C21 Consulting Ltd

The other day I had the misfortune to find myself in a Birmingham City Centre Travelodge Hotel where I experienced the night from Hell.

I think the people in the room next door must have been operating on a different time zone to me as they were partying to the max at 2am in the morning.  With screaming, shouting, running, banging and laughing in abundance I was quite sure that a contingent from the night's West Bromwich game had decided to 'celebrate' at my expense.

If you have ever experienced something similar you will know that something like this can turn a mild-mannered reasonable fellow into something of an animal.

After a few minutes of mulling, thinking and becoming increasingly perturbed, a madness suddenly came upon me.  It grabbed hold of me!  I stood to my feet, jumped into my jeans and stomped out of my room into the corridor completly void of any sense of fear.

I walked right up to two young men who were dangling three bottles of beer from in between the fingers of each hand and express my disapproval.  I expressed it with amazing fervour and passion.  I surprised myself.  I am normally so... dare I say it... NICE!

It was only afterwards and upon reflection that I thought about what I had done and the danger I had launched myself into.

Think about it!  You are alone in a hotel at 2am with no means of contacting reception.  You decide to confront a mob of around 10 youths who have been drinking like it was going out of fashion.  What would you do?

I know what I would do!  I would have stayed in my room and waited for the commotion to subside.  But for some reason I didn't.  I did the unreasonable thing.  I stepped out of my mind and right into the thick of it.

In business how many times do we allow our sense of reason to immobilise us?  We think through things until analysis becomes paralysis.  We try to eliminate risk instead of allowing our passions to drive us forward.

Think about what makes you mad.  What frustrates you about your business?  Isn't is about time you did something about it other than reasoning your way into niceness?

Isn't it about time you grabbed the bull by the horns and realise that hidden inside your negative frustration is a positive passion.  The kind of stuff that builds business, even the kind of stuff that changes the world.

Don't allow situations to paralise you. Do something about it.  Deal with it.  Take the lead.  Be the leader you were born to be!