Every day we are faced a plethora of choices. So many things are up to each one of us now: Who to be, what to do, what line of work to spend our day at, whom to partner with, what to read, what to learn, how to keep growing…
In today’s world it’s all too easy to get caught up in the spin, to lose sight of who we are, who and what is important and who and what really isn’t.
The choices are ours... it's all up to us.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter@thekite or email your thoughts at drew@drewsimmie.com.
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Many of you are familiar with the old expression, “There is nothing certain but death and taxes.” Right? Wrong. Whoever coined that saying did so before the Internet age. To the certainly of death and taxes we must add change; not that change is new, but the speed of the change certainly is and it is making obsolete many of what were previously tried and true business models.
Today’s knowledge-based economy is global, interconnected and interdependent. It is a market place of infinite choices, environmentally sensitive, driven by technology and media dominated.
It has created a need for fresh thinking that demands we work in a new 'space',not relying, as we used to, principally on our linear, left brain side (empirical and metric driven) but now placing more emphasis on our right brain side… still relying on our intellectual prowess but listening more to our intuition and then taking that information and filtering it through our minds in the 'middle space' between both spheres.
It is in this ‘middle space’ where the practical and meaningful solutions for today’s new challenges reside. It’s always a juggling act, but here are just three suggestions to help you get there:
1.Never stop thinking ‘outside the box.’ That’s where the new ideas are.
2.Build on a bigger future even though you don’t immediately see it.
3.Never lose your courage or faith in your inborn creative abilities.
It’s counter-productive to rail against the change. The battlefields of corporate history are littered with the corpses of companies, big or small,who couldn’t or wouldn’t move on even when they knew they should. Just the other day, for instance, Kodak threw in the towel. They simply could not adapt. How much more iconic could a company be? Or General Motors… what’s good for General Motors is good for the USA. Remember that saying?
A project or a company of any size may last a decade, a generation or even longer but when it has run its course, while it is never easy, the trick is let it go and then figure out how to move on to a better place.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter@thekite or email your thoughts at drew@drewsimmie.com.
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( 2.9 / 9 ) Click a star 1-5, left to right, to rate.This just in… a ‘couldn’t be more timely’ quotation sent to me by a reader:
“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.” Mother Teresa.
Hmmm…
I invite you to follow me on Twitter@thekite or email your thoughts at drew@drewsimmie.com.
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( 3.6 / 9 ) Click a star 1-5, left to right, to rate.Today is the Pupil of Yesterday. Publius Syrus.
Growing is as necessary and as natural as breathing. When you're growing you are full of energy. Ideas seems to come effortlessly. One success leads to the next. Nothing seems to be beyond your reach.
Conversely, when you stop growing inevitably your life begins to diminish. Things aren't as much fun as they used to be. You become stale and dull. Worst of all, you start to lose your courage. You find yourself questioning your own abilities and personal worth, sometimes without even being aware of it. You become risk averse and blind to the new opportunities.
How do you know if you have stopped growing? Ask yourself these three questions:
1. Are you unable to make allowances for ideas and opinions that don't conform to yours?
2. Are you unduly critical?
3. Are you simply going through the motions everyday?
If you've answered yes, you've stopped.
The need to continually grow, to say yes to change and new ideas is nothing less than your love of life. It's the desire you feel to be alive, to be here and now - not in the past, nor in the future, but now - in the moment, where the living is.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter@thekite or email your thoughts at drew@drewsimmie.com.
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( 3.3 / 8 ) Click a star 1-5, left to right, to rate.A few months ago I was working with a client who was in the textile business. He was lamenting the fact that his sales were slipping badly.
It was the usual litany of bad actors – competition in Asia was hammering his costs, many of his customers were closing their doors and the overall demand for his products was shrinking.
He had been searching far and wide for a solution. He even thought of getting out altogether and trying a new line of work. The challenge was that he didn’t know any other industry and, in spite of his current difficulty, actually still liked the textile industry.
Try as he might he couldn’t find a solution, not realizing one of life’s axioms – you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.
“Look under your feet,” I suggested.
“What do you mean,” he asked?
“Think out of the box,” I replied. “Instead of looking far afield for something new, imagine staying in your business and see if you can come up with a new way to leverage your expertise… and maybe even make your life easier.”
After discussing a few alternatives and some brain storming, he suddenly hit upon the idea of creating a strategic alliance with a friend of his, also in the textile business and whose business was also in trouble because the manufacturing arm of his business was weak. They combined their experience and expertise, went after a new market and never looked back.
You get the idea. It was a win-win for them both. The answer for my client lay right under his feet: Without realizing it, all the while, he had been standing on a field of diamonds. He just hadn’t looked…
I invite you to follow me on Twitter@thekite or email your thoughts at drew@drewsimmie.com.
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