redactedThe responsibility becomes ours Children learn new skills every day. How to walk. How to read and write. How to ride a bike. How to memorize their multiplication tables. How to drive a car. How to make a bed properly (OK, maybe not that last one). At some point, though, we stop learning how to do things and simply spend our days doing them. We become competent. We settle into routines. When was the last time we intentionally tried to learn something completely new? Our firsthand experience is that acquiring new skills fires up something in our brains. There’s no feeling quite like it. So this summer, we decided to learn something we’d never done before. For years, we’ve admired people who can do a flip off a dock. It just screams summer. We never learned as kids, and as adults, we admired it from afar. This summer, after watching our kids try it, we finally said, “Why not?” and gave it a shot. It wasn’t graceful. There were plenty of failed (and somewhat painful) attempts. But eventually, we managed something that vaguely resembled a flip. Afterwards, sitting on the dock, we realized that there’s something intoxicating about overcoming a fear that’s been holding us back. We had just taken a literal leap of faith. Cool! It made us wonder: why don’t we try new things more often? First, there’s the self-consciousness. Learning something new usually means looking foolish. Who enjoys that? Second, it takes time. And who has enough of that? And third, we might fail. Yuck. Probably best not to try at all. While it took us a while to summon the courage to try the flip, one of the hidden benefits of working in the SMB world is that we’re always forced to keep learning. The sheer variety of activities pushes us outside our comfort zone all the time. Every few months, we’re beginners again. One week we’re negotiating with a bank. The next we’re hiring a new team member. Then we’re learning how to read an environmental report or rethink our marketing strategy. It never really ends. As children, every day demands a new skill. As adults, the world stops demanding that we try new things. The responsibility becomes ours. Thankfully, the best parts of life still begin with the words, “I’ve never done this before.” Have a great week, Your Chenmark Team Subscribe to Weekly Thoughts Also, we’re hiring.