Don Roulo is the CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of Life Quest. He is a life, career and business coach as well as a Certified 48 Days Workshop Facilitator. He travels nationally and internationally to conduct business and career training as well as marriage and family workshops.

By DON ROULO

The reason my individual and business clients seek to meet with me is they do not like the results they are getting in their life, career or business. They recognize change needs to take place. They even mentally agree they need to do some things differently. They understand to have results which are different, they need to do different. (I realize this is not proper grammar and will use it to make a point throughout the article.)

What you do determines the results you achieve. If you want to change your results you must change what you do. I don’t think anyone would argue with these very simple statements and concepts. Though most everyone would agree mentally to this concept, it can become difficult to actually apply to our own lives. In order to do different, you need to know different. I share with my clients they are acting on, or doing, what they know to do. If they want to change what they do they need to change what they know.

Why can this be challenging? We all can have a tendency to hold on to long-held thoughts, traditions or habits. Even if we are not getting the results we want and we acknowledge the need to change, it is difficult to be challenged in our thinking. Again, most of us seem to be fine when we are told we need to change what we do in order to get different results. However, when our thinking is challenged things seem to become very personal.

As our thoughts, traditions and habits (what we know) are challenged we can become defensive. We can take on the attitude of, “I’ve been doing things the same way for the last 20 years and it has worked just fine.” This attitude is absolutely a business and career killer. I worked with a company several years ago which did not want their way of thinking to be challenged. It was an amazing company with amazing people. As of now it is dying a slow death because it refuses to accept the fact it needs to change what it knows.

This company has made in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 50 years. They are still operating on what they knew 40 years ago. 40 years ago what they did based on what they knew worked just fine. However, the business climate and their industry have changed dramatically. Now, they need to know different, so they can do different and therefore get results which are different.

We need to be able to have our thoughts, traditions and habits challenged. I am not saying we need to allow people to cut us down, call our ideas stupid or tell us what we think doesn’t matter. However, we do need to allow people we trust and admire to challenge what we know regarding having a great career or business – especially if our results are screaming for change.

Let me ask you several hard questions. If you want your results to be different, are you willing to do different?  If so, are you willing to say you need to know different? Are you willing to say maybe, just maybe, your long-held thoughts, habits and traditions may need to be different?

There is no shame in not knowing something. The shame is to realize you can learn what you don’t know, but refuse to learn it. To do different, you need to know different.

About the Author
Don Roulo is a life, career and business coach as well as a Certified 48 Days Workshop Facilitator. He travels nationally and internationally to conduct business and career training as well as marriage and family workshops.

As a business consultant, he has written business plans and worked to market products or services as well as organizing financial statements for investors. Because of his success in the sales and business arena, Don has been blessed with the opportunity to train, motivate and inspire others. His passion is to motivate and equip people to find their passion and achieve their goals and God given destiny.