“Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.”
- Aristotle, philosopher
A bit of a treat this week: Excerpt from my new book, “The Three Sins of New Leaders (and how to avoid them)”.
It’s a fun story about a time-traveling genie monkey, a Nokia 5510 and a dude with a problem: Himself. Have a look, we’re launching in a few weeks!
His vision cleared, but he couldn’t believe what he saw in front of him.
Standing on its hind legs in the sand was a monkey.
But it wasn’t like any monkey he had ever seen before – this monkey has massive ears, huge bulbous eyes and a teeny tiny mouth, which managed a barely discernible grin.
It also wore a suit.
They stared at each other for a moment. Convinced he was still stoned; Ben took in the bright green suit jacket and the blood-red tie.
Then he broke the silence, and said the first thing that came into his mouth: “Are you the genie?”
The strange little creature chuckled, then nodded his head. Not a big talker, then.
“What happens now?” he asked.
The voice that came from the little creature seemed out of place. It was a deep, melodious baritone. “Now you ask for that which you value most.”
Ben waited. Surely there was more. Ok then, it was up to him to clarify. Man, he was stoned.
“I did. I said success.”
“What does that mean?” countered the monkey.
“I… I would like to fix things.”
“How would you fix things?” The little imp was infuriating.
“I want to go back. Go back to before it all went wrong. I want to go to that party, take the job with her dad, make it work, not lose…” he trailed off. “Not lose Clare.”
“Go back to where?”
He thought about it. “Go back to that decision. Not to go. Do it over. Better. This time I’ll get it right.”
The imp nodded. “How do you know this time you’ll get it right?”
“Because I will not repeat my mistakes?”
“How do you know? If I send you back, you won’t remember any of what happened before.” He cocked his head. “Well, you won’t remember details. Ever hear of déjà vu? That’s going to be you. But it will be like starting over.”
He frowned. “That’s not fair. What would be the point then? I might just end up making the same mistakes.”
The monkey picked up the cell phone. “You can take this back with you. I’ll use it to send you some warnings, keep you on the straight and narrow. Whether you wish to listen to those warnings is up to you.”
“Ok… and if I don’t? What if nothing changes, or even worse, I screw things up even more badly?”
The creature smiled that silly grin again. “I’m a genie, remember? You get three chances. Every time you want to reset, you just call me and speak the magic word.”
“So, I get three phone calls?”
“Yes. And this was the first one.” The creature started a little dance. “I’m sending you back now. To the start. You won’t remember any of this, except for a vague feeling… learn to listen to it.” The imp grinned. “And read my texts.”
He twirled and sprang and made Ben dizzy. Then there was another flash of light, and he was someplace else completely.
Click here if you want to buy it for 99c on pre-launch!