Most successful and aspiring, Network and Internet marketers are great students of self improvement, continually looking for ways to improve their performance, effectiveness or creativity.
The experts tell us how the examples of parents and other authority figures and influences from our childhood environment, have largely moulded our basic character by our fifth birthday. Most of our core values will already be established by then, even if they don’t become apparent to us until later in life.
Money issues for adults can often be traced to how much money our parents earned, how they handled credit, purchase of luxuries and their attitude to wealth and wealthy people.
Students of self improvement and personal development know all this and continually strive to improve in those areas that may be holding them back. We tend to believe that what holds us back is the fundamental stuff, the big issues. The questions that will have life changing consequences, when we find the answers. A magic key that will unlock a deeply rooted impediment to our progress.
That is not always the case, very often the difference between failure and success, first and second place, happiness and despair, progress and stagnation is small. In some sports it can be measured in 1000’ths of a second – less than the blink of an eye.
While there may well be room for big changes in some peoples lives, for most of those who have been following a plan of improving themselves, it is more likely that further improvement will come from small incremental steps.
Slight changes in thinking can have quite dramatic results.
This picture is a wonderful example of how a lifetime’s conditioning to think of things in a certain way would have prevented me from finding the simple solution to a problem and missing an opportunity.
I was lucky enough to take this photograph with my cell phone last week. I found the idea of moving a building by road amazing.
Here’s why.
In Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa where I lived for most of my life, buildings were almost exclusively built of brick and mortar.
Larger warehouses, commercial and residential buildings would be constructed of steel girders with brick walls. Very small sheds might be made of wood.
Why the difference to North America?
- Termites were a huge problem, even treated wood was not safe.
- Labour rates were very low.
- Bricks were cheap – we made our own on our farms.
- Mild climate, insulation only used in very cold areas.
One of the certainties of my life before moving to Canada was that buildings were made of brick and were therefore, immovable objects. Transporting them by road was not an option.
I recall reading of buildings overseas being moved, but this did not really sink in to my conciousness.
The double garage in the photo was the sole remaining structure on an old farm property which was being developed for housing. It was going to be demolished and as much material as possible recycled.
The person who purchased it on site, got it at a reasonable price because it was now a liability to the developers.
With my background of immovable buildings and cheap labour, my solution would have been to dismantle the building, transport the sections and re-build it at the new site.
That was not a practical solution for this part of the world, labour is not cheap, there would have been some damage to the building requiring more materials to repair it. But equipment, skills and experience to transport it a short distance overland were available.
So my background would have prevented me from taking advantage of this opportunity, but the solution was obvious to others with a different background.
This was a classic case of thinking outside the box for a solution.
As Network and Internet Marketers how often do we hit a brick wall in our search for solutions because we can only look at a challenge from our own background. How often do we limit our creativity because we only draw from our own experiences instead of opening ourselves up to a different way of looking at things.
Wishing you success in all your endeavours
p.s. One of the classic books on lateral thinking is this by Edward de Bono
Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step (Perennial Library)
