RETAILOBSERVER.COM SEPTEMBER 2018
4
Eliana Barriga
eliana@retailobserver.com
It's time to see the world differently—
SEPTEMBER 2018
VOLUME 29, ISSUE 9
CELEBRATING OUR 29
TH
YEAR
AS THE RETAIL OBSERVER
PUBLISHER/MANAGING EDITOR
E LIANA BARRIGA
DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING
MOE LASTFOGEL
ART DIRECTOR
TERRY PRICE
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
MIKE ALLEN
J0E HIGGINS
DEAN LANDERS
DEREK MATTILA
JOHN TSCHOHL
LIBBY WAGNER
RALPH WOLFF
DAVE WORKMAN
DEADLINE FOR NOV. 2018 ISSUE:
OCTOBER 1, 2018
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THE RETAIL
W
ith school now back in session, great professors are stimulating young minds
by challenging their students to look beyond the obvious. I stumbled upon this
story the other day and it struck a deep chord for me personally, and invited me to
explore deeper both my business strategies as well as this journey called life.
One day, a professor told his students they were going to have a surprise quiz. He
handed out the quiz, placing it face down on each student's desk. He then asked the
students to turn over the paper. To everyone's surprise, there were no questions –
just a small black dot in the center of the paper. The professor told them, "I'd like you
to write about what you see on the paper." The students looked very confused but
completed the project. At the end of class, the professor read each response out
loud. Every single student wrote something about the black dot, either explaining its
size or position on the page.
Then the professor said, "I'm not going to grade you on this. Instead, I just want to
give you something to think about. No one wrote about the large, white portion of the
paper. Instead, everyone focused on the tiny black dot. The same thing happens in
life – we tend to focus on only the black dots in our life and careers."
–Author Unknown
As retailers, I know how easy it is to be looking at several black dots at once, your
challenges, such as Internet competition, rising operating costs, competitive pricing,
and shrinking margins. So often we get so caught up in the overwhelming details of
our lives and businesses that when things go wrong, we tend to obsess about them.
We focus on the small details, distractions and problems–the dark spots. We fail to
take the time to step back and look at the big picture: the wonderful abundance of
white space that can be explored and filled with infinite possibilities for change and
growth.
As Henry David Thoreau once said: "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what
you see." This is the absolute truth.
ARE YOU FOCUSING
ON THE BLACK DOT?
Elle's View As I See It
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