The future of your career: In the “winner’s circle”…or a dead horse?

Have you ever noticed that some philosophies from the past seem even more relevant and true today?

A while ago I came across a simple and brilliant article on The Tribal Wisdom of the Dakota Indians that was published in The Guardian more than 20 years ago.

It shares a different perspective on how modern business is finding many creative and alternative ways to “beat a dead horse,” when in fact the best strategy is already clear.

(If this is new to you, “beating a dead horse” is an idiom that means to continue doing something is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided.)

Take a read and I dare you not to chuckle knowing full well that this probably applies to your company, but could also apply to many other facets of your life…

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

But in modern business, because heavy investment factors are taken into consideration, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites or countries to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Reclassifying the dead horse as “living-impaired.”
8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
10. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
12. Declaring that the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes more to the bottom line than some other horses.
13. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
14. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
    

Funny, right? And sad.

It’s sad because when a man is in a rut, his confidence is wobbling and he’s not fully “alive inside”, he’s likely to accept these ridiculous ideas to try to make the most of the dead horse.

Meaning: he’s become unconscious to how much time he is wasting on things that don’t work, don’t matter and don’t lead him to his dreams.

Make no mistake, your career success and happiness relies on you calling out that said horse is, in fact, dead.

So where have you been wasting efforts?

**Are you consistently grinding out longer hours hoping to get recognition yet all it’s doing is burning you out and making you less productive?

**Do you wake up looking to take on the day but don’t have an effective strategy to keep you focused, energized and purposeful in creating consistently powerful results?

**Have you become a “Yes man” hoping to please people but you can tell you’re losing the respect and admiration that you’re craving?

You owe it to yourself to take an honest look in the mirror and see where your approach simply isn’t working and where you’re playing far below what you’re capable of.

At the same time, you MUST take a stand for what you really want — in your career, in your freedom, in your legacy.

Otherwise, another year (…or 2, or 5…) is going to pass and you’ll be deeper in the rut than you already are. With less confidence, less hope and less internal fortitude to crawl your way back out.

I say it’s time to yell ‘DISMOUNT!’.

It’s time to for you to step up and declare what’s really going on. To have the courage to speak the truth. To find new answers and better strategies. To reclaim your dreams. To regain your power.

Don’t let the opportunity slip away.

Let’s leverage tribal wisdom and put the “giddy” back in your giddy-up!