Unlocking Wisdom: Reflections on Business, Life, and Time

In the rush of daily business, do you take time to reflect? Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor shares why wisdom and reflection are crucial for success in his newest podcast episode. Listen and grow with me! 📈 #BusinessGrowth #Wisdom #Podcast 

Transcript

Ed Drozda: 0:10

Welcome to The Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've all. Always wanted. Welcome back to The Water Trough, this is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor. I think we'll call this the birthday episode. In a couple of days I will be turning 72 years old. Yes, 72, 7-2;. I can't believe it myself. Time really does fly. I was talking to a gentleman earlier today who reminded me, when we're young time can't go fast enough. We get to a certain point, then we don't think about it, and then down the road we get to a point where time just does not seem to go slow enough. But here I am at the age of 72 and I'm looking at how it relates to the world of business. As business people, we're probably so darn distracted by everything that we don't really think about time so much. We're focusing on how do we survive this? How do we make it happen? How do we succeed? What comes next? And how many things did we forget about? But one thing remains for sure. As we spend more time in business, we become wiser. The experience that we gain, the opportunities that we embrace, the shortcomings that we deal with provide us wisdom that we didn't have when we started. And for that matter, wisdom we didn't have the day before or even moments ago. This wisdom provides us something that we need to go forward. At the moment we may not appreciate the value of wisdom. We might simply assume that it's a result of the time spent. Oftentimes it's not till later that we appreciate just what that wisdom means to us, and so it is with life. I can't say how many times I've thought, boy I wish I knew then what I know now. If the 20-year-old Ed had a clue what the 72-year-old knows, man, it would've been quite a different life. But the reality is that life as in business is an ever evolving situation. The wisdom that we acquire along the way in our business allows us to take advantage of the wins that we've got. It allows us to learn from the mistakes that we've made, and it allows us to become better equipped to manage situations based upon the challenges that we dealt with, whether successful or not. Another thing that I value considerably is reflection. I think I've always been introspective. Appreciating my time alone where I could literally talk to myself, ask questions, answer those same questions, and develop insight by interviewing myself, reflecting on what has been, what I've done, where I've been. Reflection to me is an opportunity to evaluate not only the experiences, but also the accumulation of wisdom that I've acquired over the course of time. And I have found that reflection is also very valuable in business, because it allows me to take a good look at, to reconcile if you will, and to highlight the ups and the downs that have occurred over the years. I started my business in 1996, close to 30 years ago. That's a lot of time to accumulate wisdom and time in which to do a lot of reflection on that wisdom and all the other things that transpired. And here I am after all this time reflecting with you about wisdom, about reflection. Wisdom and reflection are important on a personal level. I've always believed that a business is personal as well. You can't take the person out of the business despite the fact of AI and all the other technology busting improvements that we're making. You can't take the people out of business, and because of that business will always, to some degree, be a human construct. Our wisdom develops from our experience. We impart this wisdom and we derive wisdom as well from our business. Therefore, the ability to reflect is important because it allows us to view things through the lens of the past, taking advantage of lessons we've experienced, but not necessarily learned. Why is this important to me to share with you? For starters, I think that we get caught up in our business to such a degree, and this is the same for people who are in mature businesses as it is for those who are new in business or contemplating starting a business. I believe we get caught up in things and simply don't take the time to consider what's going on. So many opportunities are lost or are missed because of the rush, rush, rush of responding to the day to day, the moment to moment activities that occur in business and yet, and yet, because we are human we have that need to be able, at least now and then to take a deep breath and to consider where we stand. The business doesn't necessarily want us to do that, or in our quest for success we might think that business won't let us do that. I ask you to consider that despite that sense of urgency that business throws at you, consider the need, your own personal need to take that deep breath, to appreciate what you've learned, to reflect upon it and to use it to help further your success trajectory. I may be old, but I am wiser than I once was. You too are wiser than you once were. Every day, every moment of every day, that wisdom accumulates. Now, I don't want you to think that I am sitting here lecturing to you, an old guy saying, take the time, slow down. It's not really meant to be that way, and I certainly hope it doesn't sound that way. What I do want to impart to you is that there is so much opportunity locked inside your head that you may not even realize is there. I ask you, I encourage you to allow yourself to reflect upon that wisdom that you've developed. Reflect upon that wisdom and consider how much it can impact the success of your business, not to mention your own personal well-being. This is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor and here at The Water Trough, as always, I wanna wish you a healthy business, and a healthy you.