Joshes and Joshettes, today is Wednesday which means it’s philosophy time. This week’s lesson comes to us all the way from China. I honestly forgot where I heard this teaching but that doesn’t matter, so let’s dive in.

“There is always a bigger mountain,” that is this week’s teaching. It’s a super short teaching that holds a big meaning. In BBJ terms this teaching translates as, there is always a new want. The reason I use want is because different people want different things just as a new goal or possession. In my case, the bigger mountain stands for a new goal. When I published my first book I thought I had made it. That was one of my biggest goals growing up and I felt a sense of accomplishment for a whole month. Everyone in my ten-year high school reunion congratulated me but I no longer felt any accomplishment. Anyone could write a book but if you don’t sell many are you an author. You are less likely to be a best selling author when you only have one book on sale. That was my bigger mountain, to publish more books and to become a real author.

Sure my example is specific to my situation but this teaching has another meaning. Its second teaching is to never be satisfied with what you have achieved and to strive for more. This is especially true if you want to be an entrepreneur or run a business. You are going to hit milestones and you will also plateau. Most businesses get high on their own success and they no longer innovate. Let’s take a look at the company RIM (Research In Motion), it’s no longer around but we all knew their product Blackberry. In the early two-thousands, they were the dominant smartphone manufacturer everything was fine until 2007. The iPhone came and changed the entire smartphone industry. Blackberry released its first touchscreen phone a year and a half later but it ran like all of their other phones. All they did was slap a touch screen on it and expected it to sell, they believed their previous success would carry over. They didn’t and after awhile the blackberry operating system was no more and the hardware division followed years later.

I could list more examples of companies failing to innovate and adapt but you get my point. Success is not measured by one action or event but rather the events that come after reaching your initial point of success. That sounds contradicting but just think of all those bands and artists that had one-hit wonders. They were never able to climb their next big mountain hence why they only had one good hit. That’s it for this week’s philosophy post, hope you enjoyed it.