April 1 – April Fool’s Day, Rabbit Rabbit – a day usually
associated with spring. Budding trees and shrubs, a greening of lawns, a crisp
morning with warmer daytime temps. That’s what I associate with April 1.
Sort of a new beginning. A fresh start.
How many times do we need a new start? My guess is a lot.
“Life…has knocked me down a few
times, it showed me things I never wanted to see, I experienced much sadness and failure…
But one thing for
sure, I always get up.” ~Author
Unknown
How honest we are about such things will determine how
accurate our self-assessment is. The more honest we are the more we recognize
the blessings we have to be thankful for.
Who would have thought an honest consult would lead to losing
a valued client? Was I premature in assuming they could handle an analysis that
showed them the errors of their ways and how to get back to more solid ground?
Well it happened. And Some clients surprised me over the years. Of course it
was my miscalculation. They weren't properly prepared to receive the news. The
information was correct, however; they just didn't want to accept it at that
point in their organization life.
There were other clients I knew were not prepared for the
truth. Truth is not always welcome but it is necessary. I don’t mind that sort
of thing if I realize going in that is what I can expect, then I will sacrifice
a future business relationship for the truth. That sort of thing is a base line
of ethics in the business of consulting.
Bottom line: unvarnished facts are often hard to digest.
I've taught many people that they can learn much more from
their mistakes than from their successes. Often success is luck, pure and
simple. Then too, success blinds us to the real cause of that success. We often
do not understand the whole lesson. But mistakes? Wow! Dissecting and analyzing
failures clearly uncovers our own mistakes and the answers for future attempts.
We learn valuable lessons from failure, from mistakes. Again honesty is needed to
allow the lessons to be evident for our use.
Other knock down moments in life: divorce, auto accidents,
illnesses and resulting limitations, aging, death of loved ones, bankruptcy,
troubles with the IRS…the list goes on and one in most of our lives. Try as we
may to avoid such pitfalls they happen nonetheless.
In the real world life is to be lived and experienced.
Avoiding pitfalls often builds defensive fences around possible outcomes that
teach us dear lessons. Avoiding the pitfalls carries the possibility of
avoiding valuable moments of experience.
Life is not all pleasant else how would we be able to know
the high points? A tough miserable winter teaches us the sweetness of spring.
The heat of summer months grows our appreciation of fall months and turning
leaves and crisp fresh mornings.
Financial woes teach appreciation for simpler things. Those
things were always near us but we didn’t see them or appreciate them because
our focus and ‘wants’ were obscuring them.
Hateful experiences in public or at work allow us to
treasure the safe harbor of home. A
simple cup of tea or coffee, a few minutes of cuddling a baby or the puppy.
Those moments refresh us and bring new zest to our spirit. But first the
sadness and failure must be accepted in our life. They teach us much.
Indeed, they allow us to rise in the morning and face a new
day with hope and expectation.
On this first day of April, this first day of a hopeful
spring, may your lives turn toward the positive and beautiful.
Rabbit Rabbit!
April 1, 2014
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