New ideas… Hiding that light…

New ideas… Old resistance

That’ll never work. Yep, as we get longer in the tooth, we’re prone to cling to whatever beliefs we already have and to almost automatically reject what’s different, new, or just on the cutting edge.

Now that’s not to say that all things new ought to be wholeheartedly embraced, or that anything old (and proven) should be discarded or replaced.

Nope. What needs to happen is for all of us to openly look at that new idea, product or approach and then honestly consider whether or not it has utility in our lives. If it does, then by all means make it part of how you work or live. And even if it doesn’t, we probably ought to set it aside for reconsideration just in case it eventually does.

Fifty years ago the idea of low temperature dishwashing was considered lunacy. Aside from AutoChlor’s rental machines that pretty much only existed in Tennessee, it was considered unsanitary and second rate.

But after a new dump and fill low temp machine design was introduced by a California based company named Stero – and who gained NSF sanction, it was slowly embraced. That acceptance first began on the west coast but eventually grew into the full national acceptance it enjoys today.

Thinking of a warewashing market today with no low temps is about as foreign as the idea of looking up information in an Encyclopedia Brittanica versus using Google. So, maybe the question we need to ask ourselves when that next new idea pops up should be “Is this the new low temp, internet, or hybrid car”?

Hiding that light… under a basket?

Okay so nobody likes a braggart. You know that tiresome dude who both endlessly bores you with his exploits and of course inflates the magnitude of whatever he’s bragging on at the moment.

But there’s a flip side to that irritating character flaw. It’s the person (maybe you?) who’s the exact opposite. In old western movies he was that strong never-take-credit-hero.

That might be an attractive trait to emulate, but absolutely not when it comes to touting your capabilities in that sales call. Short of having received a recommendation from a friend touting your bona fides, that prospect has no way to know just how good (or not) you are at your job.

There’s a biblical quotation in Mathew 5:14-6 that goes “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but rather on a stand to light all the house. In the same way let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works…”

That quote from old Matt pretty well says it all…