“Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I had a conversation yesterday with a person whom I greatly admire and respect. During our time together we talked about the importance of understanding the opportunities we have to to serve customers and the incredible value and importance of constantly and continually trying new things, always in an effort to improve and add value to the relationship that a customer has with our respective organizations.
It is incredibly refreshing, and motivating, to share similar beliefs and perspectives with another person and to learn from those who practice those beliefs in their daily lives. That conversation was the reason that I selected this quote today.
It is easy in life to let the pace of the world, or our own internal sense of timing, dictate our ability and willingness to try new things. It is so easy to get caught up in a “pursuit of perfect” and forget that intelligent failure is where real learning occurs. It is so easy to fall in love with your own ideas and measures of success and forget that the customer (or anyone in your life with whom you have a relationship) might have a very different measure of success and value. Is is easy to be lulled into a spirit of contentment, which is only one step removed from complacency and irrelevance.
I am very thankful for the people that God puts in my life to reinforce the value of embracing change and to always push forward with an attitude of “relentless discontent with the status quo.”
Doing something, and learning from what comes from the effort, is critical for growth. There is no growth without first taking action. Try something. Be willing to fail. Learn. Try something else. Do it over and over and over again. That is the secret to growth and change…
