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Riding the grooves of an old pioneer house!
Sometimes I feel like Lenny here in this shot. You get in the groove and get set in your ways and it’s difficult to change. These grooves are a bit like ruts in life. When I was a kid, twelve years old or so, I got to practice driving my dads truck on dirt roads west and south of town. One such road had clearly been traversed by a large truck during muddy weather and had carved deep ruts through the road. My father helped me navigate them but on one occasion I dropped down into them. The ruts proved to steer me. It overpowered my ability to grab the wheel and make my own steering decisions. It took quite a bit of effort to climb up the side of the rut and out.
Sometimes I feel in my work that I get into ruts. Ruts that either others have created or versions I have created through habit. It is easy to feel like you are working when you are in a rut, but really you are just going with the flow. Some ruts are too deep to get out of and are difficult to change.
I experienced this at a place I worked at in the past doing 3D modeling and design. They had a system that worked but seemed very repetitive. I was given the task to do this repetitive work and it was rather boring. In fact, I nearly fell asleep while doing it. I strove to find new ways to think outside the box and implement new strategies to get the process more automated. In the end though, everyone just kept doing it the way that seemed easier because they knew it.
I also worked for a mining company as the General Manager. My goal was to create systems that made it easy to follow the stone from the mining process to the logistics and processing of the stone. There were five owners, one of which had much more control and say in the company than the others. This owner did not want to change and adapt to new technologies and therefore undermined my ability to manage the company.
I now own my own mining company and I have found that my systems work very well. I do not yet have the assets or cashflow that the other mining company had so many of my new systems are not yet perfected but I know they will work. Even after implementation, I am open to new ideas and technologies. I do not want to be stuck in ruts – especially my own.
Lenny doesn’t stay in ruts long – he’s always changing and looking for new adventures.