I’d like to talk about something that happened to me when I was on vacation recently – and has literally changed my life. My holiday setting was idyllic – chosen to escape the hustle and bustle for a few days and give myself some rejuvenation time. However, in today’s digitally-connected world, as most would, I succumbed to taking my laptop to keep in touch with day-to day business issues. Surely, before the advent of PCs, email and more recently smart phones, we never had this obsessive compulsion.
One morning early into the vacation – and much like any other morning – I booted up my laptop to ease my digital addiction. Then the unthinkable happened – a virus which deleted every single file. I watched in unspeakable horror as two years of hard work, photos and memories disappeared before my eyes.
Incidentally, I have already anticipated your next, and perfectly logical question. No, I had nothing backed-up – the obvious first lesson to learn in the first instance, but as I discovered that morning not the most important one – which I will later discuss.
Moments after the incident – and still in shock, my thoughts turned to getting the machine repaired – bearing in mind that I was on an island with no technology to speak of, nowhere I could take it to get it fixed – and I still had seven days left of my vacation.
My first instinct was to do what I always do in the first instance of a crisis – mobilise resources and SMS everyone I knew that might be able to inspire me with an immediate solution. My second was to look at my options. I even considered chartering a plane to get my laptop fixed. Third was how I might be able to salvage any files I could through sources such as email attachments.
But then, three or four minutes after the ‘disaster’, something interesting happened. I realised I wasn’t angry, upset or sad – and as far as I could tell my pulse appeared to be normal. I suddenly stopped thinking about contingency plans which calmed me even further. Then it hit me – so what? It’s not the end of the world. I’m still here, still have my health, my family are all well, my friends are fine – it’s just a laptop.
Once I’d got passed this barrier, I started thinking more rationally about which were the critical files that I needed the most. I came to the conclusion that there were only about three or four, and I knew exactly who had copies of them. I also came to a realisation that gave me a completely new focus – it wasn’t the laptop or even the virus that had lost the files – it was me.
The concept of unlearning is a familiar one in business talk – the ability to diversify your thinking away from your own traditional personal mindset and let in new ideas. But this was more than that. It was a core lesson for every aspect of my life – the way I treat people, my eating habits, my demeanor, the way I walk or even breath.
It’s now been two weeks since the ‘incident’ and I genuinely pray to God that I never find the old files. Today, I am a much happier man and would like to pose a question for every reader of this post – how many times has your computer crashed and you’ve tried to recover your old files so you can build back your life? I don’t necessarily mean in terms of your computer hardware, but more the software in your mind – that makes you think and act in a certain way – that guides your everyday decisions in both your business and personal life.
We all need a reboot in our mindsets, attitudes and approaches from time-to-time. When your computer crashes into the future – whether it’s your machine or mental software – don’t consider it a crisis but an opportunity to think in new, inspiring ways and hone down to what’s really important.
For this reason . Always ask yourself. So what and personally I look forward to the next time my files get erased.
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