’s MBA program in entrepreneurship.

The takeaway?

The most successful graduates were those who created multiple ventures and lengthened the duration of their entrepreneurial careers by using what Ronstadt calls the “Corridor Principle.”

In his own words,

The Corridor Principle states that the mere act of starting a venture enables entrepreneurs to see other venture opportunities they could neither see nor take advantage of until they had started their initial venture. [1]

The researchers said the difference between the successes and the failure in their study could be summarised by one word: launch.

Successful people were willing to launch themselves down the corridor of opportunity without any guarantee of what would occur.

Whereas the graduates who had done nothing with what they had learned were still waiting for things to be just right before they began.

Let’s discuss how we can use the Corridor Principle in everyday life.

Don’t Build a Door

Every day, you have an opportunity to take action on your goals, lean into your fear, expand your comfort zone and gain the necessary level of knowledge that will move you closer toward where you want to be.

This knowledge allows you to see new opportunities to improve—opportunities that we could not have seen and/or could not have pursued had you not taken action earlier.

Only by moving down the corridor of life can you see new intersecting corridors of opportunities (that otherwise would remain invisible).

However, you won’t see those doors if you are not already in motion, moving forward down the corridor of life.

The opportunities will not open up for you if you wait for some assurance before stepping out in faith and taking action. As James Clear writes, “Successful people start before they’re ready.” [2]

Great accomplishments begin with your willingness to face the inevitable uncertainty of any new experience and step out confidently in the direction of your goal.

It begins with you taking the initiative in the first place.

So, if opportunity doesn’t knock, don’t lose time building a door.

Launch.