The Campbell Academy Blog (53)

Can you change??

Nothing lasts forever, eh, and that is the truth about everything.

When I first had children, some 20 or more years ago, they needed something specific for me, things that they required, that I found hard initially to give. A load of the time that was always mine that I never had to give to anybody else, a load of the sleep that I cherished, a load of the attention that I would put into other things that now needed the attention of tiny little children who had seemed at that stage didn't give as much back as the attention was getting back before them.

As the children grew a little bit, I had to be different; they wanted other things.

Maybe they started to sleep, or maybe they wanted me to read to them or maybe they wanted me to become a dad that was different to the one that I had been before.

Then, the parent that I am now, even though my children are 22, nearly 20, and 16, has a totally different personality and individual from the one they required when they were tiny.

And this is a metaphor, isn't it?

I'm a very different husband from the one who married my wife in 1999, very different from the person who first met her in 1995.

I'm a very different dentist than I was in 1994, and I'm a very, very different business owner/founder/whatever I am supposed to be here.

For those of you who have the privilege to run any sort of organisation, understand that change isn't an opportunity; it's a necessity.

To get to the place you're going to, you're unlikely to be able to modify your personality, character, or skill set.

"If we keep doing what we're doing, we'll keep getting what we're getting".

So it's not about 'should I change?' it's about when, how and how quickly I can do it when the necessity arises.