Be The Maze, Not The Rat

By Myron Dixon, maze enthusiast 

Nobody likes the rat race—squeaking your way through each day, looking for  a paycheck (aka the cheese). It’s exhausting and humiliating. But I’m here to tell you there’s another way. You can be under and around it all: You can stop being the race, and start being the maze.

What does it mean to be the maze?

It means to branch out in three directions at once, one of which leads your coworkers (the rats) to a harmless dead end, one of which leads to an electrified floor, and one that takes everyone safely to the cheese. When you are the maze, you can weed out the underperforming rats and reward the successful ones. When you are the maze, the rats (your coworkers) are always walking along your wall, by your side, no matter where they are inside you (your company).

So how do you become the maze?

First, you need to stop being the rat. Stop thinking like a rat in search of cheese, and start thinking about where the cheese should be. Have the rats gone down this route before? How about that route? What happens if you put a wall (overtime) where there was previously cheese? You can’t control the rats until you control yourself and your physical dimensions in space.

What?

What?

What are you talking about?

I’m talking about getting out of the rat race and becoming the maze.

Aren’t the maze and the rat just two sides of the same coin?

AHA! And herein lies the paradox. In business, there’s only the cheese. Are you going to hide it, or are you going to find it? When you know the answer, you’ll finally be successful.

What should I take away from this conversation?

The question and answer format that began as a literary device for explaining my point became a personal dialogue with another person. An honest to goodness human connection. And it feels pretty great.