Groundhog Day

It’s 20 years since the film, Groundhog Day, was released and if you have never seen it, please go and find a copy; it is a treat. So, Bill Murray wakes up every morning to the sound of ‘I’ve got you, babe’ by Sonny and Cher whilst waiting to see the Groundhog – the predictor of future weather (see the film :-)). It’s a film that can be viewed on many different levels; a man spends so much time repeating one day that he has time to become an expert piano player, be fluent in a language, practice open heart surgery and in many ways it becomes his curse until he is released. But what if we took a different view of Groundhog Day and saw it as a way of achieving what we want? Many organisations invest heavily in training, in creating opportunities to learn, in encouraging personal development. And that is great; that is training. But Bill Murray did not stop at learning the piano, a language, heart surgery. He took the time that he was given to take the learning and turn it into life changing and perhaps in our case, career enhancing skills. You probably don’t want to repeat one day incessantly (and please if it happens, can I have ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’ – the Justice Collective version as the wake-up call?) but perhaps a reminder would do it. A reminder that ‘learning, trying, failing, repeating, failing, repeating, tripping, succeeding’ is still the best model for growing and wouldn’t be a bad screensaver to see each day when you log on. Go on then, create your own reminder :-)