Fantasy Enfolds
Reality
In the tales of time travel a charming fantasy enfolds
a world-changing reality.
Do you want to find love, or to save the person you
love? Look at just about any time travel movie to see how.
Do you want wealth? With a time machine and a minimal
knowledge of the stock market’s past winners and losers, it’s easy. The time
traveler uses the Will Rogers strategy:
Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good
stock
and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't
go up, don't buy it.
Will Rogers
Do you want to save humanity? As a time traveler you
can apply the knowledge of the past, or the knowledge of the future, and take
the key step at the key moment.
The Fantasy
So what is the charming fantasy of the time travel
tales?
It is that, knowing exactly what to do and when to do
it, you can take a small step that will be a turning point. Whatever you want
is then yours, even things you normally could not have no matter how hard you
tried.
These stories take the idea that “knowledge is power”
to the extreme. The key step at the key time, not decades of grinding effort,
makes all the difference.
The Reality
The reality is that there actually are key steps and turning
points that can make all the difference. The world changes; things are not as
they would have been. Small steps taken or not taken can change your world so
much that the rest of your life is like living in an alternate dimension.
Your
World Can Turn On A Dime
I was single for many years. I often felt that I would
be single forever. Even now, over a decade after marrying and with a growing
daughter, there are still moments when it seems odd, almost unreal, to be
living this life.
Looking back it was one small step that was the
turning point.
Surprisingly often in life it is the small steps that count.
The problem is, not being time travelers how can we know to take those small
steps?
What To Do?
Adopt the time traveler perspective.
The time traveler knows the potential power of small
steps. So do not wait until you can take a big step; get started right away
taking small steps that could help.
Ask yourself, “What can I do now that I might later
see was a turning point?”
To find the small steps you start with intuition. But also
study the 80/20 principle, which teaches us that a small minority of the causes
and efforts gives most of the results. It also helps us to find those vital
small steps.
You could also look at the Theory of Constraints,
which goes further.
But above all keep trying. The next small step could
be your great turning point to success.
#
# #
Albert Frank is a lawyer, speaker, writer, and a
partner with the downtown Toronto law firm of Rosenbaum & Frank LLP. For
more information about him and his ideas, see his web site at www.FrankLaw.ca and his blog
at Albert Frank On
Law & Life. He can also be reached by e-mail at afrank@Franklaw.ca and by phone at
416-929-7202.
