You can’t look at the past. The preachers that I listened to growing up drilled this into my head. Can’t look at the past. Got it. It was bad to look at the past because the future is where it’s at. Well, I can sort of understand that because they don’t want you to dwell on it. I get that. But, the past holds a ton that we can learn from. If we don’t look at the past, then we are destined to fail time and time again.

Why is this?

We can’t learn from our mistakes unless we dissect what we did to cause the problem in the first place. Once we know what caused it, and we decide that we don’t ever want to see that result again, then we know what not to do again.

Albert Einstein even said,
that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I can’t count how many times I’ve done that.

Heading into 2011 and as you plan for the future, don’t forget about the things that were executed perfectly in 2010 and the things that didn’t work so well in the past.

Hope you took good notes.

Adam Kirk Smith
Adam Smith
25 Years in Retail, Restaurants & Hospitality ยท Author ยท Speaker ยท Coach

Adam spent 25 years in retail, restaurant, and hospitality leadership โ€” managing teams of 60, growing a store from $600K to $2M+, and overseeing guest experience at a corporate level. Author of The Bravest You (endorsed by Seth Godin). Host of two podcasts. 170K monthly readers. Grimes, Iowa.

2 responses to “Looking to The Past”

  1. right on! I think only looking forward is a very modernist perspective. I’ve got context in my blood so I’ve got to know where I/we’ve been to know where I’m/we’re going.

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