If kindergarteners ran a business…

Image courtesy of betsystreeter on Flickr

Imagine what it was like when you were young – or even better, take some time and talk to someone about the age of 5. Ask them what they did today, ask them what they think about things, see the new perspective you are provided. Children think about things differently. Maybe it’s the fact that they haven’t heard “you can’t” and “don’t do that” every day for years. Maybe it’s because they still feel free to dream and imagine that anything is possible. We all remember that innocence – when we understood the rules of life because they just made sense, not because someone told us that was how to live. Somewhere down the road, we lose that. We start living by what others tell us, rather than what we know is right, rather than what we honestly feel and believe. We trade our instincts and honesty for cars, homes and “success”. We’ve stopped doing things because we love them and do them for the paycheck and the popularity. Kindergartners get that life should be enjoyed, loved and appreciated. People are meant to be your friends and you should care about others as much as yourself.

Robert Fulghum wrote,

Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life.
• Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder.
• Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup — they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

At the end of the day, if we took a step back and let more of the “kindergartner” in us run the business, I think we would see a change for the better.

Related posts:

1. 6 lessons my dog taught me about business
2. Succeeding in business takes knowing people
3. 5 simple things I do each day that have drastically changed my business