Be A Student

Be a Student, Not a Critic

I am normally a pretty positive guy.  Anyone who knows me knows that, but in moments of decision, I sometimes retreat to ego and the path of least resistance rather than the right choice. Please let me build on this.

My main business is set up as what we call a “business unit” where I run my territory from here and get marketing and leadership support from our Canadian office in Mississauga.  It is a pretty good set-up, and they allow me lots of leeway to make the decisions and take the actions that I feel would best grow and develop my area, keeping with our company vision and mission.

But there is a problem.

I sometimes don’t take direction well, wanting instead to “do my own thing”.

This entrepreneurial kind of thinking is usually a good thing in small to medium size businesses when it comes to product or service development, but when trying to be part of a team and follow a process that is designed to work, it often causes problems in communications and in cooperation.

There’s been a few initiatives by head office where they have started a process for marketing, where before I ever even tried it, I would say, “Well you know, that would work great for Toronto, but this is the Maritimes, and it’ll never work here.” And in so saying, I dismiss the idea and would go on in my own blissful ignorance, and not even give it a real good try.

What an ass I have been. No wonder there has been some tension between us.

Be it laziness or fear of trying and failing at something new, I am aware that I have missed some great opportunities to grow and build my business.

But today I have a much different attitude.

I was listening to an audio leadership presentation by Andy Stanley recently, and he said something that really rocked my thinking, not to mention give me a complete understanding of what some of my greatest challenges have been in the past years.  He was talking about what it has taken to build his organization over the past number of years, and how, by learning to see things from a “what can I learn from this?” instead of an “It’ll never work.” attitude, they prospered.

When I wrote MUST Thinking, I discovered that the first law of moving out of stagnation or procrastination is this: You cannot get inside a problem from being inside the problem. Meaning simply that sometimes when we are so engaged in problem solving, the answer is never obvious to us because we are too close to it, and we need to take a few steps back to either see it from a different perspective or to ask for guidance from someone who may see it differently than you do. 

And what I have been doing in my territory for the past number of years was exactly that.  I would go to work every day, assuming that I had all the answers to all that was around me, and when I would get suggestions from head office of what I could do, instead of looking at it and saying “this is good!” I’d often say “It will never work.” And as a result, my nose was completely up against the problem and I wasn’t getting the whole picture, I was just getting what I wanted to see.

Instead of learning from it, I was being critical about it. 

And the rub of it all is, I knew better, I just wouldn’t admit it to myself.

Damn ego.

The wonderful thing I am learning about “learning”, and I am hearing it from many different locations all at once, is simply this; When you truly enter into an attitude of learning, rather than one of thinking that you know it all, and you give yourself permission to be open to other people’s ideas and suggestions, the frequency of learning opportunities becomes infinite, and your potential of greater success becomes assured.

Now that I see this, I cannot not see it, and everywhere I look, I see evidence of it:  A client who had developed a process refused to question and improve it because it was what she was emotionally invested in and gave an ultimatum that if it was changed, she would leave the company.  A start up company who had a product that at the time was cutting edge, but when times changed, refused to tweak the product to keep it marketable, and as a result closed their doors recently. A parent who was having challenges with their child but who refused to seek help opened a gap in the relationship that, with a few simple changes, could be cemented closed.

These opportunities are all around us. But we get so caught up in our own importance or sense of invincibility and being right that we refuse to, or fail to see.

If we make our first question “What can I learn from this?” when faced with an opportunity, we can literally change our world overnight.  This simple change of attitude can verifiably rock your world!  It can take you from being a critic to being a student who is continually learning and improving and growing. 

But, if you are happy in your own current knowledge, you don’t need this.  If that is the case, you may already be saying “Hogwash” or “What do you know Paul, you don’t live in my world.  I’ve been doing this for so many years, and I know all there is to know.”

You’re right!

I don’t live in your world. I couldn’t even begin to know all you know.  I just know what I see.  And what I now see is this: Water cannot reach dry ground if it is dammed, and so everything dies from thirst.  So too is it with success.  If we limit the water of inspiration to our lives, we gradually dry up and blow away, never realizing that if we could have opened the ego dam, even a inch or two, we could have been more, if we had of been more interested in learning than of being right.

Make this your best week ever.

Paul