Planning for the Future By Taking a Look Into the Past

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What do we do when we’re planning for the future? You know, there are a lot of things that we can do. We can set goals, we can create strategies and plans, and that is all good. But I wanna share with you three benefits of kind of taking a look back. I get it that, you know, it’s not necessarily good to dwell in the past, but I’m gonna share with you three things that we can do, that we can use our our past to help leverage and give us a strong foothold and maybe even a step up for the future. Before that, I wanna tell you a story, and this goes way back and, and one of the things that, you know, looking back in the rear view mirror can do is it can actually show us where there are some really, really bright spots in places where we can really use for good learning.

Speaking of that, I, I was in college, I was working a, a job on campus, and I actually happened to have another job at the same time working off campus for an education company. It was a really cool, kind of a technology related education company. And I happened to work in their marketing department. Well, one night I happened to be with a friend, a fellow coworker, and we actually happened to stop by the house of the president and ceo. Now, this isn’t a person that I actually got to hang around with much, but it was pretty cool to actually be in his house probably the first time I’d actually been in the house of a millionaire. So it was very captivating for me as a college student walking into the CEO’s house. We were only there for a few minutes, but the interaction that I had has stuck with me to this day. I remember sitting on his couch with my friend and the c e o and his wife.

We were there for other business, but there, a little side conversation happened between me and the c e o and it was a very brief conversation, but the CEO basically asked me a few questions, asked me my name, asked me what I did for the company. So I, I told him, he, we, we just, you know, had a little discussion there for a, a brief minute or two. And then after a little pause, he turned and he looked at me and he said, “Mat, I want to give you a little piece of advice.” He said, “Never quit learning.” Now, this is coming from a gentleman who has accomplished a great deal, had a PhD, was very learned, very wise, had accomplished a lot of things.

And for me to hear these words coming out of his mouth, keep learning, I took them to heart. In fact, I took them and kept them very close to my heart. And to this day, I can still hear his voice in my head saying, “Mat, keep learning.” And I, as I look back on that one particular moment, and there’s lots of moments that I have that I can look back that I value highly, but to be able to say that that moment in time has carried forward with me 20 years later is very remarkable. And so today, I think this just punctuates why riot’s important for us to be able to look back and look at the things that we’ve done and accomplished.

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