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Counting sheep

You’ve probably encountered someone who does it. And no, I don’t mean at night when falling asleep.

Counting sheep is what most people do. They lull themselves to sleep everyday by halfheartedly working in jobs they don’t care about. And as a result, they never do the work they are capable of.

The customer service person who reads the company handbook over and over but never stop to actually answer your question or connect you to the right person. The corporate lawyer who files paperwork with the state but never actually stops to help the client with the hard work of getting the business problem fixed.  A vice president who spends millions of dollars on new products, even though she knows they won’t get sold, all because it’s part of her job description.

MBAs and JDs starting all the way back in grad school.  They take the same classes and recruit for the same high-paying jobs every year because everyone else in the class did the same thing.  That’s because it’s easier to put your head down, fit in and find a good job that pays a salary every two weeks like everyone else than to go out on a limb.

On the other hand, it’s people who aren’t counting sheep that are really making a dent in the world. Like the CEO of Zappos who is willing to spend as much time as needed on the phone with customers even though everyone said it wouldn’t work because it costed too much.  The CEO of Starbucks who is willing to change the entire culture of an organization even though it didn’t make sense at the time. A famous politician in New Jersey who is willing to film his losing campaign for city council and years later go on the SNAP diet to show the world what his district looks like, even though people didn’t like it.

If you can find a way to get more with with non-sheep behavior that’s where the good stuff happens. People who are brave enough to look at status quo and say “I don’t agree”. And innovators who are brave enough to say “I am willing to go the other direction”.

What if the world had a lot more people who acted just like that?