Are You THIS Good at Avoiding Change?
Bruce Kasanoff

Are You THIS Good at Avoiding Change?

Many photos at the top of LinkedIn articles are superfluous. This one is not. See the three dog biscuit pieces, neatly arranged where two sofa cushions meet? My L-shaped sofa stretches about 12 feet from end to end, and when I got home this evening, biscuits were carefully hidden like this from one end to the other.

My dog, Dex, did the arranging. A 12-year-old rescue dog, he was home alone and apparently nervous, so he stole a plastic bag full of biscuits, opened it, and hid as many biscuits as he could fit in the sofa. He didn't eat the biscuits; he hid them in case I didn't come home and he needed food in the future.

Dex did this because we are in a new house, and he feels uncomfortable being left alone here. He spent part of the first year of his life starving on the streets of Brooklyn, and apparently our recent move has caused him to remember not having enough to eat. (When we first adopted Dex, he always stole the bread and hid it under my pillow.)

Here's my question for you: if a dog is this smart about fearing change, how good are people at it?

We have all sorts of strategies for avoiding change. For example, someone recently told me that two statements were enough for a person to resist all change at work:

We never do that here.
We already tried that here.

You can label change as dangerous, rash, haphazard, inappropriate or premature.

You can embrace change when it involves other people, but resist it when it involves you.

You can talk about change, but not actually change.

At some point this afternoon, my dog thought: I can still fit more biscuits under that last cushion over there. He could have put 20 biscuits under one cushion; he didn't. He put two or three biscuits under each cushion.

Never underestimate the ability of living, breathing creatures to fear and resist change. It's what keeps us alive, but it's also what keeps us from progressing.

I also write for Forbes. You might like some of my most popular articles there:

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs and executives. Learn more at Kasanoff.com. He is the author of How to Self-Promote without Being a Jerk.

Mayur Vegad

Civil/Structural Engineering - Bridges, Energy and Infrastructure

9 年

Dex, Biscuits and Wisdom to lower insecurity! . . . good observation for anybody associated in any manner to the word 'stray'

回复
Grace Wright

Clean Water, more important than food! Delivering safe clean water in the field and proving it in the lab.

10 年

Has anyone ever done a statistical analysis on the ammount of wasted resources squandered on hair ball changes? I believe change can be good or bad but when it is not thought out properly it is usually a waste, or worse a disaster.

回复
John Thomas Hernick

Risk & Insurance Professional

10 年

Nice, it does make you think - but in my case it would have been a disaster with my new rescue - she would each the couch if left alone!

回复
Sarah Battiste

Founder, CEO | Helping Brands Create Demand

10 年

Cute post, and very cute dog. Thanks for sharing, it certainly makes you think. :)

回复
Aashish Khurana

Experience / Exposure would help all of us in 2021 and make us do things differently for sure !

10 年

Changes are a part of life, some fear changes,some like changes but the best part is changes are required for anyone to keep him/her moving. Because life goes on .

回复

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Bruce Kasanoff的更多文章

  • Beyond the Ego: The Intelligence You're Ignoring

    Beyond the Ego: The Intelligence You're Ignoring

    Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier, continued fighting for nearly 30 years after World War II ended, remaining in the…

    10 条评论
  • Mountain Minute: The Wisdom of Being "Dumb"

    Mountain Minute: The Wisdom of Being "Dumb"

    Have you ever met a CEO who aspires to be the dumbest person in the room? I have. My friend Garry Ridge, former…

    22 条评论
  • Distill the Real You: Ignoring Obvious Gifts

    Distill the Real You: Ignoring Obvious Gifts

    I just came across this photo from when I was a grad student at The Wharton School. That's me in the foreground…

    12 条评论
  • Mountain Minute: I Waited a Year to Publish This

    Mountain Minute: I Waited a Year to Publish This

    BACKGROUND: This is a portion of a conversation I had almost one year ago with the AI system Claude. The first half may…

    40 条评论
  • Mountain Minute: Kiss the Sky

    Mountain Minute: Kiss the Sky

    Yesterday I stood on this peak, shrouded in a cloud, and felt tremendous gratitude. To be 11,600 feet high somehow…

    19 条评论
  • Mountain Minute: Sick, Lost and Thankful

    Mountain Minute: Sick, Lost and Thankful

    I've been excited for months to go on this winter's seven-week ski trip around the US and Canada. This is week two…

    25 条评论
  • Huge Profits AND Huge Layoffs?

    Huge Profits AND Huge Layoffs?

    I have been busy deleting most of my Facebook posts. Here's why.

    22 条评论
  • Mountain Minute: A Few Words about Telepathy

    Mountain Minute: A Few Words about Telepathy

    The Telepathy Tapes podcast makes the case that "non-speakers with autism—individuals who have long been misunderstood…

    14 条评论
  • Exploring the Impact of Group Meditation on World Peace

    Exploring the Impact of Group Meditation on World Peace

    Nine months ago, I launched Meditate for Peace, after learning that there's evidence to suggest that when enough people…

    7 条评论
  • Don't Be Well-Informed

    Don't Be Well-Informed

    Earlier today, a friend of mine confessed that one of her cherished mentors rebuked her for avoiding the news and…

    22 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了