Change

Saturday we were lucky enough to be invited to hear Carly Fiorina speak at a local recurring event called the Forum. For those that don't know who she is, she is the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, the first and only woman to ascend to that position for a Fortune 20 company. She is an excellent speaker, and has an incredible presence, which I'm sure was a tremendous asset to her in her position. I won't recount her entire story, you can read about the roller coaster ride and her controversial exit from HP here.

It is obvious that she is a very cerebral person, and several key points stood out that I've been playing over in my mind since that night:

1. Although directed at our business landscape, the theme was undoubtedly "change".

2. The most successful species isn't the strongest or the most intelligent, it's the most adaptable. This was originally a quote from Darwin.

3. By the time everyone agrees that change is necessary, it is probably too late.

4. Those that fail to change, become irrelevant and old before their time.

Heeding these and other notable points presented in her speech, I promptly decided that the time for action is now, and turned in my resignation at my consulting job (okay, so I had turned in my notice on Friday, but the speech just reaffirmed what I had done, for me anyway). So, in another 2 or 3 weeks - I'm trying to remain flexible - I will be able to answer the question "So what do you do?" with "I'm a pilot!". It is definitely scary, but I have the full support of my wife, and although I can always fall back on IT if the going gets too rocky, I have a funny feeling that I'll never look back. I certainly don't plan to!

I celebrated by doing pattern work with a student in the snow on Saturday. We called it quits when the visibility dropped to VFR minimums, but it was pretty while it lasted. At one point I remarked that it was "cool", to which my student responded "yeah, for you!".