SERVE: Reinvent Continuously

Today, we're going to look at the third concept The Secret teaches us in the acronym SERVE. We learned yesterday that the first E stands for Engage and Develop Others.

The R stands for Reinvent Continuously.

See the Future
Engage and Develop Others
Reinvent Continuously
V
E

This concept is all about learning and improving. If you want to survive, you have to continuously look for ways to do your job better, with less effort, in less time, with less cost. If you never look for ways to improve, then you never will improve. And if you don't improve, you will fail. You won't survive unless you reinvent continuously.

One of the most important questions you could ask is, "Is there anything we are currently doing that could be eliminated with few or no bad consequences?" In other words, is there anything we are spending time, money, and effort on that isn't giving us a reasonable return on? I can give you a very good example. At the Chick-fil-A I work at, we sell cheesecake and lemon pie. However, no one hardly ever buys these items. As a result, in the spring, we won't be offering them anymore. We'll be using our assets more wisely. So if you're looking for a way to get the reinvention wheels turning, ask yourself and others this question.

Reinvent Continuously is also a very important concept to apply on the personal level. Let me reiterate that if you never look for ways to improve, you will fail. This is as true on a personal level as it is on a business level. If you want to be a servant leader, you must always be on the lookout for ways to improve yourself. I believe the best way to do this is by learning. If you applied the concept of self-evaluation I talked about in SERVE: Engage and Develop Others, then you'll find areas you personally need to work on. I realized I lacked servant leadership, so I picked up some books and I'm learning how to be a servant leader. If you've evaluated yourself and realized that in order to Reinvent Continuously on a personal level, you need to fix X, Y, or Z, then look for ways to learn how enhance your performance.

If it's possible, I highly encourage you to find a mentor who can help you. I keep going to a few managers and the operator at my Chick-fil-A and they are more than willing to help me out. You can also read books. Whatever helps you, I encourage you to never stop looking for ways to improve and to enhance performance. If you want to survive and thrive, it's a key concept to understand.