The Boredom Premium — Where Curiosity Goes to Die

I once discovered something that should have been common knowledge at a law firm where I was working. Their biggest client - a rising star that had climbed from nothing to become a major player in their industry, and the department's biggest earner - had a distinctive competitive advantage that nobody even knew.

When I asked what made this client so successful, the response was silence. Not embarrassed silence, but genuine bewilderment. Despite all the people, all the hours, all the considerable intellect in that room, it seemed I was the first person to have ever considered the question.

So I did some research. Turns out, during the financial crisis, while their competitors froze, this client had aggressively utilised a particular financing structure that others had avoided. Nothing they invented - just something they embraced when others feared to.

I made a simple document. One page explaining how this type of finance worked, another showing how the client had applied it. Basic stuff.

That document spread through the office like wildfire.

What struck me was not that I had found something clever. I had simply asked an obvious question: what makes our biggest client tick? The answer was sitting in public filings, investor reports, trade publications. Anyone could have found it. But no one had looked.

More troubling was what they had missed. If your client's edge comes from exploiting credit scarcity, what happens when credit becomes freely available again? Does their advantage evaporate? What happens to their revenue streams? And if their growth stalls, what happens to the steady stream of work - and fees - that the law firm depends on?

The implications for the department were obvious. Yet no one had connected these dots.

The Boredom Premium

Ask what it takes to become an Olympian and you will hear about talent, training, nutrition, psychology. But one answer stands out for its uncomfortable truth: tolerance for boredom.

Everyone sees the Olympic stadium, the cheering crowds, the spectacle, the prestige. Nobody is interested in watching the same athlete doing the same practice drills every week, without crowds, for years since childhood. Decades of repetition. The superpower that separates elite athletes from talented amateurs is not what happens in the arena - it is the ability to show up to empty practice facilities, day after day, and find satisfaction in routine.

The legal profession works the same way. Young lawyers arrive having seen the courtroom dramas, the big deals in the news, the partners at the closing dinner. They do not see the sixth markup of a purchase agreement at 2am. The hundred-page due diligence report that three people will skim. The same negotiation points, recycled across deals for years.

Those who thrive are not necessarily the brightest or most ambitious. They are the ones who can tolerate - even find satisfaction in - this repetition. The profession selects for this quality ruthlessly. Those who need constant intellectual stimulation wash out. Those who can maintain focus on routine tasks rise.

This is not a failing - it is a feature. Complex transactions require people who can maintain precision through monotony. But it creates a cruel paradox. The very ambition that draws people to law - the prestige, the intellectual challenge, the proximity to power - has little to do with what actually makes them successful once they arrive.

You see it at parties. "What do you do?" comes up in the first five minutes of small talk. "Lawyer at [prestigious firm]" still carries weight. But that momentary social validation will not sustain you through your fourth consecutive weekend of document review.

The Imagination Drain

This focus on repetition has a cost. These were ambitious people - you do not survive law school and training contracts without drive. But somewhere along the way, their imagination had been trained out of them.

The legal profession, like many others, systematically narrows focus. It rewards those who can conform to its rhythms, submit to its hierarchies, and internalise its conventions. The trade-off is subtle but real: security and status in exchange for curiosity.

The very ambition that draws people to these careers gets redirected into ever-narrower channels. Instead of asking "why does this matter?", you learn to ask "what precedent should I follow?" Instead of understanding the business, you master the process.

The Loyalty Test

Modern professional firms have developed a peculiar response to this creativity drain: enforced enthusiasm. Whilst unlike the football manager who shouts criticism until players tune out, this relentless positivity achieves the same numbing effect.

Problems must be reframed as "opportunities". Mind-numbing work becomes "raising your profile". Brutal hours are "stretch assignments". It is less about wellness and more about loyalty - a test of whether you will participate in the collective fiction.

The psychology is insidious. If enough people repeat these mantras, they create their own reality. Those who question it mark themselves as troublemakers. So everyone invests in the lie, because the alternative - acknowledging that much of the work is genuinely unfulfilling - feels too unsettling.

You hear it everywhere. The magic circle firm whose recruitment pitch promises "unparalleled learning opportunities" for what amounts to proofreading. The consultancy that sells "client exposure" when juniors barely leave the Excel models. The investment bank where "deal flow" means formatting pitchbooks at midnight.

Professionals are not stupid. They recognise the gap between rhetoric and reality. But they also recognise the game. Play along, and you progress. Point out the emperor's nakedness, and you plateau.

Finding Real Value

This brings us to the deeper question: where does genuine professional satisfaction come from?

The answer is not in the popular prescriptions. Pro bono work, for instance, is often held up as the antidote to commercial emptiness. But it is methadone, not medicine - a temporary fix that acknowledges the problem without addressing it. You cannot sustain a career on occasional glimpses of meaning.

Nor is the answer in grand purpose statements or mission-driven narratives. These are for recruitment brochures, not real life.

The truth is both simpler and more complex. Value comes from two sources: genuine expertise and authentic connection to outcomes.

The expertise part follows an ancient pattern. Think of the medieval guild system - apprentice, journeyman, master. The satisfaction came not from winning (a finite game with clear endpoints) but from the infinite game of craft: getting imperceptibly better each day, solving progressively harder problems, building knowledge that compounds over decades.

There is dignity in this progression. The senior lawyer who can spot issues others miss. The banker who understands deal structures in their bones. The consultant who sees patterns across industries. This is not about prestige - it is about the quiet satisfaction of mastery pursued for its own sake.

But expertise alone is not enough. You need connection to outcomes. This is where curiosity becomes crucial. When you understand why your work matters - not in abstract terms, but in concrete impact on real businesses and real people - even routine tasks gain meaning.

The Sideways Solution

Sometimes, though, the structure of your current role makes this connection impossible. Traditional law firms, with their rigid hierarchies and narrow specialisations, can be particularly suffocating. The same is true in parts of consulting, banking, accounting.

This is where lateral moves become interesting. In-house legal roles offer direct connection to business outcomes. Government work provides impact at scale. Start-ups trade security for ownership of results. These are not escapes from professional life but different expressions of it.

I know a commercial lawyer who moved to a renewable energy company. Same skills, different context. Now she understands not just the contracts but the projects they enable. Another joined a government department drafting legislation. Less money, more meaning.

These moves are not about finding your passion - that is naive. They are about finding structures that allow curiosity to flourish. Where asking "why" is encouraged, not seen as stepping outside your lane.

Beyond Naive Optimism

The real naivety is not expecting too much from professional life. It is expecting the wrong things.

Expecting your job title to provide lasting satisfaction? Naive. Expecting corporate platitudes to cure structural problems? Naive. Expecting meaning to emerge without curiosity? Naive.

But expecting to build genuine expertise? Expecting to find dignity in craft? Expecting curiosity to make even routine work more interesting? That is not naive. That is wisdom.

There is satisfaction in solving complex problems. There is value in understanding how businesses actually work, not just the legal structures that support them.

The professionals in that room were not incompetent. They were technically proficient, commercially sound, professionally successful. But by never asking what made their biggest client successful, they had reduced themselves to expensive processors.

Your career will involve repetition. It will test your tolerance for routine. It will sometimes feel distant from any meaningful impact. But it does not have to be intellectually dead.

The choice - to remain curious or become comfortable - is always yours. And sometimes, the simple act of asking "what makes them successful?" can transform not just your understanding, but your entire professional experience.

Choose curiosity. Your clients are more interesting than you think. And understanding them might just save you from becoming another ambitious professional who forgot how to ask why.