“well i don’t know why we do it that way, it’s just the way we’ve alwayst done it!” how many times have you heard this? it doesn’t matter where you are. you can be at your place of work, your child’s school, a place of worship, or heck even at your on home. you might even heard these words come out of your own mouth! well i gotta tell ya, i can’t stand those words! if there are any group of words grouped together and are mumbled in the same breath that i despise, those are they!

i like to think of myself as an out of the box, forward thinker kind of guy. check this out…

the other day i was arranging a meeting with a client in which he asked me to come to his office. i returned his email (which i also can’t stand but that is another rant) with a question: “when was the last time you got out of your office at 9:30am? how ’bout we meet at St_______(not plugging the coffee shop here b/c they don’t have free wifi internet access!) across the street from your building? let me buy you a cup of coffee and a scrone and let’s just chat.” the dude was like calling me in no time flat! he says something like, “do you know you are the only vendor that has ever asked me that? i mean, plenty of them call and want to take me to lunch or out to play golf but no one has ever asked me to break up my morning flow of work for coffee! i don’t know whether to thank you or whether to be offended but heck yea! let’s do it!” boom!!!

i asked a group of men at a former place of worship one time if we could change the “Annual Men’s Bar-B-Que” from the second weekend in november to the first weekend? my reasoning was that because, that was the weekend that the annual UGA vs. AU football game was and we could probably get more folks to help AND get better turn out which in turn would increase sales! well this one “old timer” stood up and said, and i quote, “over my dead body! hell, (we were in the church building, ha!) we been doing it on this same saturday for 35 years! we ain’t a changin’ it! i don’t know why we do it then but that’s when we do it!” ok so we didn’t do it that year but guess what…he died the next year and we changed it over his “dead body”! i mean God rest his soul but c’mon, what could he do? turn over in his grave? have you ever known anyone to turn over in their grave? that year we had more volunteers help than EVER and we doubled our sales! we RAN OUT of Bar-B-Que!

now don’t get me wrong, i am not ALWAYS right! i know i know, that’s hard to believe! there are times that some things do not need changing. like the date of the masters golf tournament. always held on the first full week following the sunday of “day light savings time”. (which used to fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring. check it! i am not wrong! now some of you are saying, “but nuhuhhh, not this year!” well that’s b/c the gov’t changed it the last two years to help save on energy costs.) or Christmas! i don’t think anyone would argue with that one! and Powers Crossroads, always held Labor Day weekend. you would have to be the biggest idiot in the universe to change that one!

change is good! change is what keeps us alive! change is what keeps it interesting! if i told you that change is the secret to staying young and healthy you might disagree! if i told you that in order to stay fresh and relevant to the everchanging world you must break tradition, you might not like it very much! but ask yourself this…why is it that you don’t want to change? what are your motives for keeping things the same?

let me invite you to shake off the unknowingness of change. be willing to embrace it! be willing to be the leader that stands up for change! perry noble says; “One of the greatest mistakes I’ve ever made as a leader is trying to get everyone to like me…it just isn’t possible…and I am OK with it!” he also says this about leaders and change; “An idiot can point out a problem…a leader is willing to do something about it!”

are you willing to change things that 8-10 years ago you thought were a good idea? are you going to change things in 8-10 years from now that you think are a good idea now?

do it! it could do you good!