Has anyone ever moved your cheese? Is your cheese pile dwindling?
No, we aren't obsessing over cheese this week, we are talking about the book Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and how it relates to entrepreneurship development.
This is a fantastic, short read for anyone who feels they might need to become more change-oriented and up your personal responsibility for success. Nat and Pete discuss how it has helped people they know to succeed in life and how it can help you become better each day.
Pete: Nat, I'm really excited about today's podcast. Let's talk about one of my favorite books, so we're going to talk about one of my favorite books, and I don't know; I'm sure you read this, right? A long time ago, who moved my cheese. Do you remember that book?
Nat: I do remember that book, and I like cheese personally.
Pete: Yes. I think the idea is we're not going to necessarily talk about cheese, but this idea that it's a book it came out in 1988 by Dr. Spencer Johnson. And it's an awesome book because it talks a little bit about this idea that you always have to change.
And the premise of the story is there's these two mice, right? And they get up every day, they put their sneakers on, and they go to the cheese pile, and they get their cheese and all that kind of stuff. They come home and take their sneakers off, that kind of stuff.
And over time, the cheese pile gets smaller, and one of the mice doesn't realize it and wakes up one day, puts the shoes on, goes there, and there's no cheese, right? And the other one and kind of figured out that hey, there's no cheese. I got to go find new places to get cheese, right? So the reason I like this book is it really promotes change.
And I remember back when I was a manager at Ford, I gave copies of this book to all my employees, right? And actually changed the employee's life. He read and goes God; I got to go do something else.
I wasn't trying to get him to leave Ford, but the idea is that he just knew that it was time for change. So I thought about the book as it correlates to how we help people explore franchises, right?
Nat: Yes, it makes a lot of sense.
Pete: Right. And there's many executives that get kind of caught up into that; I have this great executive position. I put my sneakers on or, in this case, my business shoes, and every day I go to the office.
And one day, I go to the office, and there's no more cheese, or maybe the industry is demolished, right? From that standpoint.
Nat: Or maybe there's a black swan event, and everything changes.
Pete: Yes, very well said yes, absolutely. And so there's some great core lessons in the book from that standpoint. And I think the first lesson that I picked out of it was, is that change is constant, there's always change, we know that, right? But it's hard to really sometimes embrace that.
And you have to be ready for change, and to your point with this pandemic, we're all changing, we're just kind of going with the flow. But I find that to be kind of the first core lesson in the book is that change is constant, it's always happening.
Nat: Yes. I think when I'm thinking about change, I think it's like kind of important to exercise those muscles of doing new things, moving on to new opportunities. Kind of keeping yourself in learning mode and evolving and not getting in too much of a ride. I think that's the number one thing, we just kind of; I had the same kind of I thought about it or heard it mostly with kids, but the days are long, but the years are short.
And it's so easy decades can fly by, and I think it's really important to look at new opportunities and do new things, make new friends, new hobbies, all that kind of stuff. It's exercising those muscles.
Pete: Yes, absolutely. And I think it is, it's always looking for new opportunities. I know you're really good, you're always looking ahead at new business opportunities and stuff like that. I probably need to do a better job of being open to new opportunities. I kind of get stuck, and so maybe I'm that mouse that keeps going in the cheese pile.
And one of the other points in the book was that hey, don't take yourself too seriously, right? You got to kind of go with a little bit, right? So don't get too hung up in a lot of stuff, life's too short.
Nat: Yes. I totally agree with that. I think the other thing is it's never too late to change. I always love, sometimes I'm working with people, and they might be in there, even in their 60s sometimes, and they're going back to school and getting a master's degree.
Or one person I was working with had had a 30-year corporate career, super successful, and she just felt super passionate about becoming like a physical therapist. And so she went back to school for physical therapy, and that's kind of what she wanted to do, which I thought was, that was awesome.
Talk about something I wouldn't have thought about; it's just kind of reinforces it's never too late to change and do something. People are living longer than ever before; you might as well do something you enjoy for the last 20 years of your life or whatever.
Pete: Yes. Well, people aren't retiring the way they used to, right? And they want to continue to do something. And I work with as you do with a lot of people in their 50s and their 60s, and say listen, I don't want to retire, I want to go do something else, I've had my 30-year career in the corporate world, and now it's my turn. I want to go do something that I can enjoy, and I can bring a little bit of income in.
And so I do think it's never too late as you look forward to the future from some point. And then I think, and this is really key in this crazy world, is always anticipating change, right? It's being ready for change, and it's kind of looking ahead. And you remember when we went to the driving school, we were driving?
Nat: Yes.
Pete: Remember how they told us that when we're coming up to a corner, you don't look at the corner, right? You look around the corner, right? Anticipating what's out there to understand that.
So having a further vision. And I think that's true as we look at opportunities, whether it's careers or investment opportunities or just where we're going with our lives, it's always looking forward.
Nat: Yes. That lesson from driving school has come in really handy. My 15 year Old's been driving, and so the other day we're going through the toll booth, and I'm thinking in my head like he's going to look at the guard rail. I'm like, look at the horizon, look at the horizon. Like I didn't even, I'm not bringing up the guardrail because I don't want him to look at it and hit it.
