The maintain is harder.
You’ve succeeded (attained) in raising the bar to a point where things are going well. All the thankless work, long nights, long years, the emotional rollercoaster…you’ve done it all and have made it through…not unscathed, but still alive. You’ve achieved a level of success that others in your field only dream about.
Now comes the hard part. Now you have to maintain the excellence that got you there. And excellence is a lot easier to achieve than maintain. There is a thrill to attaining that maintaining doesn’t have. Once you’ve attained, the thrill of attaining loses its power as the driving force. And when it goes away are you willing to maintain?
You built it, now go take care of it.
