Changing Perspective
“In the valley.”
“Welcome to the valley.”
As I looked around, it didn’t seem like a valley. Everything just looked flat to me.
What Valley?
We were in Phoenix, Arizona for the PressNomics conference. If you’re not familiar with it, PressNomics is a great 3 day conference for people in the WordPress industry to come together to learn and discuss topics related to running a WordPress focused business. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in downtown Tempe. My wife Sarah and our daughter came along for the trip. I had a great time at the conference learning and relaxing with other business owners and entrepreneurs but that whole “valley” talk still had me confused.
Going for a Drive
After the conference was finished, we had a free day before we flew back home, so we decided to go for a drive. As I checked the map for an interesting looking place to go, I saw South Mountain Park. The website said they had a winding mountain road that would take you up to a lookout point – that sounded fun to us, so off we went.
Driving up the mountain was a very focused effort. The road was in great shape, but there were some incredibly tight turns with rocks hanging out right to the edge of the road on one side and a thousand foot drop off the other side. Needless to say I didn’t take my eyes off the road. Once we parked, I went over to the lookout point. I could see mountains in the distance with the cities of Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Tempe and many others down below, the “Valley of the Sun” as it’s called. Looking around it suddenly dawned on me – I was looking at a valley with mountains all around – a valley! Finally it made sense, the cities were surrounded by mountains forming a valley.
South Mountain Park
Seeing Life
On the flight home as I thought more about PressNomics and our drive up the mountain, I realized that business and life are much the same as this valley. Often times, you really can’t see the true nature of something until you get a new perspective. Sometimes that figurative (or literal) drive up the mountain is what we need to gain a new vantage point on our business or life so we can truly “see” from a new perspective.