An extreme focus on pathways and means might take your focus on your most important asset – you, the traveler. If that happens, you might have a successful short-term strategy coupled with a flawed long-term strategy
Let’s dig deeper on this.
Lots of questions popup even when you are planning for a short trip.
These questions can be:
1. Why do you want to go?
2. When do you have to go?
3. How are you planning to go?
4. What were the alternate places you could have gone?
5. What happens if you don’t go?
I can go on, but you get the idea.
You would have asked similar questions if you went back ten or twenty years. That part has not changed. What has changed is where you get the answers from. We have our networks far and wide that will provide instant answers to most of the questions.
Ask and you shall receive is almost real when it comes to Q&A on the web.
If finding answers can no longer provide a competitive advantage what would?
Two questions come to mind:
What questions you ask? [sort of a meta-question]
Where do you hangout and find answers? [becomes important as there are MANY answers to the same question]
There is a wisdom in the old saying, “the tourist will always find what he or she is looking for.”
The web is filled with answers that are related to the Pathways (what road to take) and Means (what vehicle to drive) and very few of them will focus on you, the traveler. Unfortunately, the amount of information on pathways and means are so large that it is bound to trigger more questions about one of them than elevating the discussion on the traveler.
For example, you read an article about how to grow your Twitter followers. You get a dozen ideas and in the same article, there are links to other perspectives on guess what, the same topic – how to grow your Twitter followers. Soon, you are lost reading about the “means” to increase your Twitter followers. Sometimes you may be so focused on this that you may even forget “why” you want to increase your Twitter followers.
Not to mention at the same time, there are parallel pathways and means that are equally popular and people are calling your attention to those as well.
What is worth remembering is that the traveler is who will make the journey and the destination special. You can be happy in the middle of a desert or you can be miserable in the middle of disney world. Ultimately, you make choices to enhance the meaning of your life and of those around you.
The problem?
With the web filled with information about “pathways” and “means,” unless you consciously make an effort to focus on the you, the traveler, you will be forced to allot your mindshare to things that are not related to you, the traveler.
Focusing on “pathways” and “means” will give short-term results. Unless there is equal focus on the “traveler,” these short-term results will come at the expense of long-term success. These short-term results can put you in a dangerous vicious cycle that appears like a virtuous cycle – almost an addiction to follow the what is currently popular everywhere.
Pathways and Means change all the time and if your success is based on becoming very good only in pathways and means, you might a successful short-term strategy and a flawed long-term strategy.
Your true asset in the long-term is you, the traveler. Make sure that your relentless focus on pathways and means, is NOT taking you away from building that asset.
Photo Courtesy: kinwahyu on Flickr