Creativity or Comfort: The Real Risk of Playing It Safe

By Andrew Jones

My wife and I never started in business to play it safe.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. The early days were fuelled by energy, late-night whiteboards, wild ideas, and endless conversations about what could be possible. There was no roadmap. Just curiosity, trust, and the belief that together we could create something meaningful.

Back then, creativity was our currency. It was not something we scheduled in. It was how we solved every problem and designed every new offer. And the magic of working so closely together, bouncing off each other’s ideas and building in real time, gave the business a heartbeat that no process ever could.

But somewhere along the way, things began to shift.

We merged our consultancy with another. At the time, it felt like a natural step forward. A bigger team, broader thinking, and greater reach. We believed that bringing more people around the table would unlock deeper value for our clients and stretch us as founders. And in the beginning, that proved true. There was a fresh surge of thinking and a burst of energy. New capabilities, new personalities, new momentum. It felt genuinely exciting.

But the cost of that move took longer to reveal itself.

Our team in early days of the merger. In the beginning it created a fresh surge of energy and thinking.

Gradually, the spark began to dim. The entrepreneurial edge we had worked so hard to protect started to soften. Decisions took longer. The pace of change slowed. Ideas that once would have been tested and launched within days were now waiting in meeting agendas, stuck in limbo, requiring consensus and more than one champion to push them forward. The freedom to follow our instincts started to feel compromised.

For me, the shift was deeply personal. I began to feel like an employee in a business I had co-founded.

It was confronting. I had chosen this path precisely to avoid that feeling. But as the business expanded, so too did the layers of consensus and agreement. The tension, debate, and constructive friction that once pushed our thinking had started to fade as we became more mindful of how ideas would land with others. The focus shifted from challenge and provocation to cohesion and comfort, and while well-intentioned, it dulled the edge that had once kept us sharp. Creative challenge no longer felt welcome. In its place came an emphasis on stability, predictability, and risk reduction. Meetings turned into operational updates rather than places for imagination and spark. The tone shifted. It was about stabilising more than energising. And slowly, I realised I was playing it safe as well. The scarcity mindset around protecting what had been built began to overshadow any pursuit of new opportunity or growth.

We were still delivering. Still turning a profit. Ticking all the conventional boxes. But we had drifted from our reason for starting. And in doing so, something vital had gone quiet. The part of us that took risks, that played, that challenged the norm, had been muffled beneath the responsibility of maintaining what we had created.

This is the shadow side of success that rarely gets talked about. Growth, if you are not conscious, can become a cage. The systems you build to support the business can end up stifling the very spirit that allowed it to flourish in the first place.

Eventually, we made the difficult decision to ‘de-merge’. To walk away from the scale, the expanded team, and the perceived stability of that structure. Not because it was failing, but because it no longer felt like us.

It was one of the hardest decisions we have made. But also one of the most liberating. It gave us a chance to come back to the core. To reignite the creative spirit that had been pushed to the margins. And to remember what it felt like to move fast again, to explore ideas without seeking the approval of others, and to fall back in love with building something dynamic.

This experience taught us that complacency does not arrive with a big signpost. It creeps in. Often when things are going well. It convinces you that optimising what exists is more important than imagining what could be. And left unchecked, it can slowly erode your passion, your pace, and your purpose.

So we began to rebuild. Not the business itself, but the mindset behind it. And we came back to one core principle that had always guided us.

Creative spirit over complacency.

Not as a slogan, but as a practice.

We had to start protecting space for creativity again. That meant stripping back some of the systems that had grown too heavy. It meant redefining success, not just in terms of revenue or reach, but in terms of energy. Were we excited to show up? Were we proud of the work we were doing? Were we stretching our own thinking?

We also had to be honest with ourselves about the habits we had fallen into. The projects we were taking on out of obligation. The meetings that were draining us. The work that was comfortable, but no longer creatively fulfilling. And most importantly, we had to reconnect with why we started in the first place.

For other co-founders, especially those navigating long-term partnerships, these reflections may feel familiar.

Maybe you have grown a great business, but something feels off. Maybe it is steady, but not stimulating. Or maybe you have been playing within the lines for so long that you have forgotten how to colour outside them.

If that is you, you are not alone. And more importantly, it is not permanent.

Here are a few practices that helped us reawaken the creative spirit and keep it alive.

1. Create space for unstructured thinking

This sounds simple, but it rarely happens without intention. Creative energy does not thrive in thirty-minute time slots between back-to-back meetings. We started building in regular sessions where the only agenda was to explore. No pressure to produce. No outcomes to report. Just a chance to wander through ideas, to ask questions we did not have answers to, and to let curiosity lead the way.

Even just ninety minutes a week of this kind of space made a massive difference. Not just in the ideas that came out of it, but in the way we showed up to everything else.

2. Say no to things that feel safe but uninspiring

Resetting and re-imagining our future in Bali.

Over time, it becomes very easy to default to what is predictable. But those same projects, the ones you know inside out, can also be the ones that quietly drain your creative energy. We got clearer on which work lit us up and which work simply filled the calendar. That gave us the confidence to step away from opportunities that looked good on paper but did not align with where we wanted to go.

Saying no made room for more meaningful yeses.

3. Fall back in love with problems

This has always been a powerful mindset shift for us. Instead of chasing ideas for the sake of it, we now start by identifying the most interesting problems. For ourselves, for our clients, or for the wider system we are part of. When we fall in love with a problem, creativity flows more naturally. Solutions evolve through exploration, not obligation. The work feels purposeful again.

4. Build rituals that support creative energy

We realised that creativity is not a switch you flick. It needs rituals. For us, that means walking meetings, voice notes instead of typed documents, shared idea boards, regular resets away from the desk, and occasional resets, time away from the desk where we reflect on the bigger picture of what we are building. These small rituals create rhythm. They remind us that we are not just managing a business, we are shaping a story.

5. Design your own measures of success

It is tempting to let metrics define your impact. Revenue. Headcount. Clients won. But we have started asking a different set of questions. Are we proud of what we are making? Are we growing as individuals? Are we leaving space for evolution? These are harder to measure, but infinitely more valuable. They tell us whether we are still building something that feels alive.

The most important thing we have learned through all of this is that creativity is not a phase. It is not something you access at the beginning and then grow out of. It is something you protect. Something you cultivate. Something you return to again and again, especially when things feel stable.

Because stability is not the goal. Sustained momentum is. And that requires a creative pulse at the heart of your work.

So, if you are feeling that edge dull, do not ignore it. Get curious. Reconnect with what energises you. Make space for the wild idea. Protect your creative spirit, not as a luxury, but as a necessity.

You did not build this just to keep the lights on.

You built it to light something up.