The Playground…
Bringing clarity to an overwhelmed mind…
As children at some point, we were surrounded by a bunch of other little children. It could have been at school, the park, church, the zoo, I mean name a place and it has the potential to be a playground. Just put a bunch of children in one location and it will turn into a playground so fast. But that playground no matter wherever we were was a vital upbringing to how we see, interrupt, and deal with situations of all matters. No matter if the situation was a happy moment, a sad moment, or an angry moment it was a moment that showed or branded an image into someone’s mind of who we are. The Playground was not only how we started to brand ourselves, but it was the beginning of relationship building. Relationship building was the vital piece as a child or maybe that is just how I still see it.
My background is in business development and no matter how much schooling I have had, which is some years it still will never replace The Playground. For me The Playground was and still will be the place that business deals really begin to develop. The only thing is that many of us won’t see the future deals and that is ok because they are not for us, but the deals we see now came from The Playground we grew up on. As I said before The Playground is literally wherever kids or at even if cooped up in the van for a few hours. Some great deals have been drawn up in the sand or on grandma’s carpet, or on the back of the van window. But as we get older, and we move from grandma’s carpet to our own carpet The Playground gets lost along the way.
All the books I read, all the papers I wrote, all the hours studying to receive my Masters in Business Administration, and The Playground was nowhere to be find. You see when I got to the point of receiving my Master’s it wasn’t by deliberate choice, but I began to live this all-exclusive adult life. I mean yes children are present, but it was just more of my mentality in that I was past childish thoughts/games. I wanted to put into practice the many thoughts and ideas that I studied to help me further my career in business development. As I began to put all this amazing schooling into practice I really began to see results, like immediately. The more I went back out into the world proclaiming my genius business development brain I began to quickly realize that my quick success was very short lived. I never really got a time to ever celebrate any wins no matter big or small. I was always on the “grind” developing business meeting after developing business meeting after developing business meeting. Never-ending.
It was never-ending because as much as I was focused on business development I was as much un-focused from relationship building and building relationships. See, if I was focused on relationship building and building relationships I wouldn’t be “grinding” I would be playing on The Playground drawing up the next play in the sand. I had to get back to being on The Playground focused on relationship building, who can I build with. I also needed to focus on building relationships so that when I find people, we begin to build a relationship together. When we focus on relationship building and building relationships, we are able to build solutions together towards problems that require us to act now, and we can act now. Throughout my career as I have made sure to spend time in different departments from sales, marketing, and administration offices The Playground was and still is a vital piece to my career success. Also, my life success.
We relationship build with those around us and build upon on those relationships together. No matter the industry you are in or the industry you are creating don’t forget recess time, The Playground awaits Our drawings, Our words of life, Our ideas, Our thoughts, Our laughter, Our love…
“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whosever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18: 3-4)
