Time With Sands – True Reinvention

What is true “reinvention?” 

– Susan H.

Scott Maxwell said, “Every seed destroys its container.” Part of being human is that as we grow and develop, the forces to reinvent ourselves often take us in new directions throughout the course of our life span. And in some cases, external events like the pandemic, rather than developmental forces, will be the compelling catalyst for change.

However, what is true reinvention?

I compare it to the difference between changing the furniture and burning down the house. For many of us, the pandemic has now shifted our work and professional lives to a virtual reality. Therefore, we have to restructure how we work so that we can adapt to a predominantly online platform.

There is reinvention when it is more like moving the furniture: a new job or a new position. Radical reinvention is when transformation truly happens and that is where we move into the crucible of who we really are and what we came and to be. It is a deeper dive and is not for the weak-kneed.

When you do that kind of deep dive, it is like doing a forensic inventory as you review where you have been, what has worked, what has not, when you felt the clearest and purest–and what is it that makes you get up every day with joy and excitement and vision. That is what radical reinvention is about.

The pandemic has let loose a wave of reinvention-radical and otherwise- not only for individuals but for our society as a whole because of the massive job loss and closing. And for leaders who are at the helm, that same kind of forensic inventory has to be done now in many enterprises, small and large. The enterprises that will thrive are those that are guided with foresight and courage by today’s fearless leaders and trailblazers.