Be Ready. I wasn’t.Well, I mean I thought I was, but that turned out to be an Assumption. I thought I was Trusted, Innovative and Bold.

Instead, I was Trusted, Innovative and Scared…
At a 2018 Project Control Conference, a very smart man, an ex-NASA Professor, in an afternoon presentation, asked the 180-strong waiting audience:“If you could totally re-design your business from scratch, what would you do?” Not a word was spoken.
Nobody.

Silence. I have at least four ideas I consider to be revolutionary, and here was my opportunity to get them some visibility, to get them noticed, to get some traction and make a difference.
It was also my opportunity to stand in front of a room of 180, and speak. No problem, that I can do, and I’m totally comfortable with that. However, I would also be standing to be judged, possibly harshly, probably unfairly, by my peers, my friends, and others whom I had never met, and never will.

Trusted. Innovative. Scared. These moments never return. There won’t be another opportunity where I could have planted seeds into fertile ground, ready and willing to absorb, flourish and grow.
If you believe in the Butterfly Effect, the potential ripple effect and resonance of what I desperately wanted to suggest may well be the one thing that one day keeps the wolf from the door, but we will never know.
No Man can step in the same river twice. It’s no longer the same river, and you’re no longer the same Man.Heraclitus, Greece, 2,500 years ago…

I just had to raise my hand, to ‘step into the river’ … and be judged.
My ideas would challenge my peer’s beliefs, their opinions, their technical skill, and hardest of all, their ego – their willingness to let go of a little false glory. Instead of feeling like I was liked and respected, I could find myself, in one raising of one hand, at the opposite end of that spectrum. I was uncertain, unsure, and not in the slightest bit courageous.
Trusted. Innovative. Scared. I consoled myself later by saying ‘so were the other 180 in the room. They did nothing either. I was no worse than anyone in the room. We can all go down on the Titanic together, while the band plays.
The standard you walk past is the standard that you accept.
I don’t accept that standard from myself, I don’t accept it from my managers, and I don’t accept it from peers and colleagues.
Evolution takes no prisoners.
You repeat a mistake, you will cease to be. You learn from others mistakes, and you live forever. Next time, I will Be Ready. And I will be prepared to accept the outcome, whichever way the wind blows.
Want to Make Change? Just Be Ready.