By Dan Getz/Dance4One
Dallas, TX, May 26, 2011
If you are anything like me, I bet you have had a day, or long series of days where you have thought, or even muttered or exclaimed outloud at times, “If so and so even THINKS of putting ONE more piece of information, task or document in my ‘in basket’, I am not only going to scream, I am going to ‘blow his/her ‘freak’in’ head off’ (figuratively speaking…of course). Or, have you ever possibly said or thought, “How in the world am I going to get through ALL these STUPID emails and/or Facebook messages and/or posts AND get ANYTHING accomplished today?”
Obviously, we’d ALL be lying if we said we hadn’t had at least ONE of those days, but have you also ever been on the other side of a situation like I have described above and noticed that even IF you had the PERFECT suggestion or method to give this “poor soul” (that YOU, of course can intimately identify, empathize and sympathize with), at the precise moment they are approaching “information overload”, that this normally reasonable and sensible person suddenly goes deaf, their brain seems to freeze, their vision becomes blurred, and the only visible sign of life is the color red quickly rising from the base of their neck to ultimately…and varying degrees of “fullness” engulf ALL or part of their face, while out of their mouth seems be coming a low and muffled roar, accompanied with a number of dull and unintelligible grunts and growls?
In today’s highly technical and readily available Information Age, the sheer amount of information that we are expected to process, compared to as little as 10 to 20 years ago is truly astronomical. I personally have observed, even the most sophisticated and successful men and women, and who are what I would term “Gizmo Savy” and what Scholars and Society have labeled as “Early Adapters”, do what I would call “freaking out” over something so trivial and simple. Yet because of their “then current state-of-mind”, (which typically is preceded by “information overload” or more precisely PERCEIVED INFORMATION OVERLOAD) they cannot “hear”, understand or even seem to comprehend basic and logical reasoning and communication. So how do we learn to adapt to this “new” level of expectation, without succumbing to the reality of being left behind, if we do not?
After crafting and refining multiple mission and/or vision statements for four of my recent start-up companies over the last several months, and admittedly failing multiple times in providing a clear, concise and precise message to my “audience” (WHICH it IS FAILURE no MATTER how good we THINK we are at communicating, IF our “audience” fails to receive or understand our message), I have recently noted not only SOME success, but what I believe to be the key elements of that success.
For starters, let me try to define the type of success I am talking about, as success can be measured monetarily or by multiple other forms and degrees of measurement. To me, success is beginning to learn from our mistakes…that is learning at least a part of what caused the mistake, determining and taking the measures necessary to avoid making that mistake again, and then consistently getting better and more efficient at completing a certain task that the mistake previously hindered or prevented from being accomplished, now that the potential for that same mistake is either eliminated or significantly reduced.
So here’s the plan…(just to make WE are on the same page, a plan, according to MY definition, is a proposal, that could be subject to change, as flexibility IS a KEY ELEMENT of SUCCESS)…Over the next couple days of posts to my BLOG (http://www.dance4one.blogspot.com/), I would like to share just a few tips, or more appropriately described as a few things I THINK I have learned over the last several months about SUCCESS, and ATTEMPT to answer, in methodical steps, the QUESTION that is also the Title of this Article…But please remember…I, as you, am ever-adapting to an ever-changing “playing field”…and we MUST continue in this mindset, as minds set on TOO MUCH of the PAST, with little or no FLEXIBILITY or CREATIVITY will more often than not, result in ultimate FAILURE and DEMISE…
Dan Getz, owner and operator of Dance4One and More Green Consulting writes a DAILY BLOG covering economics, politics, religion and EVERY DAY LIFE at www.Dance4One.blogspot.com.
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