Kazira

During my travel in India last month, I came across an entrepreneur, who during a brief conversation with me conveyed one profound mantra that defines a successful entrepreneur – “A Cow that Moves around gets more share of the grass”. Obviously, this saying is rooted in the agrarian India – but it can be very easily translated for the western world as the concept of “Who Moved My Cheese?” You know, the famous question raised in the namesake great books of recent time; authored by Spencer Johnson. 

This concept is universal when it comes to professional success. (Now letting my mind wonder a bit) Obviously this concept does not apply in your personal relationships. ;-) Ok, Ok - Let me focus now …

• Innovation/Ideas – Truly innovative ideas are rare. As you know, each idea needs time to blossom and some, unfortunately, do not - due to timing. The point is not to get disheartened if your idea did not fly the first time around. Keep thinking, keep implementing and that way you would have a higher chance of success. There is a community of entrepreneurs out there that see each failure as the step closer to success.
• Investment – Stocks or any other investments – Don’t get married to them – I have seen numerous small investors sink along with the ship that they bet on. Stop Loss is the key word here. Always have a number where you would like to stop your losses. Move your money around, diversify …
• Jobs – More moves will not only get you moving up the corporate ladder faster – you will also learn the tricks of the trade from all difference direction. Each company has a character, once you’ve worked for company long enough, the company's character sort of morphs into yours. You definitely don’t need that. Move around, get different flavors from different companies till you find the one where your acquired spectrum of colors is appropriately honored and compensated.
• Skills – Staying as an expert in one skill is a sure sign of getting obsolete as well. Unless you are one of those 6-sigma persons who is so good at what they do, they are always in demand (for example – Einstein, Steve Jobs, etc.). But, accept it, most of us do not fall into that category. Be the best at what you do, but keep yourself abreast of the new and upcoming trends. I know of a few friends in IT world who got obsolete with their expertise in their respective programming skills – since they refused to upgrade themselves to the upcoming new technologies. I also know of a few dinosaur managers, who got kicked out of their positions because they refused to accept that the computers are completely fit to replace the personal secretaries that they got so used to.

The point is, move around, explore new avenues, new ideas, and always be on your toes to embrace new and upcoming trends. Don’t get rolled into the “Not invented here”-Syndrome or the “confirmation”-bias mode where you do not see the other’s point of view at all. “CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT IN LIFE” – Best you can do to deal with it is to accept it, deal with it head-on, and move on …