WORK EVOLUTION OVER FORTY YEARS

Work evolution happens when someone is on the job for forty years.

You start out doing one thing, then do another, and that’s the evolution part.

The evolution happens when you stick with it.

Quitting after hard times is not the same.

Imagine sharing a space with a compatible group when the non-compatible person shows up with promises of bigger and better, but only if everyone else leaves.

Has that ever happened to you or anyone you know?

What happened with that experience?

Did they open a new space and carry on? Did they fold?

 

 

If they opened a new space with good people, that’s work evolution.

But things change, people change, and when good people turn unreliable, you change.

Maybe your business is licensed and you’ve built value up to the point of being marketable.

Except you don’t market it because you’d have to say the unreliable part out loud and good people would suffer.

Then what?

 

As The Clock Spins

Good people make good decisions, so you find a new space and build value, rebuild value.

Through expansion and ambition, things go well.

Just when you get to the next level, start seeing the next level, people have a change of heart.

They don’t see the next level, they don’t see a brighter future, just tomorrow.

Short sightedness brings with it misunderstandings.

 

 

Long story short, a business is run on cash flow, money in, money out.

In some cases, some business profiles, more money in requires more money out, but not too much.

But vision being what it is, more money only means less money at the moment.

Growth together is stymied if everyone is not onboard.

Years of trust and communication come down to dollars and cents and a promise of more is met with, “Nooooo.”

Fine.

People dedicated to work evolution find a new space with a higher ceiling.

 

Happy Days For Nearly A Decade

Forty years in is a tribute to tenacity and grit and never giving up on the initial dream of success.

But life has other plans. Life always has other plans.

Old business partners fall away, move away, and new partners step in.

From one upgrade after another you finally match up with someone with similar goals.

One day marks the stark change.

 

 

A few days later you’re attending a funeral; a few day after that you learn the space that has served you so well is no longer available.

It’s been a good run. It’s time to consider the next step, including folding shop and retiring since you’ve reached the benchmark age, and more.

But the die is cast from the beginning.

A fighter is a fighter and doing what fighters do, you fight back.

Which means finding a new work space.

So that’s what you do.

 

The Last Day Before Moving

I know tenacious people, the ones who don’t know how to quit, to give up, to take a beatdown and stay down.

They are their own ‘Next Man Up.’

I call them role models, heroic, able do function in chaos and turmoil like sipping a cup of tea.

How they make things look so easy, I don’t know, but theirs is a guiding light if you know where to look.

If you know people like this, celebrate them, but not so much that you make them embarrassed.

 

 

All they’re doing is what comes natural, following their inner compass, directed by their own North Star.

Maybe I’m such a loafer that anyone doing anything looks incredible.

What I’ve learned, and what you should know, is that everything works out in the end, and if it’s not worked out, it means it’s not the end.

The first time I heard that it was a comfort. Let it be your comfort, too.

 

PS: Take care of yourself when you’re feeling down. The bounce back is just around the corner.

PSS: Adversity, in whatever flavor it comes in, is no more than a test, so be a good student. Do the small things consistently and you’ll look back in awe at the size of the accomplishments.