Embrace change!

by Lionel Wijesiri

Albert Einstein is my most favourite physicist. His greatest achievement was his Theory of Relativity, which reminds us of varying conditions, result in varying realities. Hot and cold, for instance, are really not opposites any more than up and down are. They're simply the same energy, information and intelligence, in a different condition.

For instance, up is down and down is up - under certain conditions. The first astronauts discovered (or uncovered) a truth that was already there from their early trip to space, that definitions of "up" and "down" can simply disappear. Their truth changed, because the conditions of their experience changed.

"What is truth?" is a very simple question. Of course, answering it isn't so simple. Truth is nothing more than a word meaning, "what is so right now." A moment ago our science proved that the earth was flat. A moment before that we proved that the Earth was the centre of the universe. This was what was so then. Yet, what is so is always changing. Therefore, truth is always changing. Changing conditions creates changing truth.

I see this every day. In my line of work as a company director, I too see this everywhere. Many new startups are created each day, but few survive.

In order to survive, the entrepreneurs have to develop a business model that meets the market demands and deliver an economic return. To do so, they have to change and adapt as they learn and as opportunities arise.

Unless you keep abreast with changes, your skills can lose their edge, even become obsolete.

Most people know this, yet change is often resisted. Why? The reason is simple really. Once someone has become comfortable with the way things work (status quo), they naturally find it hard to embrace something different. Doing so, would mean they instantly become less competent, effective and efficient.

In today's world and globalised marketplace, being less is scary.

It's drilled into us as children. We must be better than our peers. Faster and Higher and Stronger! Only by being more than the guy in the next cubicle (or desk) can we get ahead in life.

Handling a medium-sized company has put me in touch with a lot of workers who ask for help in the form of advice. I also strike up more interesting conversations with people I meet, either raised as a result of someone reading my stories or simply because I have this frame of mind.

Regardless, whenever someone asks me for advice on how to improve their present situation, invariably I always say to them the following: If you want to be happy or your life to improve in one way or another, don't expect things to radically change, unless you do something about it.

If you keep doing things in the same way you have been doing, expect the same result. If you continue to cruise along the same highway, expect it to lead you exactly where it has always done.

Embrace change. Override your first instinctive reaction to run the other way

Keep an open mind. Look at the change not as a threat to your current situation, but as an opportunity to learn and grow. If the change is justified, well thought out and has the best of intentions, eventually your performance will improve.

To change your life for the better, you have to introduce a foreign element, trigger or change agent. Shake things up. Do things differently.

Adopt an improved mindset. Be a different person.

Your life depends on it.

As Gandhi reminded, "Be the change you desire to see in the world."