A Lesson In Business From The Modern Day Greeks

I recently returned from a 2-week Mediterranean cruise to celebrate my youngest daughter’s graduation from high school.  It was an amazing cruise that allowed us to visit Italy, Greece and Turkey.  Each one was more beautiful than the last and I am hopeful that we made memories that will last a lifetime.

But there I was in Greece – a country that is on the verge of bankruptcy, in a place that certainly at this time would have the excuse of being “mad” or “angry” at their situation and how hard it really is.  Most Greeks are limited to take not more than 400 dollars out of their accounts in any given month.  How many of us already do that on a weekend? Yet every person I met in Greece, every one, told me the mantra they are living by now  – WE WORK TO LIVE, WE DON’T LIVE TO WORK –Getting to the trip wasn’t easy.  We planned and saved for over 18 months to afford us the opportunity to take the trip.  We sacrificed other things to keep the common goal of taking this trip as priority one.  At times it was hard, life pulls you in many directions and reality of life demands that you take care of your financial obligations before you get to have fun.

How amazing is that, and can’t we take those words into our everyday business life?  We don’t have to go 90 miles an hour every day, spinning our wheels, chasing our tails because we think we HAVE to.  Why can’t we step back and enjoy the journey not the actual destination.  Don’t keep doing the same thing each and every day that you have done and expect different results, that’s the definition of insanity!  Try and make your life easier…

All the software I have represented in my life tries to make things easier for end users.   That is what technology does.  But it seems lately, the process of evaluating, procuring and installing technology has become hard – for the client and the vendor.  Each often spend hundreds of hours in resources and manpower just to review the tools and options let alone the dollar costs.  That makes it hard, when you spend $100K of resources to buy a $30K product it’s hard to justify to management.  But we do it because that’s the way we’ve always bought software.  We don’t do it that way on items we buy personally so why do we have to keep doing it professionally?

Our tools are visual and seeing is believing – it’s one of our strengths here at EiS. So we won’t stop helping clients that way, but I am going to personally make it easier for people to work with us, and in truth, to make everything in my life easier.  I’ve been working for a very long time, and I’m looking forward to start living more. I hope you all do, too.