Consider this scene from Don Quixote, wherein Sancho Panza, the slovenly, loyal squire, tells the tale of two relatives in judging a fine wine in a tavern.
One sips it, swishes it in his mouth, and says it’s wonderful, except for the slight taste of leather.
The other takes a drink. It’s excellent, he says, except for that off hint of iron.
The barflies mock the relatives for arguing about what’s off. But when the wine cask is emptied later, the tavern owner finds an iron key on a leather thong.
There are stories being yelled about culture wherein both could be right.
What’s clear from the story from Don Quixote is that 1. Arguing about which story was right was pointless. 2. We’re left wondering what one does after one finds out both stories are correct.
Better, I think, to focus on the positive change we can make than on what or who is to blame.
So does a freshly painted deck, lit candles at the center of your table and the smell of of spent grain in a brewery’s taproom.
Everything you make, do, say, create or place all sends a signal.
What’s important is two-fold.
First that we’re sending the signals we want to send. Then that those signals are consistent with one another.
15 minutes of fame, a short outburst or even a surprise and delight moment may capture attention, but they don’t make an impact like a series of focused and consistent signals do.
There’s a professor at a school of business that was let go recently because the university was 18 million in the red. This professor wasn’t an ordinary professor. His entire curriculum was built around real experiences.
He, himself, started a handful of businesses and now runs a consulting company, so he’s consistently armed with timely real-world experiences.
The readings he assigned were not classic text books. They were business memoirs; books business owners have written about their personal experiences. All from the last 5 years, too.
The lectures he gave. Well, he wasn’t the one who really gave them. He brought in current business owners and community leaders to speak on the topics people needed to learn to be successful.
I was blessed to have been invited to his class once to speak on marketing.
The students in there were remarkably adept. They were curious. I could tell they have learned a ton, that they cared about the class, that they recognized the value in learning from real experiences.
It may cost less to bring a teacher with no previous business experience in that knows the pre-set textbook curriculum, but boy does it cost each person, the university and our culture so much more.
If you’re considering going back for your MBA. You’re better off skipping it and taking out a loan to start a business and get real experience.
Alas, if that’s too scary. At least consider the AltMBA. It’s the bridge you’re looking for. And, quite frankly, it’s the bridge anyone considering enrolling in the professor’s now disembodied and defunct curriculum needs.
Stay Positive & Follow The Leaders More Than The Readers
p.s. If you’re a professor, teacher, coach like the one that was let go. Thank you for all you do. You’re valued more than you will ever know by generations of people you may never meet.
You don’t need to become a master, though that opportunity is as much yours as anyone else’s.
Getting better doesn’t even need to take a lot of work. You don’t need to exhaust yourself or completely reinvent your life.
It simply comes down to consistency of attempt with a mind that’s curious enough to either learn from a failure or to leverage the momentum of success.
They are the points in time that people change the most. It’s the time that worldviews are easiest to change. Behaviors, too.
It’s why so many businesses are launched on holidays, goals are set on new year’s, fresh habits are attempted after one’s birthday.
It’s why we’re advertised to more when we get married or have a kid or buy a house. Those are the moments we are most susceptible to switching brands (which is really code for most likely to switch world views).
If it’s easiest to make a change for the better during a milestone, it makes sense to make our own milestones.
They don’t need to be big, but they need to exist. They give us a platform to leap from. It might mean we force a move or we designate our own holiday. It might even mean that we celebrate a self-designated day of starting.
Starting the work we’ve been procrastinating. Starting to change the behaviors we’ve been frustrated with upholding.
