Today in Africa...

As a boy growing up on a farm near Sidney, NE, I started my work career at the young age of 10. We raised between 500 and 1,000 head of lambs each year, and the last three months their feed was hand-carried in 5 gallon pails and poured into feed bunks for their consumption. My dad was an early riser, so we were frequently awake and leaving for work at or before sunrise.

My dad’s ritual for waking me up was based on sharing some nugget of wisdom to kick-start my brain into action. When I was around 11 years old, once a week he would share this nugget with me: “Today in Africa, a gazelle woke up and started running.”

I pondered, analyzed, and dissected this saying for several weeks, and could not arrive at any logical conclusion. Finally, out of shear frustration and strong desire to hear the rest of the story, I asked him, “So why should I care?”

My dad then gave me the rest of the puzzle, “Because today in Africa, a lion woke up and started running.” Now I could see that the gazelle was running out of the need for self-preservation. Even as a pre-teen, survival of the fittest made a lot of sense to me.

So the analogy for today’s business professionals is that we cannot afford to sit still. Competition is keen and growing more intense every day. The Internet has made it possible to transact business 24/7 with people around the world. Keeping your company moving, growing, and improving is a DAILY CHALLENGE. Surrounding yourself with talented teammates, suppliers, and vendors that you can trust is more important than ever because you can’t be successful alone. As I like to say, trust and timing are two critically important components of every business transaction. What specifically did you do yesterday to build trust with someone? What will you do today to build World Class Trust with a teammate or business ally?