The Mongolian Otor: Why Steppe Herders Moved Before Finding Better Pasture
In the thirteenth century, Mongolian herders on the eastern steppes practiced something that seemed wasteful to visiting Chinese merchants: they moved their camps not when grass ran out, but while it was still abundant. This practice, called otor—literally "pasture rotation"—meant packing up felt gers, loading ox-carts, and relocating herds when the current grazing looked perfectly adequate.
The merchants, accustomed to maximizing every resource until depletion, saw this as inefficient. Why abandon good pasture? But the herders understood something those merchants missed: the decision to move becomes impossible once you need to move.
By the time pasture showed visible depletion, animals were already weakened for travel. Water sources along migration routes might have dried up. Other clans had claimed the next valleys. Most critically, the knowledge of where to go next—maintained through regular scouting and seasonal memory—faded when you stayed too long in one place. The Secret History of the Mongols describes how Chinggis Khan's mother, Hoelun, taught her sons that "the horse fattened in autumn crosses winter rivers; the horse fattened in spring drowns."
The wisdom wasn't about grass. It was about maintaining the capacity to move.
Modern professionals face an analogous trap with long-term commitments. We stay in roles, projects, or strategies past their optimal exit point because we're waiting for clear failure signals. But by the time failure is obvious—the project has become toxic, the industry has shifted, the skill has become obsolete—our ability to transition effectively has atrophied.
Consider the software developer who waits to learn new languages until their current stack becomes unmarketable. When they finally face job loss, they're simultaneously dealing with financial pressure, depleted learning capacity, and a gaps-riddled resume. The optimal move was two years earlier, when they still had income stability, mental bandwidth, and portfolio relevance.
Or the consultant who waits to leave a client engagement until the relationship sours. Now they're job-hunting while managing conflict, with no warm leads because they haven't maintained their network. The herder's insight applies: you can't rebuild relationships from a position of desperation the way you can maintain them from strength.
The Mongolian approach offers a specific practice: the jil system of cyclical scouting. Each season, herders designated scouts (mergen) who traveled ahead while camp remained stable. Scouts returned with detailed reports: which valleys held water, which routes were contested, where rival clans were moving. This intelligence gathering happened continuously, not just when the current location failed.
Translating this to modern commitment strategy means creating your own jil system: structured reconnaissance that runs parallel to your current work. This isn't passive networking or vague "keeping options open." It's active, seasonal intelligence gathering about your field's migrations.
For a marketing director, this might mean quarterly half-day sessions reviewing emerging platforms, interviewing people who've recently changed roles, and mapping which agencies are expanding. Not because you're leaving, but because waiting until you need this information means gathering it under duress, with outdated mental maps.
For an academic, it could mean annual reviews of adjacent departments' hiring patterns, funding source shifts, and methodological trends—not as paranoia, but as maintenance of navigational knowledge.
The counterintuitive element is timing: the otor happened when staying seemed easiest. The commitment to scout occurred specifically when you weren't yet forced to move. This required treating the capacity to move as more valuable than squeezing maximum value from the current position.
This Week's Practice: The Scout's Calendar
Mark three specific dates in the next six months when you'll conduct reconnaissance in your field, regardless of whether you need it. For each session, identify: one person who recently made a transition you might someday consider (interview them), one emerging skill or tool in your domain (spend three hours learning basics), and one alternative path adjacent to your current work (map its entry requirements). Treat these as non-negotiable as the herder's seasonal migrations. The goal isn't to leave—it's to maintain the knowledge that makes leaving possible before it becomes necessary.
The merchants, accustomed to maximizing every resource until depletion, saw this as inefficient. Why abandon good pasture? But the herders understood something those merchants missed: the decision to move becomes impossible once you need to move.
By the time pasture showed visible depletion, animals were already weakened for travel. Water sources along migration routes might have dried up. Other clans had claimed the next valleys. Most critically, the knowledge of where to go next—maintained through regular scouting and seasonal memory—faded when you stayed too long in one place. The Secret History of the Mongols describes how Chinggis Khan's mother, Hoelun, taught her sons that "the horse fattened in autumn crosses winter rivers; the horse fattened in spring drowns."
The wisdom wasn't about grass. It was about maintaining the capacity to move.
Modern professionals face an analogous trap with long-term commitments. We stay in roles, projects, or strategies past their optimal exit point because we're waiting for clear failure signals. But by the time failure is obvious—the project has become toxic, the industry has shifted, the skill has become obsolete—our ability to transition effectively has atrophied.
Consider the software developer who waits to learn new languages until their current stack becomes unmarketable. When they finally face job loss, they're simultaneously dealing with financial pressure, depleted learning capacity, and a gaps-riddled resume. The optimal move was two years earlier, when they still had income stability, mental bandwidth, and portfolio relevance.
Or the consultant who waits to leave a client engagement until the relationship sours. Now they're job-hunting while managing conflict, with no warm leads because they haven't maintained their network. The herder's insight applies: you can't rebuild relationships from a position of desperation the way you can maintain them from strength.
The Mongolian approach offers a specific practice: the jil system of cyclical scouting. Each season, herders designated scouts (mergen) who traveled ahead while camp remained stable. Scouts returned with detailed reports: which valleys held water, which routes were contested, where rival clans were moving. This intelligence gathering happened continuously, not just when the current location failed.
Translating this to modern commitment strategy means creating your own jil system: structured reconnaissance that runs parallel to your current work. This isn't passive networking or vague "keeping options open." It's active, seasonal intelligence gathering about your field's migrations.
For a marketing director, this might mean quarterly half-day sessions reviewing emerging platforms, interviewing people who've recently changed roles, and mapping which agencies are expanding. Not because you're leaving, but because waiting until you need this information means gathering it under duress, with outdated mental maps.
For an academic, it could mean annual reviews of adjacent departments' hiring patterns, funding source shifts, and methodological trends—not as paranoia, but as maintenance of navigational knowledge.
The counterintuitive element is timing: the otor happened when staying seemed easiest. The commitment to scout occurred specifically when you weren't yet forced to move. This required treating the capacity to move as more valuable than squeezing maximum value from the current position.
This Week's Practice: The Scout's Calendar
Mark three specific dates in the next six months when you'll conduct reconnaissance in your field, regardless of whether you need it. For each session, identify: one person who recently made a transition you might someday consider (interview them), one emerging skill or tool in your domain (spend three hours learning basics), and one alternative path adjacent to your current work (map its entry requirements). Treat these as non-negotiable as the herder's seasonal migrations. The goal isn't to leave—it's to maintain the knowledge that makes leaving possible before it becomes necessary.