Here’s How To Avoid A Wicked Crash While Changing Lanes.

When it comes to eating chocolate chip cookies, I am an expert. Savoring the taste, letting the chocolate tantalize my taste buds, I’m an aficionado. Eating several in one sitting I’ve grown adept at.

But you don’t want to eat any chocolate chip cookies I’ve made. You couldn’t spit them out fast enough. Taste bud torture deluxe. Not an expert.

Just because I love chocolate cookies doesn’t make me an expert in making them.

There’s an old saying in the boat business?if you want to make a small fortune, start with a large one.?You don’t have to look far in many high-profile businesses to find players from unsexy industries trying their luck in something more fashionable. The marine business is no exception.??

There are many intelligent people from other businesses who once believed they could import their experience and succeed. Finding they don’t have the contacts, tribal knowledge, or depth in a new space they whittle away their fortune. The smart ones wake up, pivot, learn, hire, and evolve. The unsmart ones grind their teeth and suffer.

There’s a reason people like Elon Musk thrive in several unrelated businesses while others fail miserably. Mindset is the key. Consider this. A cookie executive walks into a tire maker board room and says,?How hard can this be? Everyone knows cookies and their making is a benchmark for all businesses.?Right, eyes roll and everyone thinks he’s a saphead. What if he said,?I know the cookie business but that’s just a drop in the ocean compared to what I need to know about making tires.? Instant support and friends.

It’s the same difference on the freeway when someone is recklessly swerving all over instead of prudently looking before changing lanes, carefully considering the outcome. There’s a protocol for changing lanes successfully. One way gets you the finger, the other way opens a path. Same in business.

The fastest way to success in a new lane is via the Zen mindset, The Beginner’s Mind. Assume you know nothing and the world is your oyster. Temper that with the experience you do have and you win.??

Ignore that pearl and despite having a winning hand, war chests go empty while talent seeks a new ship to row. Adopting an open mind attracts inspiration for success. We’re surrounded by ideas, potential, and enlightenment toward the route to success if we see life that way. Those with all the answers find they don’t the hard way.?

In 1975 Aerosmith was recording their third album,?Toys In The Attic, in New York City. Frustrated with lyrics writing, lead singer Steven Tyler decided he needed a change of scenery and went to the movies. Near the downtown Record Plant Recording studio where?Toys In The Attic?was born, the box office hit Young Frankenstein was playing, and in Tyler's unique way continues to play across millions of radios.

Tyler went back to the studio and began singing in a falsetto voice to bandmate Joe Perry the line walk this way, talk this way. Tyler mimicked the directions given to Frankenstein for learning how to walk and act. Perry immediately conjured up the iconic opening riff to the song?Walk This Way?that hit number 10 on the Billboard’s Hot 100s in the 70’s. In 2009 VH1 named the song the 8th greatest hard rock song of all time. Some 47 years later?Walk This Way?still plies the airwaves across the planet regularly.

Entertained by the zany antics of the characters played by Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, Tyler’s open mind was planted with solution seeds. What if he’d stayed in the studio saying,?I’ve got this, I’m an expert. I’m going to grind this out!

If he had, perhaps we’d not be blessed with one of the most enduring songs of the seventies.

If you plan to cross-pollinate other industries, ask yourself:

• Do others see me as open-minded? If they don’t you’ll fail. If you see yourself as open-minded and others don’t, you’ll fail bigger.
• Are the unseen impending minefields worthy of risking energies potentially enabling doubling down for greater success in a category where expertise is already developed?
• To avoid the adverse effects of the Sunk Cost Fallacy have you defined your maximum risk strategy first?

There. You're equipped. Changing lanes just got easier. Or not.