Change, Change, Change!

I am ready. Always ready. Ready for what? Change, of course! The story of my life is change...and I thrive on it. That's probably why I've been in the food business for so long and why I love marketing. It's always changing. Every year is a new challenge. Heck, every day, every minute even, in this business! I love it. It keeps my attention. And even when it feels crazy I feel alive. So, I ask myself, why do some people completely fall apart when faced with change and some people ramp up? Is it their upbringing? DNA? I don't know! But, as you may have guessed, I have some thoughts on this subject.

I, for one, would not want to live a life of no change. I think change can be good and exciting and bring new opportunites. But for some, change is a force to be dealt with. It's scary. Downright terrifying. They may have to adjust things in their lives to accept this new feared change. Or see something in a different way, and have to deal with that! They may not want change because they are already content with their life and how things are currently rolling along. There may have been a tragic event that changed their life in the past and now they will only associate change as being something bad. Maybe this describes you!

My daughter is always afraid of  "what might happen" and spends a great deal of effort distressing over it. (She's 10. We're working on it.) I always tell her not to worry about those things. If you don't know what will happen and you can't control it then it doesn't do any good to worry about something that might not even occur - get over it already. I can't tell you how many times I've said this to her, to friends, and sometimes, even though I'm embarrassed to admit it, to myself. I try to teach her to look at this hypothetical "what might happen terrible to me today" scenario and turn it around by asking herself instead, "what might be good about this".

I can't remember what conference I was at when I heard this but someone once said, "What is your biggest fear, your worst case scenario?" Write it down. And I did. A person near me was called upon and gave their answer, "Losing my job". And then the conversation went like this:

Speaker: What would happen if you lost your job?
Man: I might not be able to find another one.
Speaker: And then what?
Man: I may lose my house.
Speaker: And then what?
Man: I'd have to sell my house, sell my stuff, live in an apartment, or on the street.
Speaker: And then what?
Man: (After a second of thinking he very quietly uttered in a somewhat defeated voice) I don't know.

Well, after that the speaker went on to finish his presentation and I'm sure he did a fine job but I don't really recall. I was too busy thinking about the "And then what" to notice much else. That really stuck with me because I immediately realized a few things - 1.) We're all stuck on the "And then what"! We have to know what's next. We rarely enjoy the moment. We constantly concern ourselves with what happens next. 2.) We don't know! We don't know! Damn it, we just don't know!! and 3.) The speaker was trying to get us to strip away our fear of what we didn't know and didn't have control over and take us down to a level where we could look at ourselves and say, "So, what if my biggest fear did actually happen? What if I lost it all? Would I really lose? Or would I gain something else - something new and different? A new perspective? A changed life?"

Even though my baby girl is only ten years old she is already doing what most adults are doing right now - fearing the worst before it even gets there. Thank God, she has time to fix her mentality and so do you.