The Double Nickles

I turned 55 today. It’s not really a “big” birthday but it feels sort of like one. As one of my friends pointed out, I’m closer to 60 than to 50 (and feel free to point out that I might need new friends). Maybe in golf terms I’ve made the turn but there’s lots of real estate left to navigate.
The thing that keeps rattling around in my head is how different the world is on each birthday. When I was born, the last Russian forces were still leaving parts of Austria – leftovers from World War II – and West Germany became a country. A vaccine for polio – which killed and crippled millions – was approved. A Daley was mayor of Chicago. The President (Eisenhower) sent troops overseas (to Vietnam), and someone planted a bomb on an airplane (United flight 629) which blew the plane out of the sky.  OK, so maybe some things haven’t really changed.  But much more has, even if the scourge is now AIDS, we’re sending troops elsewhere, and the start of our current wars is actually about as far back as the end of WWII was to my birthday.  But there’s the lesson.

Obviously we can’t be exactly what we were the birthday before.  Businesses can’t be either.   IBM isn’t making the “big iron” of the 1960’s.   AT&T has a huge business in a product that wasn’t even thought of in 1955.  GPS?  Location-based services?  The Internet?  Many companies which began as one thing have morphed into something else.  Kind of like I have – a musician changed into a teacher morphed into a TV executive who now does digital.  What a long strange trip indeed.

We have to be open to change, as people and businesspeople.  We need to listen, learn, and accommodate, controlling what we can and accepting what we can’t, both personally and professionally.   Getting stuck in the past or resent means we and our businesses miss the future, and I’m really looking forward to mine.  You?

Thanks for reading – its a great birthday gift!