The Value of Changing It Up

You know, in my business there is lots to be said for the concept of “changing it up”, and since I am writing about this right now, there is a good chance that I have not been as diligent as I could have been in “changing it up” over the past few months – and if that were not enough, there are two stories that support this.

What am I going to do from today onwards? Change it up more often!

Thursday nights I play a friendly game of poker. One of my buddies wins way more than he loses. Winning consistently is not luck at all. It has to be skill. His skill. Period. And the rest of us are not bad players to boot. Let’s call my buddy, Mr. A (actually his first name does begin with A). Anyway, I folded a certain hand. There were three other players in on the action. Long story short, Mr. A. won the hand – a considerable amount of money. As he was scooping up the pot he purposely turned over his hole cards only to reveal that not only would he have not won the hand, had be been called, but he would have come stone last. Yup – stone last. Mr. A had nothing. No question Mr. A had pulled off a great bluff (the only one with the guts to have done so). And good for him! One of the other guys asked him how he did it – to which he replied “You gotta keep on changing it up buddy!”

Lesson learned. Thanks Mr. A.

Friday night dinner is always a little tricky in our house. You see, we’re Jewish and its our Sabbath (Shabbat). I like to sing a Sabbath Song or two. It’s good for my heart and it’s good for my soul. My wife? Not so much. My two kids (14 and 10 years old)? They’re indifferent at best to singing. Reaching a happy medium is not easy. It’s a struggle for sure. So I sing a Sabbath song called Shalom Aleichem. You’re supposed to sing it three times, but since I encounter opposition, I always do it just once. (I guess once is better than nothing at all). So last Friday night (without giving anyone in my family advance notice), I sang it three times (like you’re supposed to sing it), far faster than usual. In other words, for the first time ever, I sang it three times in more or less the same amount of time that it took for me to sing it once. The meal was not delayed, not even for a second. Wife wryly looked at kids, who glared at me who glared at her who glared at the kids, who cracked up at me, who cracked up at her who cracked up at all of us. In other words, we all cracked up laughing --- not exactly bad for family cohesion. What a hoot! Yeah, it means that we all love each other, but as importantly, look at what I had accomplished by simply changing it up.

Lesson learned. Thanks Karen, Jason and Amanda.

So, what’s the takeaway here? Sometimes try the following”

1. Drive a different route to or from work
2. Listen to music that you would never usually listen to
3. Call an old friend, “just because”
4. Attack an old issue a completely different way
5. Do something differently for a client
6. Surprise someone by a random act of kindness

It’s good for business. It’s good for the soul and it’s good for the world.