Thursday, April 23, 2009

Change or Die

Not just an axiom of business books everywhere, but really a life truth that most people fail to completely understand much less embrace. Evolution is the natural progression of life, we make small changes to improve over time. Without shaking things up a bit we would remain stagnant and stale. One of my many favorite sayings is:

"Do what you've always done and you will get what you've always gotten"

In other words, what have you done lately? What risks have you taken? Chances that may or may not pay off, but must be explored in order to progress. Not all of them will work out. But that doesn't mean you simply stop trying.

What in the heck is up with this post anyway, you ask? Well, I stumbled upon an interesting article about Michael Phelps this morning. You may have heard of the guy, he's not bad in an aquatic environment. After dominating the Olympics like never before and arguably being at the top of his game more so than anyone in the world, why would this guy change ANYTHING!!???


TO GET BETTER.

Does this guy really need to get any better? Apparently he thinks so. Not satisfied with merely winning, but wanting to ENSURE VICTORY, he is changing up his freestyle to become even MORE dominant. Aren't the Olympics still 4 years away? No resting here...



There is always room for improvement and for those of you that don't believe it, I am sorry. It's funny, sometimes it takes the people with the smallest amount of gains to be made from changing up their programs to remind us that regardless of the incremental improvement, change is necessary. The article points out Tiger Woods and Jordan doing the same. I would remind people Lance Armstrong didn't get to be a 7 time winner by doing the same thing for 7 years. While they had a winning formula, they were constantly searching for ways to add better ingredients into the mix.




So whether it's at work, on the bike, or any other aspect of your life, maybe it's time for a little self reflection. What can you try to do differently that might yield the better results you desire?


Click the link below for the article:

PS: Interesting side note to the article. It sounds to me like he is trying to "Armstrong" his stroke by increasing his cadence? Anyone else get that impression? Looks like the quick steps of those Kenyan runners have made a fairly wide ranging impact across sporting disciplines...

1 comment:

Smurfette said...

Hmm. I'm gonna go ahead and defend my Austin position here. It's almost like you laid this one out for me in a nice neat bow like they show on Lexus commercials right around Christmas time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.