Rethinking Square One: Why Starting Over is B.S.
Business isn't a playground game
Face it: sometimes business sucks. Something we’ve put a ton of effort into craps the bed and we’re left with no choice but to scrap everything and…
start over. Go back to square one. Ask our buddy for a “gimme.”
Business (and life as well) is a funny creature that tends to shake foundations juuuuuuust when we’re hitting our stride. It’s the source of locker room grumblings, water cooler gossip and what keeps my massage therapist in business. After getting bitch-slapped by life last week and feeling that I was going to (yet again) have to start over, it finally occurred to me: we never, EVER, start over.
Now, before you all start wondering if my business imploded or I’ve broken-up with someone (no and no), I’ll just say that last week was a series of events that snowballed into one big ‘ol stick-my-head-in-the-sand-and-don’t-want-to-come-out-until-2010. We all have those weeks on occasion. This one gave me a moment of clarity that’s the topic of this week’s blog.
Starting over is bullshit. Total horse crap. Grade-A fertilizer material and the stuff of which self-help books are made. While I’m sure that I could parlay this blog into a book deal that would fly off the shelves and into the hands of whiny businessfolk far and near, I’ll sum it up in a few sentences. Refill your coffee and have a seat.
We never start over. No matter if you’re a sprinter coming back to the starting line to run yet another race, a businessperson with a company that’s folded, a guy who just broke-up with his gal or a chef in the kitchen ready to make another pecan pie after the first one refused to set-up and resulted in a pie shell of hot pecan soup (not that it’s ever happened to me…whistling). Every experience gives us an invaluable set of tools to bring into the next go-round.
It’s time we start appreciating the tools and quit bitching that they’re in a blue toolbox because we had our heart set on a red one.
While it’s impossible to go through life without a base level of expectations, they really are the mother of all disappointment. Yeah, it sucks that things didn’t turn out the way we planned, but in the Target store of life, we’ve been able to fill-up our cart with a litany of useful thoughts, experiences and feelings. As life throws us those occasional curve balls, we have to watch the cashier scan them one by one and then present us with the damage. I say pay for your mother lode with enthusiasm! Whip out cash and take ownership of it all right there. Then take your baggage, roll it happily to your car and…
hop on the back of the cart and go for a ride.
Hell, you can even yell, “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” as you scream through the parking lot on your plastic hot rod.
Bottom line: there is no “starting over.” Not in business, relationships or all the other that life brings our way. There are, however, awesome opportunities to take on new tasks and adventures with your loaded-to-the-hilt blue toolbox.
And guess what? No one’s going to even notice it’s not red.
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