My friend, Rajesh Setty, has been collecting “Quoughts. He describes these as questions that provoke thought. In particular, he wants to know, what is one question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young…and why?
My response will be posted on his site soon – along with his commentary. But I thought I would share my response with my readers first.
My Quought is:
“What matters most?”
Why did I choose this quought? There are two reasons:
- Einstein once said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” From my personal experience, most people (and organizations) spend 60 minutes finding solutions to problems that don’t matter. So relevance is one aspect of “what matters most.”
- Recently, I have been asking myself, “Is what I do significant?” I know my work changes organizations. And I like to believe that it also changes lives. But is the change significant? Lately I have been restless. I think the reason is that I want greater significance in my life.
The second point, significance, is something I am wrestling with right now. In fact, I have decided that this will be my theme for the rest of this year. As we move into the last third of the year, maybe it is time for you to revisit your theme. If you are not familiar with my concept of themes, please read my article on the topic.
Maybe it is time to ask yourself, “What matters most?” What matters most to your organization? What matters most in your personal life? What matters most to your family? When you focus on the things that matter most, you have more time. And you can spend that free time on more things that matter.
