Who's responsible..?

Most of us like saying "Do the basics right", but when is the last time we really took a step back, and assessed what the basics in our businesses are? What are our core competencies and services? What is it that we do really well and which products makes us the most profit? The world has become a ridiculously small place, rotating at an ever-increasing pace, forcing us to fight fire after fire in order to simply stay ahead, or even worse, drown in our own self-created whirlpool of tasks and duties..

Daily we hear people complain about traffic, the weather, their financial positions, lack of time for their friends, families. Can we take a step back and assess the situations honestly, are these situations mostly created by ourselves? Our own selfish needs and wants?

Living in Los Angeles for the past 6 months has really opened my eyes to the endless non-stop, permanent traffic chaos, a city with clogged arteries and a slowing heartbeat, with frustrated tense drivers all sitting by themselves in their luxury cars, shitbox hatchbacks or beautiful off-road trucks, all doing 5mph daily up and down the tarred freeway, while the carpool lane is mostly empty... Has this situation come about because we all just love our cars, enjoy the flexibility and illusion of "freedom" being able to go to work and back by ourselves, or have we simply forgotten about the basics of simplifying, eliminating waste, and treating time as the precious resource it is..?

Having had the privileged of traveling to a few different cities and countries, it still amazes me how many of the same people I meet, just in different places, except they might look slightly different, different accents, blue eyes instead of brown, etc, but usually they have the same thing in common - they blame something or someone else for their current situation... Instead of owning it, asking what they can do to improve the situation, and stop waiting for someone else to take the lead and change it for them.

Do the basics right.. Strip it all down to the bare essentials, do that really really well, and keep hacking away at it. Perhaps you will also find the success of most In 'n Out Burger franchises where there's a tiny delicious menu and a permanent 20 - 30 minute wait in the drive-thru! Stop waiting for someone else to fix things for you, take a leap and make a change.. You'll feel like a champ, I promise.. ;-)