Daily Inspiration: Personal Development & Innovation – “You can create more opportunities or you can create more problems. Choose wisely.

“You can create more opportunities or you can create more problems. Choose wisely.” – Futurist Jim Carroll

It’s all about a series of choices.

You can choose to be a barrier, or you can choose to be a gateway. Someone forging a path for going forward, or on a road looking back, towards a destination called tomorrow instead of getting back to yesterday. A mindset that chooses to be part of the change process to get there or one that chooses to get in the way. Someone who chooses to become a team member who builds enthusiasm for the reality of change, or someone who chooses to stew in their anger, worry, and concern for the fact that change is happening. Someone who understands the scope and scale of the effort for the journey, or someone who goes through the motions and slows everything down.

Every time I look out at an audience, I try to read the mindset of those in the room. I can often see it in their faces and body language – the change engineers seem eager and engaged, the change destroyers sullen and downcast. I know that my message will resonate easily with those in the former camp. I work hard to try to reach some of the latter, knowing that if I can reach just a few of them, I will enjoy some success through my efforts. And then I can spot those who have no interest in tomorrow – and view my message with hostility. I can’t reach them – I never will.

It’s an odd job at times.

The sad fact is that those who choose not to be a part of the journey end up causing a tremendous number of challenges that make the future-forward journey more difficult for everyone else. The key thing is that their efforts usually have little chance of success, other than presenting new problems that must be solved, additional barriers to be smashed, and intractable errors that must be managed.

They end up causing more problems than opportunities – and it never works out well for them!

The fact is, change is going to happen. That’s a reality.

Deal with it.