Mr Earthmover.

Many years ago, in the prime of his working life, my friend and his wife decided that farming was not the way they wanted to end their lives and so sold the farm and decided to do something else. Initially they decided to buy a caravan and work there way around Australia for a few years. This soon wore a bit thin and they returned to their hometown and pondered his next career move.

Being a little mechanical minded and loving big toys, he decided that there was a market for a single operator business using an excavator and later a small Bobcat. At the time there was none and so he decided he could both fill the market and make a good living from it. He thought it a great idea but others at the time thought he was crazy!

However he was right and he was soon successful. So much so that others also moved into this new opportunity soon flooding the market place. So, rather than entering into a price war with them, he simply up-sized his plant and filled the empty opportunity notch at the next level, in the same business, whilst still maintaining his sole operator business status.

Now, many years later he is still at it and as busy as ever with no shortage of call back work.

Mr Earthmover was able to make a successful career change, using both his past experience of using farm equipment, along with his love for machinery and an eye for a future opportunity. When he decided to change careers, he took a risk by going into business for himself in a newish field. Yet, he was prepared to take chances and set the agenda, and when others followed, was prepared to adapt again and look for new opportunities rather than fight over ever diminishing old opportunities. Hence he is still in business and flourishing while others aren’t so fortunate.

What about you? Are you looking for new opportunities or stuck in a rut? Do you fight for an ever-diminishing market, or seek for new ones? In other words, ”Do you embrace the future or hoard the past?”