Once Bitten

This post is from from my other blog here

Our cottage on Georgian Bay has suffered from a drastic drop in water-level over recent years. The net effect of this drop of 3-4 vertical feet is that our shoreline now begins about 35 metres out from our 2 metre high breakwall. This newly emerged land has become home to a large patch of reeds that threaten to take over the entire beach. When the reeds first appeared, a few of us concluded that they were being sheltered by some rocks piled out in the water, and began moving the rocks. Our neighbour approached, very concerned, and requested that we stop at once. You see, our neighbour's beach has been plagued for decades with seaweed, reeds and debris from being in the pocket of a point of land built by his neighbour. Our neighbour had now become so paranoid of anyone altering the landscape that he was afraid moving the rock pile might cause more harm to his property. Fast-forward a few years and we've come to learn the reeds, now completely dominating our beach and his, are in fact an invader species that is known to choke out local plant life. The solution? Move the rocks, let the water from the lake erode the island the reeds have built and hope to start taking back our land. My neighbour had been bitten once by a decision (building the point) that had seemed like a good idea, but later backfired with terrible results. The problem is that he was afraid to take any other actions that might be beneficial, because of his fear of the consequences. By not taking action when the opportunity presented itself he has lost the enjoyment of his cottage, reduced his property value and created much more work for himself just to get from cottage to shoreline. By not doing something, he now has to work harder just to stay the same. Many - all? - successful people and businesses have failures in their past. It's the ability to rise beyond these failures and continue to strive towards being remarkable ( (c) Seth Godin) that sets them apart. Are you afraid to make a bold, risky decision that might benefit your business, just because something else (or the same thing) failed once before? As soon as we become too scared to take a risk or go out on a limb we are better to cash out and close our doors. The most dangerous thing you can ever do is nothing.