Leaving The Rat Race To Run The Entrepreneur Race

 


As you have probably noticed I have missed my schedule. That has
happened only few times over the last 2 years… and in fact that’s
exactly what I want to talk to you about in today’s solo episode.


So why did I drift away from my schedule and skipped last week?
Probably you expect a serious excuse but I am not sure there is
any.


The thing is… I have been going through lots of internal debate
and spend a lot of time thinking about things and as a result I
have partly lost my motivation, inspiration and drive.


Did anything special happen to trigger this? Well, not really. I
simply went through yet another paradigm shift.


I came across the term paradigm shift ages ago back at the
university. We had amazing communications professor, with who we
went through Stephen Covey’s bestselling book The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People. The paradigm shift was described there
by a powerful example. I will read it for you and those who don’t
know what it is will immediate understand what I mean.


So here we go…


I remember a mini-paradigm shift I experienced one morning on a
subway in New York. People were sitting quietly - some reading
newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes
closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene.


Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway. 
The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the
whole climate changed.


The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently
oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and
forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was
very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.


It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that
he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like
that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It
was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated,
too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and
restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are
really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't
control them a little more?"


 The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of
the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're
right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from
the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't
know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it
either."


Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted.
Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently,
I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.
My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling
my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's
pain. Feelings sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your wife
just died? Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I
do to help?" Everything changed in an instant.


Powerful example, isn’t it?


I guess the short version of explaining paradigm shift is the
quote from Dr Wayne Dyer:


“When we change the way we look at things…..the things we look at
change.”