The post reminded me of my first experiences quitting - in sports. When I was in 6th grade, I decided to quit swimming - and also quit piano lessons - because I want to play football and basketball. Not that I could not have done both, but for some reason I just had to do it at the time. It did close one world for me, and opened new ones. I had a long football career - 8 years - only to find that one of the hardest things I had ever faced was quitting football! By then, there was some loss of interest, but also concern about mounting injuries - and finally I made the jump, albeit aided by an injury. But on the other end of this was a whole new set of growth experiences - to replace what had been a great growth experience at one time, but had come to seem less so.

I get bored after a while. Whterh it’s the industry, the company, the project, the peole, I thrive on change. And I think most people do - to varying degrees, and even thriving on different types of change. But I think it is what keeps us fressh, deeps us alive, and makes us thrive. I also have never made a quitting action, with its corresponding new challenge, where I did not feel that I brought a lot to the table simply based on who I had become from my past experience, however, unrealted it might seem.

The world of yesterday punished quitters. But that world atrophied, and did not survive. It was built on a false foundation. The world of today - in many but not all ways - embraces change - the cycle of quitting something old and starting something new - much more readily than in the past. This can be unsettling to anyone; it is to me sometimes. but I think the new skills is simply identifying just the diagram Set Godin has on the cover of his book - whether we need to change our circumstances, or change our attitudes. This is a welcome skill for today.
———————————-
John Reiling
webmaster@pmtrainingonline.com

www.pmtrainingonline.com
Project Management Training Online

AND you capture the Lean issue. Mastery is central to lean (thus Toyota’s emphasis on the sensei, the master teacher). And, though it is simple, it is very, very hard.

Excellent post, Hal…great writing. Thank you.