risky business

I've heard it said that faith is spelled r-i-s-k, but it's not. It's spelled f-a-i-t-h (There are some really bad spellers out there)

I was asked to speak on a couple of weekend conferences next month. One in Michigan and one in Ohio. So the question for me is always how much I should risk when I'm speaking to these fine folks. Every once in a while I'll stick my neck out there and try something new or something different. You can always see people squirm when you do something different.

There are the:

-"We've always done it this way" folks.
-You have the insecure, look at you like you're an idiot because you're not following the standard format folks.
-There are folks who are just in the moment and might even appreciate the new slant you're putting on whatever it is you're doing.
-And lastly you have the folks who LOVE anything new or different.

I have a friend who says, "if it aint broke, break it". He loves the new angles. He appreciates the blowing up the box that everybody else is thinking inside of....and let's take a fresh approach. He's a risk taker.

I was talking with a friend who is evaluated every 4 months. He's consistently been rated #1 in his department and #1 overall since he's had the job. I mentioned to him yesterday that I had a friend that recently had great reviews from dozens of people on a job he'd recently done, but he had the one comment from the out of touch old person stuck in his brain. You could tell it was what was sticking with him. So my friend said, "Story of my life Murph". He went on to say that if he receives 99% good marks, he spends all of his time stuck on that one negative review.

I don't think he's alone. Maybe that's why he's so good at what he does. Maybe he gets great reviews because he's so focused on the one or two bad ones??? I'm just not sure that's the answer.

Having said that - I don't want to be any body's bad review. I don't want to be the one percent that totally discounts the ninety nine positives. I've been that guy. I am that guy. I don't want to be that guy.

There's an old dusty book out there that tells us to, "...encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today..." which is just a cool way of saying - do this every day. Probably pretty decent advice.

I know that I didn't take the risks I should have this past week. I know that one of the reasons was because of the squeaky wheels in my life. It's hard not to listen to the, "we've always done it this way" or to notice the incredulous looks of the folks who are shocked when you do something different.... but I'll give it a shot.