Questions To Shift Your Paradigm

One of my all time favorite quotes that makes me pause and reflect is from Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel. Intel is famous for making a pivot that changed the landscape of technology, when they switched from being a semiconductor company to building microprocessors. The exercise they went through to get there started from the following question:
If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do? Why shouldn't we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves?
Intel was a successful, profitable company building semiconductors, but they started to see sales slip. Rather than wait to be fired for declining sales only to be replaced by a new CEO who would look at what needed to change to turn things around, they did it themselves. The result was an even larger, more successful and highly profitable company.

There are so many ways we could apply that question in our own lives. Too often we get complacent when things are going well that we don't ask the hard questions to force ourselves to see the truth that lies before us. So often we look back in our lives and you can see the signs that were there that we should have paid attention to.

If I were a new employee, what would I see as being a dumb process that needs to change in my current work? If I had to interview for my current job would they hire me over other candidates? If a consultant, life coach, or mentor could follow me around for a day what suggestions would they make?

It is hard to do, but we get so stuck in our old ways we need to find a way to change our view to see things with new eyes. We need a paradigm shift. That is why it is so important to surround ourselves with people that can speak the truth in love to us. We don't always want to hear it but more often than not, if spoken to us in the right way, those moments become turning points that further define who we truly are.

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