Pete: I know. And that's true, right? Because they say like when you're driving if you look into the wall, your car goes where you're looking, right?
Nat: Totally.
Pete: So that's good. And I think one of the other great lessons from the book is that old ways don't always work, right? When some things work today, may not work in the future. And boy, in a crazy world that we are with this pandemic, I think that's really true.
Nat: Yes. One thing for me, too, like basically stuff starts hitting the fan, and you're having to make changes and adapt; I think it's super important to keep it simple. They said, oh, keep it simple, stupid saying the kiss thing. And I feel like I've done like that's something I've intentionally done.
Is kind of stripped back and get more clarity, simplify through this time of change with the COVID and everything. And it helps also kind of like makes you prioritize and think through what's really important, what has to be done, that 80-20 rule.
Like how can I get 80% of the results with 20% of the time or effort? So I think keeping things simple and is always super helpful too.
Pete: It takes a lot of pressure off you, right? If you can just boil it down to kind of the essential stuff, the important key things from that standpoint. I think one of the other great points of the book was is that hey, don't be afraid of change, right? Changes as we talked about earlier constant.
But you got to just be willing to go with it. And we see a lot of people that we work with that get caught up into the fear, right? They're worried about change or something new. And really, I think the idea is that you need to embrace change. And not be scared of it, but more importantly embrace it, because that's coming.
Nat: Yes, that's totally true. As I'm thinking back to that book, too, it was interesting because it wasn't that they totally ignored the cheese; they were still kind of checking in on the cheese to make sure.
They're kind of like checking in on your stocks or something like that, it's like they're keeping track of how much cheese they had and all that. But they were also just trying to think about change, prepare for change. But you don't want to forsake or neglect your pile of cheese either.
Pete: Yes. Well, I think you want to visualize the endpoint, right? Where do you want to be, right? So maybe I want to have multiple cheese piles, right? So I'm not caught up. I've been trying to teach my kids that are in college, right?
They're trying to make it through college, and I want them to say, okay, the long game is not college; the long game is where do you want to go with your career. And simply put, I want you off my payroll, right?
Nat: Yes. I was going to say you don't want to write those big checks for the next ten years.
Pete: So we have to kind of look towards where we want to go for sure.
Nat: That makes total sense. I think as you're thinking about looking towards where you're going and making changes. I think actually being decisive can help quite a bit or kind of like looking forward, figure out what you want to do, make the change, and kind of let go of some of the old things.
I always have the to live with the regrets kind of test, and so I think, I asked myself am I going to regret if I do this, am I going to regret it? Or if I don't do it, am I going to regret it. Which am I going to regret more, or which am I going to regret less, right? So I think sometimes you just have to make a decision and let go of some of the old, let go of the old, embrace the new.
Pete: Yes. And I think if you try to hold on to the old too long, you can become extinct, right? I mean, you become irrelevant. Maybe not extinct like the dinosaurs, but you really just, you kind of miss the game for sure.
Nat: Yes. I definitely don't like the idea of becoming extinct.
Pete: All right, well, maybe a little harsh from that standpoint. And I think you always have to be ready for change, right? As we've talked about before, it's a constant; we shouldn't be scared of it.
But you got to have your shoes ready, right? So with the who moved the cheese, have your shoes ready. Be ready for that change and lease lace them up and let's go find the new opportunities.
Nat: Totally. Sometimes I go through this exercise, I'll write in my journal. If I knew I couldn't fail, what would I do? And I'll just start brain-dumping onto the blank piece of paper. So I think just sometimes giving yourself a little mental space and literally asking yourself if I knew I couldn't fail, what would I do, or what would I want to accomplish?
Who would I want to be? Kind of that concept of living without fear or just embracing like what's possible. So I think that's a super helpful, healthy mental exercise to go through once in a while.
Pete: Yes. I think sometimes in life; you just get kind of where you're stuck in a spot, right? And you get complacent. And I think that's a real dangerous thing too, right? Is that we just get into our life, and we just kind of click along. And especially during this pandemic, right? We're just kind of clicking along, kind of hoping things get better here.
But I think that's a big piece of it. One of the things I like about this book is it's really simple, right? It's almost written like a kid’s book. It's fun, it's simple. I've actually thought about giving this book to my kids, just because, boy, what great information to have, taught you in a very simple way. And if you have this when you're 16 or 18, I think that's a pretty powerful tool.
Nat: Right. Just think about the kids, like I'm sure that they kind of, in their mind, their world is kind of organized, right? So whether it's the Snapchat or this or that, what happens when you can't use Tik-Tok anymore? It's like, oh, somebody moved my cheese.
Pete: Yes. Or you know what we're going to virtual school, online school, their world is changing too. And they're going to have to really kind of go with the flow, it's a crazy world out there.
So again, I think who moved the cheese is a great book, a simple story, but it really applies to everybody's life. And if you can take the key lessons from it and apply it, I think it can be very beneficial.
Nat: All right, well, thanks for sharing today, Pete.
Pete: All right, have a great week.
