We go to seminars, we join webinars, we listen to CD’s, we watch DVD’s,
and we read books. Why don’t we use what we learn in all these ways, from all
these sources? Why do we make the effort in the first place if we don’t at
least try to apply what we learn? What are we doing, and why are we doing it,
or not doing it?
If we keep doing what we always have done, why are we amazed when we
get what we have always gotten? That is the question that we should ask
ourselves more often about so many situations. Other people share new ideas with
us all the time, and often we do nothing with these ideas. Why don’t we at
least try something new and different?
We have all heard the reasons, or made the comments. “That won’t work
here (or now, or for us, or in our company). We have always done it this way.
We have never tried that. Our company is different. That is too expensive (or
too time consuming to learn). Our clients won’t understand. We can always just
work harder.”
We went to that seminar so we would learn something that would help us
improve our business. We listened to an amazing person tell us all about the
tools that we should apply to our business processes in order to streamline our
operations. We even bought the DVD’s and the books to help us implement the new
steps to improve our business.
So are all the notes we took going to be used. Are we going to share
the information, DVD’s, books, and anything else that we got with our co-workers?
What are we going to do, stack the stuff we got in a closet or use it? It makes
us wonder why we went to the seminar at all. Maybe we should act like a
responsible business owner and take the action that reflects the intelligent
decision that we already made.
Perhaps we should discuss what we learned with someone that we met at
the seminar. Maybe they have some insight into how the information might help
us improve our business and how to actually apply what we learned. We did make
at least one connection at the seminar, didn’t we? We did try to establish some
networking partnerships at the event, didn’t we? If not, what were we really
doing there?
If we are responsible and intelligent business people, maybe it’s time
we started acting like responsible and intelligent business people. We must start
applying what we learn to our businesses and see if we can make positive
changes. If what we try doesn’t work, we must see what we can alter to do
something positive. Maybe we should justify the money we spent on the seminar,
like responsible business owners.
Successful and responsible business people, whether they are owners or
employees, should always be open to learning new tools for their operations. We
must all spend a certain amount of time each, and every, day on
self-improvement. If we are what we believe, intelligent people who make
intelligent decisions, we will see the stupidity in wasting money on education
and never applying what we learn.
How can we spend time on self-improvement? How can we
combine this education effort with our gathering more networking partners? What
do we want to actually do with information that we learn from our
self-improvement? Intelligent, responsible business people will answer these
questions in a positive manner. Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com,
or call me at 360-314-8691.