What Are You Collecting?

Everyone collects something – and most of collect a lot of things.   Daytime talk shows often have people on with bizarre collections:  they collect animals, or toys, or they save everything – to the point where their houses can’t hold it all.

I’m not talking about those extreme cases, I’m talking about people like you and me.

I collect several things:

•  John Deere toy tractors and some collectibles
• “Real” antique tractors (mostly John Deere)
• Books, especially in some topic areas like leadership, marketing and professional development
• Domains that we might use

Odd perhaps, but relatively safe to talk about in a social situation, or apparently on a blog.

What do you collect?

I also collect a bunch more stuff, things like:

• Memories
• Ideas
• Mistakes
• Past problems

I could go on, but this is less comfortable to share.   While I think I may (or may not) keep from collecting too many grudges and past conflicts, I know there are some in my closet and in my mind.

What do you collect?

The problem with collections is that they can get in our way.  They can over-stuff our bookshelves or barns (in my case) or cram our mind with stuff that don’t serve us best.  

If I relish and read the books, the collection probably serves me.  But if I worry about what I’m not getting read, or the tractor that needs restoring, it likely isn’t serving me best.

If that is the case, it might be time to do some cleaning.

I’m confident that all of us can do some cleaning of some of the things we are collecting – like past impressions of others, beliefs about ourselves, issues, and conflicts.  How about assumptions, or untested beliefs?   I could go on, but I don’t want to get you so uncomfortable that you don’t keep reading.

This post isn’t really about my tractors or your favorite collectible.  It is about those other things that we hold on to that don’t serve us, our teams, and our organizations.

Take a few minutes to ask yourself these two questions:

• What do I collect?
• What do I need to let go of?

Please do think about these questions… then take action on your answers.  You will be more successful, almost immediately.