Today I am in a funk. I failed to make a strategic change at work. I could complain but that’s too easy. I’m getting up again and dusting off.

I think back to my youth. I remember lying in bed reading a book. In the other room my father was practicing guitar. He was tackling the song ‘Riders in the Sky’. As I listened I could hear him start and stop the song as he made mistakes. Subconsciously I learned disappointment happens when you try to accomplish new things.

The cowboy in ‘Riders’ is asked to change his ways or be damned to an eternity of chasing ‘the Devil’s herd across the endless skies’. I believe in order to get people to change you must present them with a future which compels them to escape the emotional gravity of the present. Unfortunately, we don’t often have anything as powerful as eternal doom to compel change. I certainly didn’t.

Eventually my dad mastered the song and played it through entirely. I’d like to think he gave me the value of being persistent in the face of frustration. Friends, I will try again to introduce innovative change. But for now I’ll wait until the sound of the ‘steel-hooved cattle’ is closer.

photo credit: eye of einstein