Does Mother Know Best?
“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
~~~Abraham Lincoln
Although the idea for this article came from one of my favorite newsletters, I have done quite a rework of it. However, since I’ll be quoting from it to some extent — I feel as though I’d better give credit where credit is due. It’s not really a reprint, but this is where I got the idea …
Reprinted with permission from Kickstart Today by Martin Avis www.kickstartdaily.com
How many things do you do a certain way today because your mother, or a friend, or a business associate taught you to do them that way?
Do you believe that doing those things that certain way is based on true fact, or is it just second-hand information that has been passed down to you?
In his newsletter, Martin tells this story … it’s a great story and one that I’ve heard several times before …
“There is a lovely story about a man who watched as his wife cooked a Sunday roast. She carefully cut the ends off of the meat before putting in the roasting tray in the oven.“Why do you cut the ends off?” He asked.
“I’ve no idea,” said his wife, “that’s how my mother taught me to cook.”
So later on that day she phoned her mother.
“Mom, you know you taught me to cut the ends off the meat when I make a Sunday roast – why do we do that?”
“I’ve no idea,” said the mother, “that’s how my mom always did it.”
Next day, grandma got a phone call.
“Hi Gran, Mom and I were wondering why we all cut the ends off of the meat when we make Sunday roasts.”
Gran replied, “I don’t know why you do it, but I always did because I never had a big enough roasting tray.”"
We humans are so easy to program. Those things that we learn over the years are so often accepted as gospel. All those little behavior patterns that we use in our lives, both in business and in our personal world are, for the most part, patterns we learned from someone else — and if we were to investigate further — the person we learned them from also learned them from someone else, and so on down the line.
As Martin points out in his article, one of the old “standbys” in the business world is “The customer is always right!” But is that true? Does that still apply today? Aren’t there times when the customer is absolutely dead wrong? Wouldn’t it be better to say, “The customer you want to keep is always right”? There are some people out there who will drive you nuts with their unreasonable demands on your time and patience. You would probably not want to keep them around.
When we adopt someone else’s habit or pattern without questioning whether it makes sense, we have allowed ourselves to be programmed. We truly didn’t learn anything.
Plus, as that story about the roast points out, it wastes an awful lot of meat!
Take a look at those things that you do because you’ve always done them — or because someone else has always done them. Analyze them to see if those ways are the best ways. Is there another way to tackle the same thing that might take less effort — or less time — or less money?
It could be that the way you were taught was the best way at some time in the past, but if it isn’t the “best” way today — if there is a “better” way and you choose not to adopt a change for yourself, you’re not only stuck in a rut — you’re probably stuck in someone else’s rut.
~~~ DBL-R
Hey Ron. Have enjoyed reading ALL around your site and have found a lot to ponder on. This story is a great example of how our minds are set – not easy though to question almost all one’s basic thinking. Illuminating yes, but very tiring too.
Comment by Eva — December 8, 2007 @ 2:27 am