Always Be Learning - Do You Know What You’re Missing?
November 14th, 2007Do you groan every time someone tries to tell you about the latest cell phone? Do you cringe when anyone suggests that you change your email setup? Do you just want to keep doing what you know because it works? I feel your pain. It’s a scary thing to think about changing email services, changing from Windows to Mac, or switching browsers.
Anyone who’s ever raked their yard will tell you that not all rakes are created equal. If you’ve got a bad rake, the job will take you twice as long. It doesn’t have to be a broken rake to make your life miserable. But some of us approach anything new with a "don’t fix what ain’t broke" mentality.
But let’s look at the raking example again. If you were using an old rake from the 70’s it would probably have individual metal tongs, and a wooden handle. And it probably works. It ain’t broke. But a new rake will have plastic tongs that aren’t as sharp so leaves don’t get stuck on them. It might have a fiberglass handle that’s just as strong, but twice as light. And it would have a bigger span so you could rake more leaves in less time.
The person who uses the new rake, AND learns how to use it correctly will spend less time raking and more time doing whatever else they want to do. Similarly, the people who learn how to use more modern email systems like Gmail spend less time sorting message, less time filtering spam, and more time doing whatever else they want to do.
The point is this. If you live your whole life not fixing what ain’t broke, you will do more work for less results, you’ll deal with frustrations that other people won’t have to. And if it’s your business, you’ll make less money for more time. Don’t be afraid to learn something new. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the new tool. Find out if it’s better, but don’t just reject it because it’s new. In the end, the only person who’s losing is you.
