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Invent Your Future - NowComment on this newsletter at yastrow.com Your business's future is not guaranteed. The same can be said for the future of your career; it is not pre-destined. Prosperity will not happen to you. But (good news), you have the opportunity to make prosperity happen. Our popular culture has overly embraced concepts like "destiny" and "fate" and terms like "meant to be" and "your time will come." These ideas are dangerous, because they encourage people not to rely on themselves but on imagined, scripted wheels of history that will escort them to a rosy future. If we think of ourselves as passengers on the way to a pre-determined future, we may be sorely disappointed when we arrive.
A person in a failing business once told me, in a moment of desperation, that he was confident that God would take care of things for him. I cautioned him not to assume that God cares for his competitors any less than for him. What gives any of us the right to sit back and wait for success to happen? We have only the right to try to create a great future. In Twelfth Night Shakespeare wrote, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." If you were not born "great," you must not wait for greatness to be thrust upon you. It is up to you to achieve greatness. If you are a believer, consider this possibility: Maybe God will be more impressed if you attempt to achieve greatness than if you expect God to do the work for you. If you are not a believer, sitting back and waiting for a comfortable future to happen to you is no better than playing roulette on a wheel with an infinite number of slots. No matter what you believe, I encourage you to have faith in this: We live in a tough world that serves as a stage, but does not provide a pre-written script. So how do we go about the process of inventing our futures?
I take this approach in my work on clients' businesses and on my own: "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." No matter what goes on in the world around us, the biggest variable in our success is what we do.
I see the power of this kind of self-reliant thinking and action every day, especially in this time of economic upheaval. On the negative side, those who chose to "hunker down" in late 2008 and early 2009, waiting to "ride out" the recession through unthoughtful, across-the-board cutbacks and a paralysis of positive action, are still suffering. But I hear stories, more and more frequently as we move into the last months of 2009, of companies who, through vigorous resolve and action, are creating success within the current turbulence. Sure, there are industries and sectors, such as real estate, where the circumstantial pressures are great. But just yesterday I spoke with an apartment building owner whose properties, just last week, reached full occupancy. Was there some luck involved? Maybe. Was her relentlessness in pursuing tenants a key part of this success? Certainly. Once you accept your central role in creating your own future, the next step is to ask, "Who do I intend to be?" or, in the case of your company, "Who do we intend to be?"
When I press executives to create a picture of the future they want, I usually see two things happen:
Choose the future you want for yourself and for your company. Your picture of the future can evolve later, as you learn new things.
The next step is not to procrastinate. The future starts NOW. Once you have a good idea of where you want to be in the future, you will see more clearly what you can do in the next five minutes. Continually connecting the present moment with your future is one of the most critical pieces of inventing your future. You are always inventing your future. Always. Right now. And now. And now. Everything you do-- yes, everything-- has an impact on choosing one future for you out of the infinite number of possible futures. The work you do is not just about the work you do. It is about the future you create for yourself, a future that is an epiphenomenon of every action you take. What did you do this morning? Did you make progress toward creating the future you want? What about this afternoon?
Trust yourself, and your colleagues in your organization, to invent the best future for you. You can't count on anyone else to do it for you.
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It is up to you-- and only you-- to invent your future.
The first step is personal responsibility and self-reliance. (With homage to Emerson by use of quotes from Self-Reliance surrounding this text.)
Circumstance affects our results, but we cannot let a blame of circumstance distract us from what we need to do. On the contrary, circumstance should inform what we do. Look out the window at the outside world, and study closely what is happening. Then, turn and look in the mirror and say to yourself, "Ok, now it's time for action."
As Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else." Consider this: There are an infinite number of possible futures for you and your business. What do you really want? What future do you want to create? Who do you intend to be?
Choosing a future depends on an acute understanding of what's going on now, in the present. For some thoughts on this, please see my last newsletter, 
We can't lose sight of the need for self-reliance and the role of personal responsibility, even for one minute. We need to focus on what we can do, not what the world does to us. For example, as you do your work, try to ignore the news, to some, important, extent. Learn from the news, of course, but don't take it too seriously. Inherently, the news is about macro factors, not about you. So, just because you hear about the economy, the President, the Congress and the price of oil every time you turn on the TV, don't assume it is more important to you than you.
How to help your customers think, "We" instead of "Us and Them" about their relationship with you and your company.