Thursday, February 15, 2018

This Simple Little Bouquet of Flowers Taught Me Something





Think about the simple task of going outside and cutting a few flowers from the yard, of bringing them inside and putting them in a vase with water. Simple right? No study was involved. I didn’t take flower arrangement lessons. However,  they are elegant because the flowers have their own beauty—just like you.

In looking at my bouquet, I thought of how we feel compelled in a world of professionals, to look good, to try to match them, and then we feel not good enough. We see the result of years of hard work with musicians and artists and feel we can’t begin because we will never match them. 

Young girls look at airbrushed and photoshopped pictures of models, even to the point of eye color, and feel inadequate in comparison.

Yesterday I listened to #Marie Forleo’s interview with #Rene’e Mauborgne. Her 
shtick is: 

 How to avoid competition.

A lofty goal right?  Her book is #Blue Ocean Strategy, How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Completion Irrelevant.

Blue ocean means outside the competition. Red Ocean is immersed in competition.  Red Ocean is where most all industries exist today. 

Here are a few Blue Oceans: 

  • Blow Outs  in New York. One hairdresser threw out everything in her salon except blow dryers, and created  a raving business.

  • ·        A young girl in Afghanistan, a musician, in a country with virtually no music instruction and few instruments wanted to start a youth orchestra. She searched the internet for a conductor and found one willing to work with her in Scotland. Together they began an orchestra—not the most talented, not the best musicians, but with a message—They didn’t want their country to continue with the legacy given them.

  • ·        Cirque du Soleil—they did not compete with Ringling and Barnum and Bailey Circus, and they took the world by storm.

  • ·        Marie Forleo’s TV, a video blog unheard of a few years ago.

I’m thinking. I haven’t found my spot, I’m blogging, but how am I different? 
I’m simple.
I poke flowers in water.
I offer them for viewing. 
And let me hear from you  You Rock, 
Jo