Strategic research is the answer. But what if ice cream was FREE?
Paul White's nationally distributed syndicated column, “Strategic research is the answer. But what if ice cream was FREE?” is published in 22 publications across seven states. This includes the following newspapers and digital publications: Midland Daily News (MI), SFGate (CA), Seattle PI (WA), Connecticut Post (CT), Laredo Morning Times (TX), Huron Daily Tribune (MI), The Telegraph (IL), and more. In this week's article, Paul offers three simple steps to success—others have done the heavy lifting, so you can utilize technology to refine and immediately act on what you discover!
It’s challenging to find many people who don’t like ice cream. Babies fall in love with it before they even know what it really is. It hits that spot in our brain that signals Mmmm…this tastes great!
Let’s just say you find yourself seeking a solution for the craving you have for your favorite flavor of ice cream. You jump up off the couch and take action to satisfy that craving, and when you locate what you’re looking for, it’s offered to you for free. Would you turn it down? It’s highly unlikely that you would.
But if you’re a typical human, along with the offer of free ice cream, you can’t help but add a dose of skepticism, and unless the person or company offering it for free can explain WHY you’re getting it for free, the skepticism won’t allow you to enjoy it as much as if you had paid for it on your own.
Solution? A little research on your part so you fully enjoy the free ice cream to its maximum value. Mmmm!
Life lesson – The shortest path getting you to where you want to go occurs quickest through strategic research. Say what? Yes, it’s true. So much so I consider it a life principle.
Strategic Research is one of the most valuable tools in our “Toolbox for Life” and mastering its use can lead to the life we dream of for ourselves and the people we love. And it’s getting easier each day through growing Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) that most of us in the U.S. have access to. Although the words “Strategic Research” might sound huge, hard, challenging, overwhelming, or difficult, in many cases, it may be the simplest thing you do in a day. What I mean by that is when you’re attempting to figure something out, in most cases, the strategy is simply locating an existing solution that someone else created. The heavy lifting has already been done, allowing you to immediately embrace plug-and-play. Simple. Easy. Awesome. It might help if I give you an example (one that was FREE).
When our oldest son was in first grade, we signed him up for Cub Scouts. We attended the first couple of den meetings (just the first-graders) and then attended our first pack meeting (first- through fifth-graders all together). At the pack meeting, the leader asked for adult volunteers to help. My wife and I looked at each other and concluded that some strategic research would help us decide the potential value scouting offered our sons in helping us raise our kids with the character traits that would best serve them the rest of their lives. Right at the beginning of our strategic research, we encountered the 12 Core Values of Scouting. They are: A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. As parents attempting to do the best we could in raising our kids, we felt as if we had hit the parenting jackpot.
Our strategic research also uncovered the fact that as you pursue different goals in scouting, you’re allowed to fail and try again until you eventually succeed, which we felt was a tremendous character-building trait that we couldn’t find in other organized activities. One last additional benefit that scouting offered was that the only person a scout was competing against was themselves, leading to the acquisition of many self-paced sets of new skills that would have value for them for the rest of their life. The point of this Scouting experience example is that, with very little effort utilizing strategic research, we were able to discover what would become one of our primary parenting strategies…and it was FREE! Did this work? For us, it did.
All four of our sons are Eagle Scouts and utilize the lessons they learned as Scouts to currently serve others at school, work, as neighbors, pursuing their faith, and the communities they live in. It’s amazing how a little strategic research back then created the opportunity for such positive results.
I know there are things in your life that you currently want to pursue. Good things. Many good things. But it’s almost like you find yourself stalled with few clues on how to move forward. You might even overwhelm yourself as an excuse to kick that can of good things further down the road. That’s precisely where some simple strategic research can offer the solution you’ve been looking for all along. Just follow these three steps to success.
First, accept that you don’t have to come up with a solution, you just have to find the one that already exists. Second, utilize the technology that’s available for some pre-thought-out strategic research. Third, take some sort of immediate action to anchor the solution you find permanently into your life. Getting you where you want to go will only work if you TRY, and just like with Scouts. It’s OK if you fail as long as you never give up.
Add this life lesson into your toolbox for life. And always remember: I Believe In YOU! Now, GiddyUp!
In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist, Paul White is an author, motivational and inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, podcaster, and life coach located in Midland, Michigan. His new book, “The Answer Discovery – How to Change the World by Helping Others…and Ourselves,” is available to purchase today. If you’re interested in getting in touch with Paul, please submit an inquiry via our Contact Page.