Your Time To Thrive

Cast your mind back some 65 million years ago...

It’s a mild afternoon, striking pink and orange shades of light paint the distant horizon. Forests and jungles are lush. The air is pure. Seas are hundreds of metres higher than today. The Earth is a magnificent sphere of splendour and energy.

Giant beasts roam and dominate the Earth. Salivating meat-eating predators, along with their long-necked tree-foraging relatives panic the ground-dwellers. Mighty birds the size of a bus glide through the air with wings that cast a vast dark shadow onto the ground below.

This is a terrifying time to be a small earth-bound creature.

Our current world, like the earth in the age of the dinosaurs is overshadowed by large ignorant beasts. Corrupt power brokers are largely to blame for the world’s current economic turmoil. Another cataclysmic blast, like the one that brought the end of the dinosaurs and the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 will occur within the next decade caused by debt-addicted institutions and inept governments. We are already seeing the US and parts of Europe being battered by financial meteors. The average punter that believes their destiny is determined by higher powers will be in for a rude awakening.

To attach your long-term wellbeing and financial security to a dinosaur is a losing strategy. I pick up a newspaper and all I read is pain and suffering. I turn on the six o’clock news only to consume more fear and struggle. If I believed the hype, I may as well fall on my sword where I stand.

The lesson? The don’t trust a dinosaur and pay scant regard to the media.

Despite what’s going on around you, take it upon yourself to carve your own path. Drive change and focus on your unique strengths. You are small, agile and able to seek refuge quickly. Keep your eyes peeled, your head up and your cost-base low, and partner with other small creatures to amplify your capabilities.

I’m most inspired by the little guys and gals, the likes of the shop merchants, artists, restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who are bursting with energy and their own personality. People who don’t want to grow too big, for them, it’s not about awards and being the fastest growing franchise — it’s about the journey and experience. It’s about delivering more and contributing more by providing customers with something real and meaningful. It’s about being the best you can be and doing what you love and lights you up. And that means being true to yourself and not conforming to the banal standards of others. It’s being true and your customers connecting with this and coming back time and again, and bringing their friends... That’s inspiring to me.

Dinosaurs were huge, clumsy beasts with small brains. You, on the other hand are smart and nimble. The business you are working for may be a corporate monster, but you can still think small and harness an entrepreneurial spirit. Take action and be accountable. Be known as a person of integrity and someone who gets the job done, right. Take these trying times as an opportunity to see our world differently—as an opportunity for victory! It’s your time to thrive.

(First Published in 2012) This blog is an excerpt from Trent Leyshan's second book Outlaw: Fight For Your Customers Buy on Amazon.com!