Success

The feeling of cooking the perfect dinner.

The accolade after acing a geometry test.

The joy of finishing an intricate puzzle.

The feeling of success is wonderful. A sort of euphoria induce by brain chemistry and psychology.

It also puts a filter on life. It clouds our judgement from seeing another way to do things. After landing a big sale, we try to do it again the same way we did it before. After building a company that out performs the market, we try to do it again and again using a recipe.

The results of our repeated efforts are rarely the same when reapplied to the same venue. Kodak was once their market leader. and now they are in shambles. Blockbuster pretty much had the corner on the movie rental market. Blackberry not only had the corner on the smartphone market. They were the very best at mobile email.

These companies were not put out of business by a competitor. They were put out of business by the evolution of their products.

Instagram is the evolution of Kodak. Why print our favorite photos? We can only see them when we have them with us or someone is at our house. Now we can have all my favorite photo in our pockets all the time.

Netflix and Redbox put Blockbuster out of business. Blockbuster wanted us to come to their hut to rent their movies. Netflix wants to come to our house to loan us their movies and Redbox wants us to snag a movie from them when convenient for however long is convenient.

These companies were the evolution of their predecessors. Their predecessors were put out of business by the next logical evolution. The predecessor is predisposed to thinking they already have it right. They cannot see the next evolution of their business because they are so focused on iterating on the product they have and resuscitating the old business every way they can.

What has been your biggest success? Since your first success in this area, how has the world changed? How would you repeat your biggest success today?

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Rotary Phone

In 1844 people started working on inventing the telephone. By 1876, Alexander Graham Bell finished the invention and 1915 brought the first coast-to-coast long-distance telephone call. From this invention, we progressively ended up with more and more telephones. From one in every town until there was one in every household and finally, one in every pocket.

Once upon a time, these things were important. When they rang, they were answered. There was almost never a reason to not answer one. If someone was calling, then it was for a reason and a purpose. There was no spam in a phone call for quite some time. The phone ringing has previously meant so much to our culture. People would answer every phone call coming into their homes. People would never make frivolous calls and telemarketers did not exist. It was an importance ingrained into their minds.

Today, phone calls are not so important. The phone is as much for talking as it is watching videos, sending emails, and checking sports scores. Today, when my phone rings, I am about almost more likely to ignore it than answer it. Most everyone who knows me will text or Facebook message me long before they would ever call. Almost no-one will call me anymore. And I am totally content with not being called.

However, what if I did treat my phone the same way people treated phones in 1915. What if everything happening on my phone was as important as it was in 1915. What if, every time my phone beeped, chimed, or lit up, I had to react immediately? What sort of craziness would I be subjecting myself to!? What sort of craziness would I be subjecting the people around me to!?
The brilliance of the phone evolving is actually lost when I treat it the same way it was treated 101 years ago. 101 years ago no-one would even consider calling you for no reason at all.

Do you give your phone a 2016 job to be done or a 1915 job to be done? Do you treat it as if it was developed today or more than 100 years ago? What are you making more important than you should?

Phoned,

–JT